In December 1992 and more so in January 1993, Bombay burned
because of the fire that the
then BJP president LK Advani and his saffron brotherhood lit in Ayodhya on
December 6.
Detained at Mata Tila in Jhansi (UP) for several weeks, Advani’s first public
act on regaining his
freedom of movement in the latter half of January was a visit to Bombay, the
still smouldering
metropolis. After a selective visit to a few violence-scarred spots, Advani held
a press confer-
ence in the evening to declare that the BJP was opposed to the idea of a
theocratic State.
The editors of Communalism Combat, who were then working
for the mainline press, reminded the BJP president of the very same secular
speech of Mohammad Ali Jinnah that Advani referred to in his recent trip to
Pakistan and thus incurred the wrath of Hindutva’s hardcore. We then asked
Advani: "Some people say that what Jinnah believed was irrelevant, the logic of
a theocracy was inherent in the religion-based hate politics that Jinnah had
unleashed. Similarly, they say, the question is not what Advani wants; the
religion-based hate yatra that he has unleashed will follow its own
inexorable logic. Your comments on this, Mr. Advani?" The BJP president mumbled
some inanity in response and quickly moved on to another question.
Was Jinnah secular, is Advani secular? The word ‘secular’ is
sometimes used to mean the opposite of ‘religious’ and sometimes as the opposite
of ‘communal’. Jinnah, as is well known, loved his pork, and despite the dress
code that he adopted for political reasons, was anything but a religious person.
Nor is Advani a particularly religious man. If Jinnah was not and Advani is not
religious, they must be its opposite, secular, some might argue. It might also
be argued that Jinnah was sincerity itself when he articulated his vision of a
secular Pakistan immediately after Partition. And that Advani is honest to god
in opposing the idea of a theocratic State. However, the absurdity of such
abstract logic would be apparent if you refuse to accept the personal vs.
political divide and insist on examining a man’s words in the light of his
deeds.
The moment you do that it would be obvious that to call either
Jinnah or Advani – both of whom are guilty of unleashing violence in the name of
religion on a subcontinental scale – secular would amount to robbing the word of
its real meaning. That neither was religious does not make them secular; both
are to be seen as cynical leaders who thought nothing of arousing intense
communal passion in the pursuit of power.
Communalism Combat has always insisted on making a clear
distinction between religious and communal. Gandhi and Azad were religious
people who subscribed to secular politics. This did not create a hiatus between
the personal and the political in their case because secularism and religion do
not have to be sworn enemies. Jinnah or Advani, on the other hand, were hardly
religious but played on religious sentiments to precipitate mass killings.
Whether the plight of Pakistan’s beleaguered minorities would
have been any better if Jinnah had not died so soon after creating the nation
could be a matter of conjecture. But in case of Advani facts stare us in the
face. While the Gujarat genocide was being authored and executed by a BJP chief
minister, Advani the Union Minister merely sat back and watched. Advani
continued to occupy the same position for another 27 months in which he did
nothing, absolutely nothing, to bring justice to the victim-survivors. What he
did do, on the other hand, was to repeatedly issue certificates of merit to his
favourite, Narendra Modi. And he promoted the former Ahmedabad police
commissioner, PC Pandey, to a top position in the CBI. Advani could not be
unaware of Pandey’s shameful conduct in the course of the carnage: Gulberg
Society, Naroda Patiya and Naroda Gaon, among the worst sites of mass butchery
and bestiality, were all under Pandey’s jurisdiction. What could Advani’s motive
be in transferring Pandey to the CBI even while petitions filed by the Citizens
for Justice and Peace and other organisations are pending before the Supreme
Court urging for a CBI investigation into the major massacres in Gujarat?
Was Jinnah secular? We leave it to Advani to decide. Is Advani
secular? The answer is evident from his past conduct. And were the ‘reformed’
BJP president to read our cover story this month, he might realise that even
three years later Gujarat continues to pose a challenge to his ‘saffron
secularism’.
— EDITORS
