Author: M. V. Kamath
Publication: Afternoon Despatch
and Courier
Date: December 30, 2002
The moral is: In future - and for
all time to come - say no to violence no matter what the provocation!
SO, who, after all, turned out to
be right? On December 7th, the Kolkata-based The Telegraph noted that "faint
furrows have started creasing the BJP's brow with several opinion polls
in Gujarat predicting a close finish and the most rosy forecast scaling
down the party's tally".
The India Today-AaJ Tak combine
which conducted two rounds of opinion polls brought down the BJP's projected
total to 100-110 seats from 120-130 seats projected in November. The same
group's survey, carried out by ORG-MARG had predicted the Congress' new
tally will be between 70-80, up from the 45-55 forecast after the first
round of poll.
Interestingly, the disclosure of
the new figure coincided with the survey result of another magazine - The
Week, which forecast a neck-and-neck race. That survey was carried out
by TN-Sofres Mode. According to The Week poll the BJP should get between
85-95 seats, the same as the Congress.
Positive shift
Earlier, Outlook magazine's poll
had suggested that the BJP will win between 80 and 85 seats while the Congress
would bag between 95-100 seats. And Zee TV ran its own poll and came to
the conclusion that while BJP would get between 91-98 seats, Congress will
get between 88-94 seats. Now we know.
Interestingly, according to the
India Today-Aaj Tak-ORG-MARG survey (December 16) 51 per cent of voters
think Narendra Modi will make the best chief minister of Gujarat. The November
poll had said that 48 per cent thought so. Obviously between the November
and December polls there has been a positive shift towards Narendra Modi's
likely chief ministership.
In the November poll Shankersinh
Vaghela polled only 29 per cent while Keshubhai Patel got only five per
cent. Now that the elections are over and we know the results, readers
can come to their own conclusions as to the reliability of the different
polls. If the polls and the final results show variance, the pollsters
can draw some consolation from the fact that some 29 per cent of these
polled said they could change their minds before the polling date.
As India Today's editor-in-chief
puts it: "Perhaps this is exactly as it should be. Opinion polls provide
a snapshot of the mood on any given day but ultimately there is no substitute
for the real thing. Gujarat may yet present surprises - pleasant for some
and unpleasant for many."
Now that everything is over it is
nice to know the extent to which one can trust the polls. But the most
disturbing part of the entire process has been the hatred spread by some
of the journals and dailies, notably Outlook and The Asian Age against
the BJP. But credit must go to The Asian Age's editor-in-chief, M.J. Akbar
for revealing the true face of Congress. In an article condemnatory of
the Congress of which he was at least during Rajiv Gandhi's time a true-blue
devotee, Akbar damned the party as the BJP's B-team in Gujarat. "If the
Congress," he wrote, "is going to be the B-team of the BJP, why should
the voter not stick with the real thing and vote BJP?" Good question.
And Akbar asked: "Why elect the
fraud?". As he put it: "There is real identity between Narendra Modi and
Sonia Gandhi in one critical perspective: both believe that the Hindu voter
is communal and can only be persuaded by a communal dialectic. The Congress
under Sonia Gandhi has decided to abandon secular politics in Gujarat and
imitate Modi, albeit without Modi's unique extremism. It is a difference
of degree and not content. No wonder Jawaharlal Nehru's face is missing
from the lineage of Congress leaders on Congress posters. Nehru called
dams and steel mills the temple of modern India. Nehru would never have
buckled, as his successors have done."
And to that Akbar added something
more. He wrote: "The Congress ploy in Gujarat is too clever by half. And
the voter is no fool". But having condemned the Congress, Akbar also has
some strong words to say about Sonia Gandhi as well. As he put it: "Who
advised Sonia Gandhi to begin her campaign from Ambaji, a pilgrimage centre?
What signal was she sending? That she was a devout Hindu? That the Congress
was a party of only devout Hindus?... The cynicism is evident everywhere.
Sonia Gandhi, as president of the party, has permitted her candidates to
treat Muslims as lepers. Congress candidates and leaders shy away from
being seen with Muslims in localities that are predominantly or totally
Hindu. In many places Muslims have been told to keep away from the Congress
offices. Why? Why is the Congress also feeding the hatred that has been
created against Muslims?" However, let this be said.
In the matter of spreading hatred,
Congressmen and secularists are not far behind. One has only to read the
columnists in The Asian Age - does one have to mention names? - and in
Outlook and in various other English dailies and weeklies to realise that
spreading of hatred is no one's monopoly. Indeed the secular columnists
- and that includes unfortunately Akbar as well - have not been sparing
in their writings. Modi has been compared to Hitler. Columnists speak about
'pogroms', 'genocide' etc. etc. and predict that if Gujarat goes the Modi
way, India is finished. As if Gujarat is India. Not one of the secular
columnists have a word to say about Godhra. The focus has been entirely
on Narendra Modi.
Nobody has dared to ask the question:
Would there have been an Ahmedabad if there was a Godhra? Would any Gujarat
citizen have raised his arm against a fellow citizen just for the heck
of it? And why did Godhra happen?
There is a moral in the Gujarat
- and Modi - story. The moral is: In future - and for all time to come
- say no to violence no matter what the provocation. And that message is
applicable to members of all political parties, castes and religion.
Incidentally, The Economic &
Political Weekly (November 30) has devoted over 14 pages - something of
a record - to the subject of Gujarat, Hindutva and the saga of increasing
vulnerability in Ahmedabad. The approach of all the articles, needless
to say, is what may loosely be described as "Leftist" and they have to
be read to understand what Leftist poison can do. They are examples of
how viciousness can be spread under the guise of scholarship. Sample para:
"Corruption, criminalisation and communalisation created a society without
values, absence of any modern, secular, socialist movement could not provide
an alternative ideal of new values and the fanatical, well-organised Hindutva
ideology easily fitted in and controlled the society and polity, proving
that Hinduism and fascism can well go together."
Gandhi's land
Obviously in Gandhi's land Gandhi
has no followers and no strong men to lead the evil Gujaratis from fascism
to Congress secularism. What does that say about the Congress? And what
does that say about contemporary Congress leaders like Sonia Gandhi? And
what does that say about our Leftists who should have been devoting their
lives to changing the Gujarati psyche for, as they see it, the better?
Or are they also to be tarred by the same brush of corruption, criminalisation
and communalisation? What values do our Leftists possess that the fascist
Hindu Gujaratis can borrow from?
And has anyone stopped our Leftist
secularists from raising their own cadres to save fascist Hindus from going
to sheer bell? Answer, answer!