Author: Sandhya Jain
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: May 18, 2004
Sushma Swaraj expressed the deep
anguish of thousands of Indians with her threat to resign from the Rajya
Sabha if the Italian-born Sonia Gandhi seizes the country's top executive
post. Ms. Gandhi had pointedly withdrawn from the prime ministerial stakes
in the course of the election campaign in order to facilitate the rise
of a non-BJP grouping at the Centre. Hence with Congress winning little
over one-fourth of the seats in the Lok Sabha, there is no justice in foisting
her upon a bemused nation that did not give even a simple majority to her
pre-poll alliance.
In fact, as RSS spokesman Ram Madhav
pertinently observed, parties like the Bharatiya Janata Party, Nationalist
Congress Party and Samajwadi Party, which opposed Ms. Gandhi on the issue
of her foreign origin, together secured a much larger mandate than the
Congress. Sonia Gandhi's ascent to 7 Race Course Road by taking advantage
of the power vacuum at the Centre, in connivance with the Left parties,
would amount to willful disregard of public sentiment and moral propriety.
Personally, I fear the worst, unless the danger is averted by a miracle,
such as President APJ Abdul Kalam refusing to swear her in, given certain
ambiguities in the Citizenship Act.
The move to elevate Ms. Gandhi has
shaken the nation, and even spiritual leaders who normally evade politics,
have felt constrained to speak up. Sathya Sai Baba is said to have called
the development a 'shame.' Sri Sri Ravi Shankar has issued a strong statement:
"...the most disturbing and even humiliating aspect of the present election
process is the decision of post election alliance to install an Italian-born
person as the Prime Minister of the country... a development like this
which basically contradicts India's spiritual and cultural traditions should
be stopped at all costs... Such a government will also lack trans-political
and moral and civilizational authority extremely critical to govern the
people effectively. ... We invoke the tapasya of the saints and sages of
this ancient land to overcome this national challenge which approximates
the rule of foreign forces in this country."
As the anti-foreigner-as-PM movement
gathers steam, with Madhya Pradesh chief minister Uma Bharati, BJP vice-President
Babulal Marandi, and RSS ideologue Govindacharya jumping into the fray,
it would be in the fitness of things to delineate some of the legitimate
concerns of the Hindu community following the rise of an inimical alliance
at the Centre. Former Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao has facilitated the
debate by asking the new government to rebuild the Babri Masjid at Ayodhya
(The Asian Age, 15 May 2004). Regardless of whether Mr. Rao believes it
is tenable or desirable to rebuild the mosque at a site that has since
yielded the remains of an ancient temple dedicated to the avatar of Vishnu-Hari
who defeated the ten-headed enemy, there can be little doubt that he has
let loose the proverbial cat among the pigeons.
Even before the new government has
been sworn in and cabinet berths distributed, Mr. Rao (made miserable throughout
his tenure by Sonia-loyalists, and denied a ticket in two successive elections)
has effectively deprived Ms. Gandhi of a 'honeymoon period' by upping the
ante on Ayodhya. He has pushed the temple back to the centrestage, and
forced Congress and the Left parties to enunciate their stand vis-à-vis
the temple and mosque and decide the extent to which they can pamper the
minority community at the expense of the legitimate concerns of the Hindu
community. Truly, the boot is now on the other foot!
This brings us to the question of
conversions, especially by Ms. Gandhi's own Catholic community, given the
audacious target set by Pope John Paul II during his visit to this country
some years ago. Equally pertinent are Ms. Gandhi's views on how harmony
is to be maintained between communities, given the questionable language
in which her co-religionists have chosen to interpret the fractured mandate.
Father Donald de Souza, spokesman of the Catholic Bishops Conference of
India, said the BJP led a 'sectarian government' (Asia News, 14 May 2004).
Mr. Joseph D'Souza, President of the All India Christian Council, exulted
at the BJP's exit as its election manifesto stated it would bring a national
anti-conversion law.
Whether as Prime Minister or as
leader of the largest party in the ruling coalition, it is now incumbent
upon Ms. Gandhi to dispel the growing perception that her new position
gives missionaries unfettered freedom to indulge in conversions of vulnerable
sections of society. It needs to be emphasized - emphatically - that traditional
Christian communities have never been under any kind of threat in this
country. It is the aggressive proselytization by foreign-funded missionaries
and their muscular tactics to secure conversions (using knife and gun in
some States, as recorded by the US International Commission on Religious
Freedom) that has put Hindu groups on the defensive. In plain words, freedom
of religion can never legitimately mean the right to declare another faith
as 'false' and worthy of annihilation, which is what the obnoxious insistence
upon conversions amounts to.
If, like many Indian secularists,
Ms. Gandhi also thinks that conversions do not hurt anybody, she would
do well to take a public stand on the recent Vatican call to Catholic women
not to marry Muslim men. In an official church document, the Vatican pointed
to "profound cultural and religious differences" between the two faiths,
and called women "the least protected member of the Muslim family." It
stressed that if Catholics do marry Muslims, they should ensure that their
children are baptized (become Christian rather than Muslim) and avoid signing
Islamic documents or swearing oaths, including the 'shahada' (Islam's profession
of faith), as this is tantamount to conversion to Islam.
In today's perverted atmosphere
- when an outgoing Chief Justice of India viciously indicts the Gujarat
Government without mentioning the grotesque Godhra provocation - I would
like to insist that Ms. Gandhi tell us if the Vatican stand on inter-community
marriages can be called 'communal?' Or is that epithet reserved exclusively
for Hindus when they rise to defend their legitimate concerns?
There are, of course, several other
issues of critical national importance. Foremost is the fact that India
is a nuclear power and that the "nuclear button" may fall into the hands
of a woman who gracelessly lambasted Pokharan II and failed to clarify
her n-policy more than five years after Mr. Bill Clinton's visit exposed
the chasm between her public and private statements! There is the festering
issue of Article 370 and the fact that the crisis in Jammu & Kashmir
cannot be resolved without fully integrating the State in the Indian Union.
There is the uniform civil code that every traditional Western democracy
subscribes to, though Canada has accepted Sharia as criminal law for its
Muslim citizens. Indian Muslims are canny enough to have Sharia only in
personal law.
Last but not least is the demographic
challenge facing India via the uninterrupted illicit migration from Bangladesh.
West Bengal and Assam are almost overwhelmed by this tide, but the ruling
Left and Congress dispensations are oblivious to the nation's plight. It
is hardly a coincidence that Dhaka was virtually the first capital to congratulate
Ms. Gandhi on the results of the recent elections, even when the mandate
was so unequivocally ambiguous.
