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Umh!, Whats this?

Editorial / January 2001

War of words

If the verbal barrage let loose by the hotheads of Hindutva in December is anything  to go by, it would seem that the saffron brigade is preparing for another holy war.  “Muslims are a threat to nation” thunders Bal Thackeray, while the Vishwa Hindu  Parishad chief Ashok Singhal readily agrees with the Shiv Sena supremo that Indian  Muslims should be disenfranchised. If this is not open incitement to communal ha tred, what is? But the BJP president, Prime Minister Vajpayee’s Laxman sees no  need to comment on these “personal views” of his political ally — at the Centre and in Maharashtra. Over 5,000 thousands sadhus will march from Ayodhya to Parliament House to demand that the government return the land it took away so that construction of the Ram Temple can begin, declares Singhal. Who cares about Vajpayee’s year-end musing that none will be allowed to defile the law of the land? 
Meanwhile, the Akhil Bhartiya Sahasampark Pramukh of the RSS, Dr Shripati Shastri, issues an open threat at a public gathering where sarsanghchalak KS Sudarshan and the VHP chief Ashok Singhal are also present: “No minority can be safe in any country by constantly irritating the majority community.” One only needs to rephrase the proposition to catch the full import of Shastri’s words: As Muslims and Christians are constantly irritating the Hindu majority in India, they cannot expect to remain safe. Did Hitler complain about the Jewish minority “constantly irritating” the German majority? 
Words, ominous words. Concerning Muslims and Ayodhya, Christians and conversions and the foreign missionaries-dominated non-Swadeshi Church that is “a threat to Indian security” (See pgs 28-29). Flowing so thick and fast that it is difficult to keep track of this volley of words, from one day to the next, from one leader to the other. It suits the Prime Minister and it suits Bangaru Laxman to ignore them. But the minorities being targeted and all those concerned with the future of Indian democracy and its Constitution can ill-afford to ignore the dark clouds gathering on our horizon. 
It is a matter of no less concern that jehadis patronised by the Pakistani establishment are contributing handsomely to the building climate of intolerance in the country. When mercenaries masquerading as soldiers of Allah killed innocent Hindu pilgrims in Pahalgam last August, Muslims from Gujarat had to bear the brunt of the “Hindu retaliation”. The daring assault on the Red Fort by a suicide squad of the Lashkar-i-Taiba and their subsequent threat that the Prime Minister of India is their next target are provocative in the extreme. Considering that the words ‘Muslim’ and ‘Pakistani’ are so easily interchangeable in the saffron lexicon, the sangh parivar can revert to the chant of a 1,000-year-old war between Islam and Hinduism at any moment of its choosing, just as they did at the time of the Kargil war. In fact, Thackeray is already saying it in so many words. 
The votaries of Hindutva claim to speak in the name of the nation, which to them is synonymous with Hindus. But does the renewed saffron belligerence correspond to the sentiment on the ground; does it reflect the prevailing “national sentiment”? Apparently not. An opinion poll conducted by ORG-MARG for India Today magazine conducted in the last week of December indicates that if an election were to be held to the Lok Sabha now, the strength of the BJP-led NDA alliance will go down from the present 304 to anything between 252-268 in a house of 543. Taken together, 52 per cent of the respondents felt rising prices, farmers’ woes and unemployment should be on top of the government’s agenda against the 14 per cent who saw Ayodhya as the most important issue before the country.
What does one make of the resurgent stridency of Hindutva amidst the declining appeal of the BJP-led government? Two hard-line arguments are possible from a saffron perspective: One, militant Hindutva is what took the BJP from its two seats in the Lok Sabha to the 180 seats now? Ek dhakka aur do, for the next quantum leap. Second, Hindutva seeks power for the pursuit of its ideological agenda. Of what use is shared power if it implies the very sacrifice of ideology? What else can you feed kar sevaks who have been nurtured on hate? There is of course the more pragmatic argument: Assembly elections are round the corner in several states and since the BJP and the sangh parivar have nothing else to offer to the voters, why not try its USP? Whether its ideology or realpolitik that fuels Hindutva resurgent virulence, the portents for the country and its minorities are ominous. 

— EDITORS

 
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