Author: Varsha Bhosle
Publication: Rediff
On The Net
Date: September 4, 2000
Unusually, most of my
recent mail has stemmed from that nebulous area between Go-babe-I'm-with-you
and Shut-up-I- detest-you. For instance, "Your arguments against
the BJP seem correct, but give us an alternative" or "If you have a damn
solution to Kashmir let us hear it now."
Then, something similar
was expressed on this website: http://www.rediff.com/news/2000/aug/28rvp1.htm
"We have been using words like impotent and eunuchs to describe our politicians...
It is very easy to say that. Only arm-chair critics do that, people
who can't do anything themselves... If columnists are vastly involved
in the affairs of the nation, if they play a role, have an argument with
the powers-that-be and tell them what they think of them, then I can understand
because you are participating. I would then endorse words like eunuch
and halwai... There are columnists and columnists. There are
three professions in the world that do not need any qualification.
One is journalism... The other two are prostitution and politics."
I was perplexed by R
V Pandit's dicta since I'd always believed that a columnist's involvement
in national affairs lies in informing people about ground realities and
building opinions about issues -- independently, untouched by popular trends,
and without buckling under pressure. Writers with personal integrity,
such as Mr Arun Shourie, halt their column when they start participating
in governance, not because they lack the time, but because they have moved
from one area of political involvement to another and want to avoid any
ensuing conflict of interest. For a mere writer, his column IS the
argument he's having with the Establishment. His weapon is the public
opinion he's forming, and a government, if it's upright, responds via public
rebuttals or a change in policies. It does not befit a government
to express its displeasure -- however privately or subtly -- to owners/editors
of publications carrying "errant" views.
None of it shocked me.
Such aberrations are to be expected from businessmen because, unlike journalists,
the success of their occupation lies in shimmying up to and deriving sops
from whoever controls fiscal policies. More than journalism, it's
the world of business that's closer to the give-and-take of prostitution.
R V Pandit quoth, "I
know more about this present Union Cabinet than many other critics.
I also understand what is happening in Kashmir, how Indians are getting
killed at the hands of Pakistanis, why our prime minister still talks of
peace, talks even as pilgrims and defence forces get killed in Amarnath
and other places." Hmm... if his understanding of Kashmir is anything
like what he paid to project about Punjab, Kashmir is gone! For Pandit
is known to have the PM's ear. Do you remember his 1996 National
Award-winning film Maachis...? Let me refresh your memories in two paragraphs:
Two police inspectors
pick up the hero's innocent friend for questioning and return him mauled.
The incensed hero shoots one of the inspectors and becomes an aatankwadi.
He then disowns his fiancée and toddles off on a secret mission
to so blessed a locale that it soon has the terrorists singing and dancing
around campfires while waiting for a mystery accomplice to arrive.
And who else can that be but the hero's disowned fiancée? With her,
there dawns much merry-making and romancing in the snow. But just
when you're beginning to think that it's only Dr Zhivago retold, the second
inspector-villain pops up. Our hero tries to off him, fails, and
is nabbed. The terrorist-veerjis turn against the terrorist-bhabhi
and so she kills some and the mission finishes the rest. The woman
delivers cyanide to the jailed hero and takes some herself.
Bizarrely, not a *single*
character in the movie mentioned Sikh nationhood or separatism. In
the world according to producer R V Pandit and director Gulzar, there was
no such thing as "Khalistan." The gamut of Sikh extremism arose from police
atrocities alone, and every Sikh terrorist committed murder out of personal
revenge, and that, too, only against evil policemen and politicos, who
committed all the outrages possible. There was no allusion to the
fountainhead of the problem, no mention of the nexus between Mrs G and
Bhindaranwale. In the entire film, there were precisely three short
ideological expositions, none of which reflected the realities leading
to Sikh extremism, and no attempt was made to show its heinous side.
The theme of the film -- youth disillusioned with the crashed machinery
of Law and thus turning to crime -- was exploited to whitewash the essence
of terrorism while vilifying the security forces. In the end, Maachis
trifled with the most serious part of the post-Partition history of India
and set back the chronicle of societal and political cause-and-effect some
hundred years.
A man is known by the
company he keeps... Maachis was R V Pandit's understanding of Punjab;
the release of Masood Azhar and the cease-fire orders given to the Army
for the benefit of the Hizbul Mujahideen, manifest Hajpayee's understanding
of Kashmir. Both reap their benefits by pandering to pacifists.
Both reap while standing on the fallen of the security forces. Both
reject the steely policies of men like Mr K P S Gill, who dragged Punjab
back into India. Both should urgently be avoided.
Which brings me back
to the refrain of "give us an alternative." If not Hajpayee and his Bandar
BJP, then who? Well, I'm not the least surprised that you ask that of me.
You want a solution. You want to be guided. I understand your
predicament, really. For, how can a nation of the slavish think for
itself? Why would you exert your brains? I know it's not in your temperament.
But the day you break out of the shackles of being led -- of accepting
every ignominy that falls in your way -- is the day when a leader will
arise out of you. YOU are the option, don't you realise that?! This
is a republic, a gantantra, and we do not require Hajpayee and Party to
fight battles for us. The people have to fight it out themselves.
The people have to awaken to their Dharma.
A solution CAN be found
for any problem -- if the existence of the problem is accepted. If
people refuse to recognise that there's a problem, whither solution? I
am NOT a leader; at best, I'm only a catalyst -- a person who precipitates
a change, who increases the rate of reaction. My job, my urgency,
is to pin-point a problem to you as often as possible till you accept its
existence. For that, I have committed myself politically once again;
in Marathi, parat vida uchal-la; in Urdu, phir-se sar pey kafan baandh
liya. By the laws of probability, at least one reader should break
out; at least one should go beyond just reading and nodding his head; at
least one should go beyond writing encouraging mail. By the laws
of probability, one man, woman or child in one billion should wake up and
break free of the Mary's-little-lamb syndrome. For that, I have pledged
myself against Bandaru's BJP. For it used voters as a stepping stone
to Delhi and, once there, reneged from all the promises it had been making
since its inception. Every BJP member -- including Hajpayee, Advani
and Jaswant Singh -- is dishonest.
Kashmir? Militants roam
freely and strike at will. The complete collapse of the security
environment is manifest in, to name just two incidents, the massacre of
the Amarnath yatris and the easy targeting of Brigadier B S Shergill and
Colonel Rajinder Chauhan. Truth, I have stopped collecting clippings
of terrorist attacks -- so daily is their occurrence.
Nationalism? Bandaru
says to the media: "Please do not term BJP as a Hindu nationalist party
or a right-wing party..." This, from a party that urged the people to choose
"between nationalism and a foreign hand."
Terrorism? I'd like to
know what the Supreme Court -- which blasted the Karnataka government with
"What have you done for the past eight years to apprehend [Veerappan]?
If you cannot do it, then quit and make way for somebody else who can"
-- would have said to the Government of India, had Hajpayee given time
to the thousands of fathers to file PILs avenging the deaths of their soldier-sons.
The shape of the State?
A poll conducted by Zee Prime Time -- not via the Internet -- revealed
that 84 per cent Indians believe that ours is a "soft State" while 16 per
cent say it's not. Point to note: not even a .05 per cent "cannot
say." Where else in the world can you find a parallel with a country, 8
times the size of its neighbour, held hostage to the hostile designs of
the rogue neighbour?
The state of the BJP?
Its resolution unanimously endorsed every decision taken by the government.
L K Advani cautioned that it wouldn't be proper for members to "discuss
publicly the flaws and limitations of family members." Does anybody recall
what "family" used to denote when the Congress was alive...? Does anybody
remember what the BJP said when Sharadrao left the Congress...? Doesn't
anybody notice the deification of Hajpayee along the lines of Sonia's?
Character of BJP cadre?
Last week, a BJP working committee member, with two friends, drugged a
disabled woman, gang raped her in a moving car, from which they then pushed
her out.
Diplomatic success? Michael
Sheehan, co-coordinator of counter-terrorism at the US State Department,
on September 1: "Pakistan is not a terrorist state."
Appeasement? The BJP
is set to distribute "millions of copies" of Bandaru's speech, in which
he called for "reworking" ties with Muslims. To understand this "reworking,"
see The Jaziya that Hindus yet pay. http://www.rediff.com/news/2000/aug/28varsha.htm
Mr M J Akbar's response to Bandaru's call: "I like being wooed." Imam Bukhari's:
"The world knows who demolished Babri Masjid."
Ram Janmabhoomi? A ToI
headline read: "No mercy to guilty in Ayodhya case, says Laxman." If not
for L K Advani's rathyatra, which dumbkoff would have trekked to Ayodhya
from, say, Kerala...? Who has the moral duty to take on their chests the
blows on the people they instigated to bring down the Babri...?
The tribal wisdom of
the Dakota Indians, passed on from generation to generation, says that
when you discover that you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is
to dismount. In modern society, however, a whole range of optimistic
strategies are employed, such as: buying a stronger whip, changing riders,
threatening the dead horse with termination, appointing a committee to
study the horse, arranging to visit other countries to see how others ride
dead horses, lowering the standards so that dead horses can be included,
hiring outside contractors to ride the dead horse, harnessing several dead
horses together to increase the speed, providing additional funding and/or
training to increase the dead horse's performance, doing a productivity
study to see if lighter riders would improve the dead horse's performance,
re- writing the expected performance requirements for all horses, promoting
the dead horse to a supervisory position...
Fact is, you can find
a living horse only after you get off the dead horse. Hajpayee's
BJP is a dead horse. The choice is yours: Dismount, or despair.
