Pardon Us, If This Is The Ram Rajya
By Aleem Faizee
09 April, 2009
Countercurrents.org
Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) while releasing the party manifesto on Friday April 3, 2009 reaffirmed its faith in Ram Rajya. ‘If there's a definition of an ideal state in India it has been the idea of Ram Rajya’, the BJP leaders have reportedly asserted. It was not surprising to see the party coming with such a manifesto as the assertion has always been there in BJP’s agenda. This is altogether a different story why when it came to power in 1999 general elections, along with other favorite party agendas, this agenda also took the backseat. Congress spokesperson is right when he says these are the issues BJP remembers only at the time of elections.
However one needs to ask the BJP leaders what kind of Ram Rajya they intend to bring to the country. For not very long ago we had seen them endorsing the demolition of the Babri Masjid and blissfully dancing as the errant mob pulled down the historic mosque brick by brick. Before that the Prime Ministerial candidate of the party, which is assuring to bring Ram Rajya, riding on the Rath was spurting venom in the whole country. Ram Rajya as far as we have learnt is supposed to provide safety, equality and justice to everyone and respect to every religion and every cast. How then the BJP leaders justify their leading and encouraging the mob to demolish a religious site?
When in Orissa Graham Stewart Stains was burnt alive along with his innocent children, the country expected, the BJP leadership would behave responsibly and would condemn the culprits. Sadly they were mute spectators to the barbaric act. They remained so even when hundreds of people were killed in Gujarat and properties worth millions were looted and set on fire. The women were forcibly stripped, raped and then paraded naked on streets in the clear daylight. Those were the tragic moments when even the unborn children still in the womb were not safe. BJP was part of the Government in Orissa and was in power during the Gujarat genocide. The country rightly expected tough actions from them. However the BJP leaders not only shied away from fulfilling their constitutional duties but in a brazen act some of them even tried to justify the heinous crimes. Almost whole of the country was crying for action but its Chief Minister was gleefully floating the action and reaction theory to justify what everyone was terming as genocide of the innocent people.
Even after the massacre of over two thousand innocents, the state Chief Minister failed to bring peace to the people belonging to the minority community in Gujarat. The areas where the riot victims were rehabilitated became the hunting ground for the investigating agencies after every terrorist attack in the country. Police encounters killing the people who were allegedly up in arms to kill the BJP leaders became order of the day. Ironically the entire theory of the plans to kill the BJP leaders widely publicized to score political mileage received a severe blow when few of the encounters were declared as fake and Human Rights activists raised doubts over other encounters. However the BJP leadership who is promising a Ram Rajya for the country never showed any kind of remorse over the innocent killings.
Interestingly while the BJP was rejoicing as its support base widened with every terrorist attack, the slain ATS Chief Hemant Karkare decided to come with the unusual. To their misery, Karkare not only unveiled the hitherto hidden face of the Hindu Terrorism but dealt with those found guilty with an iron hand. The country had expected the BJP leaders would take the same stand they had taken so far while dealing with the Muslim Terrorists. But the entire Saffron Brigade shocked the nation by defending the terrorists and some of them by showering the terrorists with flowers.
Nowhere in the country had people seen the kind of affections that the Saffron Brigade extended to the terrorists allegedly involved in Malegaon and other terrorist attacks. Not even from them who had raised objections over the indiscriminate detention of the Muslim youths. ‘If the Muslim accused had done anything wrong they should be hanged in public’, Muslim leaders and the parents of the accused had reiterated at more than one occasion. In total contrast to this some of the people owing allegiance to the party, which is now luring the electorates with Ram Rajya, were demonstrating their fondness for the alleged terrorists belonging to the Hindu right wing organisations. ‘We are proud of them even if they masterminded the terrorist attacks’, they were proclaiming in front of the TV cameras.
On the contrary when it came to actually fighting the terrorism, the country was stunned to find the BJP leadership surrendering to the terrorists and its Minister himself carrying them to their designated destination. Same is the party’s record when it came to dealing with corruption. The fact that the TV cameras caught its party president taking the bribe money is enough to show the party’s seriousness in tackling the danger of corruption. As for the foreign policy, whenever BJP looks for allies in the world there one and only choice is Israel, the state no friend of anyone.
Sure like any other party in the country BJP has the right to seek the majority in elections. Likewise LK Advani too has every right to aspire for the top post. However the party and LK Advani owe an explanation to the nation about the kind of Ram Rajya they intend to bring to the country. On one hand they speak of the Ram Rajya but on the other they indulge in the politics of hatred, injustice and inequality. The party’s support extended to Varun Gandhi’s hate speech is the latest example. The party has been accused of dividing the nation on communal lines by none other than the Prime Minister. It has also been termed as responsible for the growing terrorism in the country by Sharad Pawar.
Moreover the country has not yet forgotten what Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi had said to then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in reply to his advice to uphold the values of Rajya Dharma in Gujarat, where the violence was reaching its peak. To the shock of the nation and perhaps former Prime Minister Vajpayee too, Modi had replied, Wahi to ker reha hoo (That is what I am doing). One does not need any further explanation to know what Narendra Modi and his state missionary was doing at that time. Is this the kind of Ram Rajya BJP intends to bring to the country? If it is really so, then the country surely needs something else.
(The writer is Executive Editor of the Internet Magazine http://www.ummid.com. He can be reached at [email protected])
