Excellent article on Vote Bank politics of Secularism Vs SWARAJ By Rangacharan Pradhan DO YOU WANT PROOF ? *************************** Some of my secular minded freinds have raised these questions. Why Arvind Kejriwal is silent on 2002 Gujurat riot ? Why Kejriwal has not condemned Muzafarpur massacre ? Why is he not attacking Modi on communal issues loudly ? Is he afraid of loosing the votes of those sections who otherwise would like to vote for BJP ? These are valid and honest questions from my young brothers who are by and large positive about Arvinds kind of politics. So I will try to address these questions honestly. It is not my intention to challenge them on factual content of their questions. AAP is seeking votes from Indian people who had been voting for the parties of all hues including BJP. He cannot get votes from Australia . It is true that he is trying to get votes from those people who had sided with Advani in 1992 mosque demolition case and had been supporting 2002 program in Gujurat. It may appear very clever and hence opportunistic of him to attract those voters without attacking Modi for 2002 .But my point is , why can not we praise him for diverting those voters from their main practice of thinking ultra-religiously while going to the pooling booth ? It is certain that he is going to be benefitted electorally by this political outlook. But who is hiding the fact that Kejriwal is a politician ? You must give him that space. But he need not be apologetic about it. Rather he must be congratulated for being successful in consciously diverting these people from voting , based on religious calculations without appealing to their sectarian identity. By that way he is not agreeing to obey the rules of the electoral game which have been successfully dictated by the Hindutwa forces and unsuccessfully resisted by the secular parties. Communal tension has been there between different communities from the pre-independence era. But this conflict spilled over to the electoral political battle field only a few decades ago. It paid rich dividends to the RSS through its front organization BJP which was specially built to further its communal agenda of frightening the minorities and declare a Hindu Rastra , that too , of a particular brand. RSS has been fighting for this and providing psedo-intellectual infrastructure to its front organizations even before BJP began to taste electoral success . The non-BJP parties are only reacting to the evil design of BJP. This coincided with the gradual debilitating of social activities of the major party Congress. Gandhi had successfully made the khadi , swaraj , untouchability , serving leprosy patients as the other non-political works of an otherwise out and out political party. When Congress and the later political parties forgot these social responsibilities , the parties became an organizational machinery to win election only. And for this anything is possible for them. Till then the RSS hate campaign and manufacturing of history were not being able to trend. I need not say here who started which incident first. Because when a major national party lost its ideological and social exercises these things were bound to come. Till then Nehru had been a pillar of secularism by conviction and was constructing the democratic institutions brick by brick along his secular designs. After that , fighting communal forces degenerated into electoral fight only. You cant defeat communal forces by defeating BJP electorally. You have to demolish their infrastructure . Not by banning these organizations. But by trending your agenda. You have to bring in new ideological and secular discourse to the political arena. Lalu stopped Advanis infamous hate rathyatra at Patna and arrested him. He has never sided with BJP and was seen a champion of secularism by many. But did it check the growth of BJP in Bihar ? Though Lalu had never missed to condemn 1992 or 2002. Najjama Hepatulla had condemned 1992 and kept mum on 2002. Pasawn had resigned by condemning Gujurat riot and now-a-days engaged in increasing his bidding price in IPL style. Sarad Power had condemned . But he is now changing his views about Modi in a week to get a better bargain in seat-sharing talk with Congress. Mamta has hired Anna to give her the required approval for joining Modi after election. Mulayam ,who had been so vocal about anti-communalism had to rope in Kalyan Singh to the party once. Karuna Sukla , the niece of Bajpayee is joining congress. Another big Congress leader ( as per NDTV report ) is shortly joining BJP . Woh sab secularism ki kasam khaye the . They had condemned 1992, 1984 , & 2002. Do you want Arvind Kejriwal to be one like them ? Minorities , more than their economical concern , want the preservation of their respect for their own religious and traditional practices. It can be best preserved by a Nehru or a Lohia or a Azad. Because they had backed up their every political step with strong ideological and ethical sustainance. Till then the communal forces could not succeed in spreading poison. Lalus secularism sunk with his corruption and lack of ideological alternative. Arvind , as per my understanding is stealing the wind out of the sail of RSS . His alternative ideology of Swaraj should be more highlighted and propagated. Now brothers , you decide - whether Arvind should join Lalu-Mulayam band or follow Gandhis swaraj ? Do you still want proof from him ?
Posted on: Fri, 28 Feb 2014 04:11:45 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015