Author: Shyam Khosla
Publication: Organiser
Date: January 26, 2003
Introduction: Congress is nervous
& confused
Change of guard in Maharashtra is
a measure of Congress party's nervousness after its rout in Gujarat. There
are indications that the operation may be repeated in other Congress-run
states going to the polls later this year. Changes in the party structure
and leadership of legislative party are internal affairs of the party but
the manner in which the Congress High Command has been hustled into sacking
Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilas Rao Deshmukh has demolished the party's
claim that Congress-run states were models of good governance. If that
were so, why undertake mid-term changes? Sonia Gandhi has diagnosed one
of the causes of its trouble in Mumbai. The epidemic may spread from Maharashtra
to Rajastan. She does not realise that epicenter of problem lie somewhere
close to her lack of ideology, policy and inspiring leadership.
Confused and bewildered 'secular'
brigade is unable to overcome the Gujarat shock. Every other day one or
the other English language newspaper carries an analysis-more confused
than the previous one-of the crushing de feat the 'secularists' suffered
in the assembly polls. They are too shell-shocked to appreciate where and
why they went wrong in reading the minds of the voters. For the record,
the Congress accuses the BJP for communal polarisation of the society that
led to the latter's massive victory but within the party, there is an acute
sense of nervousness. Blame game is on. A section of the party thinks it
committed a blunder by resorting to "soft Hindutva" while others in the
party admit that Hindu-bashing did it in. A former Speaker of Lok Sabha
and a senior Congress leader, Balram Jakhar, in a tongue-in-cheeks piece
in The Hindu says, "If anything went against the Congress, it was the party's
unwillingness to make any compromise on its cardinal principle of secularism".
Is Jakhar suggesting that only compromising with the cardinal principle
of "secularism" can assure a Congress victory?
No one in the party is willing to
accept the stark reality that party's lack of commitment to ideology and
faulty policies and strategies led to its defeat in Gujarat. The party
adopted a discarded BJP man as its leader, marshaled fake saints and religious
leaders to prop up its campaign even while indulging in Hindu bashing.
It would not touch the Godhra carnage even with a barge poll but carried
on a vicious campaign against the Hindus for the communal strife that followed.
The poll results have proved, if any proof was needed, that the secularists'
campaign of vilification has no credibility. People of Gujarat, nay the
entire country, know who divided the society on communal lines. Minorityism
may ensure en block Muslim votes for the Congress, but it did not and would
not endear it to the Hindu masses. The masses have rejected the malicious
campaign launched by the Congress, the Communists and the Muslim leaders.
Rhetoric is no substitute for facts.
Congress spokesman Jai Pal Reddy's audacious description of post-Godhra
happenings as one-sided riots is yet another indication that the party
refuses to learn any lesson from the severe beating it got in Gujarat.
Anti-Hindu statements like this enraged the people of Gujarat to no end
and made them forget caste and other considerations and vote the BJP back
to power with a thumping majority. Reddy is too well-informed not to -know
that the Hindu backlash after the burning alive of karsevaks in Sabarmati
Express had subsided within three days. Armed Muslim gangs that attacked
Hindu shrines and religious gatherings provoked the riots that followed.
It is a travesty of truth to describe the communal strife as one-sided
riots. The number of Hindus killed by Muslim mobs and in police firing
are well-known to, all those who are interested in knowing the facts.
One is loath to recall the horrendous
happenings of 1984 when mobs of antisocial elements led by Congress leaders
went on a rampage in the national capital and other cities after the dastardly
assassination of Smt. Indira Gandhi by her Sikh guards. Men, women and
children were pulled out of their houses and burnt alive as the Congress-managed
mobs celebrated the revenge. If any riot that can be described as one-sided,
it was the anti Sikh riots of 1984. Did the Congress condemn the inhuman
killings of innocent citizens while the police looked the other way? Was
it not a state-sponsored riot? The Congress party conveniently forgets
that Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi justified the killings in his speech at
a mass rally in Delhi by saying that the earth shakes when a big tree falls.
And the party has the cheeks to question Deputy Prime Minister's sincere
remarks that he was sad and ashamed of what happened in Gujarat. Shri Advani
has, time and again, shown the moral courage to express his anguish and
regret over unsavoury happenings over which he had no control.
During one of the inter-active sessions
of the recently held Pravasi Bharatiya Divas celebrations, Lady Nadira,
wife of Sir V S Naipaul, made an angry intervention questioning the Government's
commitment to secularism. She was obviously provoked by Lord Nanvit Dhalokia's
moving assertion that the heart every NRI and PIO bore the image of India
the way Hanuman carried the images of Ram and Sita within him. Shri Advani's
elegant riposte that India was is and will always remain secular because
of our age-old tradition of not merely tolerance but respect for all faiths
was well received by the audience. In sharp contrast to the anger and intolerance
shown by the Lady, Shri Advani refused to blame her for carrying the impression
created by vested interests that the Vajpayee Government was concerned
only about Hindus. The impression was unfair. Unlike the cardholders in
the media, Lady Nadira believed in what Shri Advani said. Describing DPM
as a savvy and astute politician, she unreservedly accepted his assertion
that the state had no hand in Guiarat violence. Unfazed by communist newsmen's
taunting questions whether she believed in what Shri Advani said, Lady
Nadira responded, "If you can't believe the Deputy Prime Minister of the
country, then whom do you believe!" Well said, Nadira. You are more honest
than the 'secular brigade' is.
