| No
one is waiting for the 13th Lok Sabha election results with bated breath
and a pounding heart except those mired deep in the power game. And of
course, their chumchaas, those who expect to benefit from their patrons
assuming or reassuming power. All this indifference, ennui and boredom
with elections arises from the fact that the process has failed to yield
effective governance.
Corruption of a material kind and the institutionalization
of communal hatred has sapped the vitals of the democratic process in
India. Both these cancers are seen to affect major political parties like
the Congress and what for want of a better name should be called The Hindu
League. (The Hindu League is an apposite title for the conglomerate which
calls itself Jan Sangh / RSS / VHP / BJP / Shiv Sena / Bajrang Dal or
whatever the circumstances demand. This enables the denial of outrage in
case of the Gandhi murder January 30, 1948, the Babari Masjid demolition
December 6, 1992 and the burning alive and killing of Staines and his
young sons in January 1999)
The cynicism of the electorate received a great boost
when they saw, on national TV, Sardar Buta Singh erstwhile cabinet
minister in the Congress government, dressed like the Maharaja of Patiala
being sworn in as a member of the RSS- Atal Behari Vajpayee cabinet.
Pandit Sukh Ram famous for bundles of high denomination currency notes
tied up in soiled bedsheets discovered when he was in the Congress, also
added his lustre to the RSS cabinet.
On the communalization of the Congress, the role of K.M.
Munshi and Vallabhbhai Patel in building up myths like Somnath created by
overenthusiastic sycophantic chroniclers of Mahmoud of Ghazna and
resurrected by the British operators like Ellenborough during the early
Nineteenth century, played an important part. Although the then Maharana
of Udaipur rejected the so called "Gates of The Somnath Temple"
because they were not what the British alleged them to be, the Hindus
started believing in the myth that for 700 or 800 years they were brutalized
by the Muslims.
To look upon the British as "saviours" was
the next logical step. The result was that the RSS anti-Muslim activity
went unchecked in UP. B.B.L. Jaitley brought two trunkfuls of maps
detailing Muslim localities with entry and exit points marked to the home
secretary of UP in 1947, Rajeshwar Dayal. The RSS chief was in UP and his
arrest would have frightened them into inaction. Gobind Ballabh Pant let
him escape. Rajeshhwar Dayal writes that timely action might have averted
the Gandhi murder.
It’s in this context that we saw the locks of the
Babari Masjid opened by Rajiv Gandhi’s government run at the time by
Arun Nehru and Arun Singh. Today, Gobind Ballabh Pant’s son K. C. Pant
who had been part of the Congress and its governments for more then a
quarter of a century and the two Aruns are in the RSS establishment. It’s
said that they were moles or fifth column RSS as well as the CIA but the communalization
of the Hindu mind by the British rulers in the Nineteenth century explains
how they can live with their apparently turncoat actions.
To return to what is going to happen. Almost as
routine, the new Lok Sabha will assemble soon and a new prime minister
sworn in "to defend the Constitution." The RSS nominee will
prove "third time unlucky!" according to most forecasters. To be
a Cassandra is not difficult these days.
One can, with Mercutio say "a plague on both your
houses" to the Congress and the Hindu League. They share not only the
Aruns and K.C. Pants or a Rangarajan Kumarmangalam but also a Pandit Sukh
Ram. Those who are anti-uppercaste can opt for Buta Singh who is a Sikh
and a mazhabi to boot! The common cause for the Congress and the Hindu
League is communalism, which segregates them from the Muslims and the
Christians.
Perhaps those who believe that Muslims are different
from Hindus should compare Pakistan’s options with the Indian ones. How
is Atal Behari Vajpayee any better from Nawaz Sharif or Benazir Bhutto
from Sonia Gandhi? This newspaper can run a competition on the subject and
publish replies.
Meanwhile, we should return to the past when the purushaarthas
were not monotonous in being the single minded
pursuit of material gains. For such a period we shall have to return to an
India before its enslavement by the British, pre-westernization, pre-globalization,
pre-communalization. |
