Stopping
Togadia
By T.K. Rajalakhshmi
Frontline
26 April, 2003
In an unanticipated but decisive move, the Rajasthan government has
put behind bars Praveen Togadia, the international general secretary
of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP). The Congress(I), which has been
at the receiving end of late for projecting a "soft Hindutva"
image, appears to have thus at least temporarily redeemed itself through
the Ashok Gehlot government's action, which followed an aggressive campaign
by the VHP and the Bajrang Dal over a period of some two years.
The VHP had
planned a State-wide trishul (trident) distribution programme, obviously
with an eye on the elections to the State Assembly that are due in November.
Togadia was picked up on April 13 on the orders of the district administration
in Ajmer after he delivered an incendiary speech and displayed trishuls
at a provocative `trishul deeksha' ceremony organised by the VHP, violating
orders under Section 144 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). A day earlier,
650 trishuls were confiscated from the VHP office in Ajmer. Togadia
was remanded to judicial custody until April 30. He was booked under
Section 121-A of the IPC, which states that "whoever within or
without India conspires to commit any of the offences punishable by
Section 121, or conspires to overawe, by means of criminal force or
the show of criminal force, the Central government or any State government,
shall be punished with imprisonment for life, or with imprisonment of
either description which may extend to ten years, and shall also be
liable to fine."
The First Information
Report cites portions from Togadia's speeches, which called upon those
who were present to "raise your trishuls and pledge that you will
worship Bhagwan Shankar and Ma Durga, that you will build the Ram temple,
that you will destroy Pakistan and make India a Hindu Rashtra."
Togadia challenged Chief Minister Gehlot to arrest him. He was lodged
in the Ajmer Central Jail after the Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate
rejected his bail application on the grounds that it was not in her
jurisdiction to hear the case and that only the Sessions Judge would
hear it. Now the matter is in the Sessions Court of Ajmer.
According to
S.R. Bajwa, counsel for the State government, the government invoked
the second part of Section 121-A, which referred to conspiracies to
overawe by means of criminal force or show of criminal force. The other
charges, according to counsel, involved Sections 153-A (promoting enmity
between classes) and 153-B (imputations, assertions prejudicial to national
integration). These Sections deal with creating hatred and disaffection
between two groups, insults, provoking any group to stop owing allegiance
to the Constitution of India or the sovereignty of the country and actions
that create insecurity among a particular group. Counsel said that all
of Togadia's utterances in the speech in Ajmer attracted Sections of
the IPC. His speech was tape-recorded, and the government had the transcript.
Togadia has been booked also under five other Sections of the IPC, including
505 (making statements causing public mischief) and 295-A (insulting
religious beliefs of any class).
The VHP called
for a bandh on April 14, which hardly evoked any response in the State.
Shops remained open even in areas considered to be strongholds of the
Bharatiya Janata Party. The VHP then threatened to launch a national
agitation against Togadia's arrest. Significantly, the BJP has not formally
protested against Togadia's incarceration. Neither has the party supported
the VHP's call for a nation-wide agitation. BJP general secretary Pramod
Mahajan and State president Vasundhara Raje Scindia made only the usual
remonstrations.
On April 8,
a week before the `trishul deeksha' ceremony, the State government had
issued a notification regulating the distribution, acquisition, possession
and carrying of double- or multi-bladed sharp or pointed weapons but
exempted from the purview of the order religious institutions, religious
functions and religious processions where such weapons were traditionally
used. The notification, issued in the "public interest" and
after taking into account the "prevailing conditions in the State
of Rajasthan", pointed to the government's political will in handling
the issue. What remained to be seen was how it would go about enforcing
the notification. The government has been empowered to issue such a
notification under Section 4 of the Arms Act, 1959, and a Home Ministry
notification issued in 1962.
In effect, the
notification implied a ban on carrying or distributing weapons like
trishuls. Gehlot made it clear that the trishul was not a religious
symbol. While the trident of Siva was an object of respect, the three-pronged
knife distributed by the VHP was a deadly weapon. He said that reports
of some sections of the people reacting adversely to the VHP's trishul
distribution had appeared and these were a matter of concern for the
government. In such a situation, no person or organisation from any
religion will be given the licence to destroy communal amity and vitiate
the atmosphere, he said.
The Chief Minister
could have stopped the trishul distribution process right at the start.
In September 2001, the VHP and the Bajrang Dal launched a `trishul deeksha'
and a jalabhishek programme in the Sawai Bhoj temple at Asind in Bhilwara
district (Frontline, October 26, 2001). Gehlot had then demanded a ban
on the Bajrang Dal in the context of the Central government's ban on
the Students Islamic Movement of India. But the Bajrang Dal was not
banned and the State government lapsed into lethargy even as the VHP
and the Bajrang Dal slowly began building up their movement. The district
administration in Bhilwara saw the act of distributing metallic trishuls
as being part of a "membership drive".
Two months before
the ceremony in Asind, a 16th century mosque located inside the Sawai
Bhoj temple complex was demolished (Frontline, August 31, 2001). Interestingly,
before and after the Asind incident, some mazaars, or burial grounds,
were desecrated in Jahazpur town, also in Bhilwara. The September 25,
2001, trishul distribution ceremony was, therefore, clearly an attempt
at communal mobilisation.
In Jahazpur,
a Congress(I) councillor, Gopal Chand Khatik, floated an organisation,
the Hindu Sangathan Manch, which was renamed the Hindu Manch. Congress(I)
members in the town participated in events organised by the VHP and
the Bajrang Dal. On September 8, violating prohibitory orders, a trishul
deeksha ceremony was held in Jahazpur, but the administration condoned
it. Nearly 150 persons were given trishuls in the presence of Togadia.
The Rajasthan
unit of the People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) recently compiled
a detailed report on the various occasions when trishuls had been distributed
in the State. The report stated that after the Gujarat carnage in 2002,
more than 6,000 trishuls were distributed in Rajasthan, and after the
BJP's electoral victory in Gujarat, the pace of activity increased.
The PUCL remarked that there was an immediate need to bring the trishul
under the purview of the Arms Act and prevent its distribution. The
VHP, the report stated, was distributing trishuls in Sikar, Nagaur and
Bikaner districts where Hindutva forces were weak.
According to
the PUCL, it was in 1998 that the VHP launched its programme of trishul
distribution in Rajsamand, Kishangarh and Ajmer districts, where 304
trishuls were distributed. In 1999, trishuls numbering 27 were distributed
in Tonk district. While the VHP did not distribute trishuls in 2000,
in 2001 about 1,126 of them were distributed in Ajmer, Bhilwara, Udaipur,
Chittorgarh and Banswara districts. More than 800 of them were distributed
in Ajmer and 195 in Bhilwara district. On a single day in October 2002,
more than 2,000 trishuls were distributed in Jhalarapatan in Jhalawar,
the constituency of Vasundhara Raje. In December that year, when attention
was focussed on Gujarat, Togadia and other senior VHP leaders distributed
2,580 trishuls in Rajasthan. According to the report, there were 21
incidents of communal violence and riots in Rajasthan in 2002 as compared
to five incidents during the previous year. The selection of the time
and place for trishul distribution in 2001 and 2002 had a clear link
with previous communal incidents and tensions engineered in particular
areas, the PUCL report observed.
Tension has
been building up in Rajasthan over the past few years and several organisations
had drawn the attention of the State government to the distribution
of trishuls. Togadia's arrest is bound to send a strong message to the
VHP, but it remains to be seen whether the Gehlot government will continue
to act firmly with the Hindutva brigade.