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The situation in
Gujarat is far from normal. The Chief Election Commission has rebuked the
Gujarat government and the bureaucracy for its negligent behaviour towards the
carnage victims belonging to the minority community. It accused them of lying
about rehabilitation measures and refuted their claim that the situation was
normal and conducive for the "democratic exercise." The CEC had gone to Gujarat
to assess the situation at the spot to ascertain whether elections could be
announced as demanded by the BJP. He refused to announce a date for the assembly
elections. Thus, he created a flutter in the circle of the constitutional
experts and also made way for dragging the Supreme Court to interpret the rights
of the CEC in such matters after a Chief minister has resigned and announced the
dissolution of the State House to have new elections.
The CEC’s
announcement was a bolt for the Modi government and the BJP national leadership
who had wanted to capitalize on the communally charged atmosphere in the wake of
the recent carnage. The CEC rebuttal to the BJP was declared by some as a
Congress vs. BJP conflict while Modi lashed out at the CEC from a communalist
angle by branding Lyngdoh as a Christian who was helping opposition leader
"Christian" Sonia Gandhi by taking the side of minority Muslims. Steeped deeply
in RSS’ religious fanaticism, Modi could not have thought otherwise. In the
Indian polity, it does not look strange when some religious fanatic, who enjoys
the killings of people of another community, chatters about "democracy" and the
"democratic process."
The Gujarat carnage
against Muslims has only shown the tip of the creeping communalist monster that
is set to engulf the whole land. Modi has been selected to spearhead the BJP and
RSS poll campaign in Jammu and Kashmir to further the saffron brigade’s cause to
enact another holocaust in Hindu majority areas of the state, and as a
consequence, carry it out throughout India. The RSS has declared to push the
trifurcation of Kashmir on communal lines. The VHP has asked Muslims to leave
the Jammu region. And, as when the anti-Muslim hate campaign is continuing, the
criticism of the CEC by Modi from a communalist angle has further sounded the
signal to prepare the Hindu mind not to forget about targeting the Christian
population. The brigade is moving ahead on the declared lines despite the fact
that it is bound to arouse vast sections of people against this anti-people
storm. The designating of Advani as the vice-premier, virtually taking over the
premiership from Vajpayee, is a further proof of the BJP’s open conspiracy. It
is a signal that will be come more blatant and hardened in future.
Advani was one of the
firsts to say that the CEC’s decision would be challenged and there will be no
president’s rule in Gujarat. At the same time, he also made a mild criticism of
Modi’s anti-CEC outburst. Even after the Supreme Court held the CEC’s position
as justified the BJP led government continued to say that Modi will continue as
a caretaker chief minister in spite of the six-month lapse after the assembly
dissolution. For the BJP, Modi has become indispensable, both due to his
services to the communalist agenda and his deft handling of the bureaucracy
during the carnage months and then during the so-called handling of the
rehabilitation program. The rehabilitation exercise of the Gujarat government
has become another criminal exercise in which the victims were not provided with
adequate rations, medical facilities, and basic amenities; they were not
provided security to go back to their villages and localities nor with the money
to rebuild their razed and burned houses; most of the camps were forcibly closed
to just show that the situation had returned to normalcy (for which the CEC
pulled up the Gujarat Government and postponed the election process); no
guarantees were provided that the economic blockade that is going on in Gujarat
against the Muslim community will be stopped and the forces that are
spearheading the criminal boycott will be booked and arrested.
On the contrary, the
national leadership of the BJP hatched a plan to launch Modi as a hero through a
Gujarat wide Rath Yatra, and as a "national hero" by deputing him to carry on
the poll propaganda in J&K. This Rath Yatra is named as Gujarat Glory Chariot
Journey. Indeed, he brought glory to the saffron brigade by implementing its
agenda by turning Gujarat into a slaughterhouse of Muslim people.
It is not without
reason that while Advani criticised Modi for the latter’s tirade against the CEC
he did not concede what the CEC had said was right. Instead of challenging the
CEC’s assessment on Gujarat, the central government challenged its authority to
not hold elections when the government demands it. Nor did the BJP leaders say a
word on Modi’s anti-Christian insinuations. The message to Modi and others of
the brigade was to not blurt out against a legal institution of "high standing"
but to carry on communal game by neglecting such criticisms.
The Gaurav (Glory)
Rath Yatra is meant to continue this game in gross violation of the rights of
the minority communities’ to dignity and life. Indeed, it is a glorification of
evil. Take evil to its extremes and it will become an icon to be worshipped. The
Rath Yatra is a war and victory juggernaut in Hindu mythological parlance. This
is the second Rath Yatra after the Carnage where Modi will be leading the
juggernaut of the marauding crowds that had participated in the anti-Muslim
bloodshed. The first was a one-dayer; this time it will traverse the whole
length and breadth of Gujarat as a long poll campaign which is meant to
capitalize on the post-Godhra mammoth crime of the Hindutva forces.
This Gaurav Journey
does not put Vajpayee or Advani to shame. Vajpayee had termed the carnage as "a
blot on the face of the nation" and Advani felt "sorry" for this carnage during
his recent journey to London. Yet, the glory continues to overshadow the blots
and apologies. The latter in fact are only a thing for international consumption
while at home the criminal politics of religious fanaticism continues. It is a
strange combination: of crime and religion. But it has been there for centuries
and millennia in India and the world in the form of the fusion of religion and
the state.
And here we have this
fusion in all its absurdity though the land’s ‘modern’ Constitution declares
that the state is secular. Then we did not have sort of French Revolution in our
land and the former Congress rulers easily distorted the meaning of secularism.
The new ruling brigade call them "pseudo secularists," which they really are,
and want to do away with that farcical secularism altogether and make the
country a true "Hindu Nation." They want to eliminate the Constitution’s
haziness and build a State fused with religion, a la Zionist Israel or a la
Talibani Afghanistan. The saffron clad, tilky forehead brigade of Hindu
religious fanatics frown at every other religion and have made it a habit to
make every state function full of religious ceremonies and fervour.
The show of
communalist antecedents and character has never been so brazen since 1947. But
now the discrepancy is fading fast and even the Congress party has been
increasingly turning to religion to bank upon the Hindu vote by appeasing the
Hindutva forces and showing its proximity to religion. We are not to forget the
showing of Indira’s and Rajiv’s funeral on Doordarshan where full Hindu rites
were screened for hours, the attitude of the Narsimha government towards the
Babri Masjid destruction swarms in Dec. 1992, and now the countering of Modi’s
Rath Yatra with the parallel Rath Yatra of the Gujarat Congress chief Shankar
Sinh Vaghela. The mainstream politics has become communalized and religion is
being increasingly used politically to enhance colossal crimes and evil. Both
ways, the criminalisation of politics and the polity is the result. Religion too
is acquiring a sinister face more brazenly as it no longer is a private affair
of the innocent but has been turned into an abode of the scoundrel.
The bourgeois parties
are using all this wickedness to boost specific political interests and this is
deepening the cleavage in society pushing the progressive, secular, liberal,
democratic and communist forces and people on the one side and proponents of
Hindu fascism on the other. This deepening division is bringing these forces
closer to the minority religious communities and has the prospect of uniting
them into a broad platform to oppose and fight against the forces of Hindu
Nazism and reactionary obscurantist ideologies.
The Gujarat Carnage,
the vast experiment in terror and brutality, has been oraganised and eulogized
as a lab test to be emulated throughout India. Modi was extolled and patted on
the back for carrying it out diligently. All apologies and so-called blots are
mere words of the wicked rulers to deceive the people and wavering sections of
the progressive forces who say Advani’s apology has come too little and too
late. They, in a sense, are still liable to be deceived by Advani and company
because they still harbor the illusion that the likes of Advani can be
forthcoming and aboveboard.
Similar arguments
have been the hallmark of the bourgeois liberal press about Vajpayee who was
considered a dove and a reasonable man in the otherwise hawkish and communalist
BJP. And it was Vajpayee who, though had termed the carnage as a "blot on the
nation," but at the same time had equated Godhra and post-Godhra and accused the
Muslims of initiating the bloodshed well knowing the fact that it has been his
party and its sister organisations that have been the culprits behind pushing
Gujarat into fire under a definite plan. All "blot" and ‘apology’ hypotheses are
ruses to conceal bigger criminal designs. And when the rulers and their state
unleash their political and state forces to carry out a definite plan they
always feign helplessness in containing those forces till the desired end is
achieved. The same thing happened in Gujarat. First they justified it with the
"action and reaction" law, then said they were doing their best to contain the
spread of fire while it continued well into three months and then into many more
months in the garb of rehabilitation measures which in fact were a furthering of
the same agenda of terrorizing and harassing. Still, there are more than ten
thousand people in the camps while the Rath Yatra of Glory has been launched.
Don’t term them as a shameless cohort. They are beyond such human epithets and
have transcended all boundaries human.
Another criticism of
the liberal variety is being showered on the Congress party. They appeal to the
congress not to indulge in the methods employed by the BJP as is being done by
Vaghela. But how will they appease the Hindu vote bank then? Definitely, not by
fighting against the Hindu communalist forces and not by forwarding the slogan
that the state and political parties remain aloof from religion. That kind of
courage will force them to change their own ways and come on to the streets to
defend the minorities, and that means losses at the Hustings. Avoid fire and
stage peace marches at a safe distance, this is their usual response. They chose
the opportunist Machiavellian way of speaking the language of their adversary
and try to make their own place in the communally charged atmosphere playing
double agents. Siding at the same time with the culprit and the victim, putting
tilak on the forehead and the skullcap on the head at the same time.
September 8, 2002
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