One might argue that considerations of individual liberty and freedom of speech guaranteed by the constitution of India as a fundamental right to the citizens of this country should raise no hackles on the wisdom of allowing a seminar on the birth anniversary of Shyama Prasad Mukherjee at SKICC on the outskirts of Srinagar on June 23, 2010. It is true that the seminar should be treated as a routine activity which is supposed to have been organized with a view to brainstorm on issues of national importance in the light of emerging challenges and how the RSS inspired by the philosophy of one of its most notable ideologues would want to look at these issues.

As it turned out, there hardly was any discussion of that sort having been deemed necessary to conduct at the seminar, except for the sheer majority of speakers choosing to skirt these issues and instead drawing attention to the crisis in Afghanistan or agonizing over the threat caused by the emergence of China as a potential superpower with India lagging far behind, both in terms of development and as a global player. It is interesting to observe that the organizers thought it prudent to fudge on those issues simply because they were well aware of the possibility of drawing a blank and attracting opprobrium from the audience- consisting mostly of local Kashmiri Muslims - should the advocates of the RSS ideology choose to dwell on these issues from their perspective. The fact that such thinking on the part of the organizers qualifies as part of a strategy which they thought was politically correct in view of the choice of the venue and the target audience, one must understand that it has been occasioned by the apprehension that sermonizing on the virtues of Hindutva would not go down well with the local Kashmiris who, by their very nature, are secular at heart- the predominant view of the Kashmir bashers to the contrary notwithstanding. This is so because, except for a few fringe elements, Kashmiris would equally baulk at the thought of a theocratic dispensation in the name of an exclusivist world order being contemplated as a possibility in Kashmir. Their antipathy which borders on strong revulsion against BJP- the public face of the RSS- arises on account of a number of reasons including the perception that it is out and out a communal outfit which is evident in the way it has set itself upon pursuing its agenda of ethnic cleansing marked by its visceral hatred of the minority community in India-read Muslims and of late also Christians- who have been on the receiving end of its hidden agenda that seeks to tolerate them but only as second class citizens. To wit: hark back to what Tarun Vijay of the RSS had to say when he was asked about recent killing of a youth in Kashmir by the security forces “My heart bleeds for security personnel and any national of India being killed”. Whereas it is nobody’s case to find fault with that statement per se, the subtext underlying his message is unmistakable.

The undeniable fact is that the Sangh Parivar’s espousal of Hindutva as a state policy is merely a euphemism for majoritarianism which plainly is the antithesis of secularism of which there hardly are any takers in the Parivar. As they say, one doesn’t have to be a rocket scientist to see through the deceit and stratagem at which the BJP is a master of sorts. No other party or outfit, political or otherwise, has benefited so much from this deliberate obfuscation of its raisin d’etre as the BJP has which, thanks to its doublespeak, is on its way out insofar as its hope of getting back to reckoning at the hustlings is concerned. This brings to mind that timeless refrain in Hindustani: Kath ki handi bar bar nahin chadti, what with enormous electoral dividends it has already reaped as a result but will no longer. The recent spat between the BJP and JDU in Bihar should serve to underscore the pitfalls of the politics of doublespeak which has run out its course as is evidenced by the loss of ground the party has suffered over the past few years. There are also those who think this country had enough of the Congress Party and would want to consider BJP as a viable alternative at the Centre. However, their search for alternatives is hemmed in by the fact that they are at pains to get reasonable answers to the following posers which continue to beg the question:

1.Narendra Modi as the most visible face of the BJP is a proclaimed offender having not only connived in but also having provided the logistical support for the murder and mayhem that was witnessed in Gujarat in 2002. The BJP top brass, instead of distancing itself from Modi for the pogrom- that he is capable of unleashing all over again, if the need arises- has never ever expressed its disgust over his actions, especially during and after the genocide.

2. It is common knowledge that, as the chain of events that followed the murder of Sohrabudin and his wife have shown, that it was at Modi’s instance that the Sohrabudin fake encounter was enacted. What does the top brass of the BJP/RSS have to say about this?

3. The height of hypocrisy of the BJP was in full evidence when during his recent visit to Bihar, Modi had ‘advertised’ the Muslims of Gujarat as being more prosperous and much looked after by its government than their counterparts elsewhere in the country, even as it turned out that the photographs carrying these pictures of (educated looking) Muslim women purportedly from Gujarat actually belonged to the distant Azamgarh region of UP.

In a nutshell, Modi’s image and his track record as a political opportunist should leave nobody in doubt that he- and, therefore, the his party- represents the ugly face of an ideology that clearly conjures up the visions of a ‘weltanschauung’ a’la Hitler, Stalin or Mussolini. It is not for nothing that one tends to call into question even the integrity of those who are otherwise known to command a good deal of respect and reverence in the society on the strength of their achievements, but who have somehow allowed themselves to be inveigled into rooting for Modi and his brand of ‘clean administration’ in return for what are ultimately pecuniary gains. Precisely for these reasons, the legends like Ratan Tata and Amitabh Bhachhan have ceased to inspire the awe and admiration from amongst a huge chunk of the population, which they otherwise so richly deserve.

Coming back to the seminar held at SKICC, we now know that the show was a damp squib in that the audience that was scraped up for the show consisted mostly of those who didn’t understand English, the language in which the proceedings were conducted, and who had absolutely no idea of what was going on over there. These ‘forced’ participants were ferried all the way from distant rural areas of the valley to the venue by special buses which were pressed into service. And this farce was enacted in return of a favour by way of a sumptuous meal that was served to them at the end of the ‘Tamasha”. The fact that the organizers of this ‘event’ were already aware of a poor response from the local residents- which is why they had gone overboard to crank up a reasonable number of participants at the event- goes on to show that there are no takers for what is patently absurd and inherently divisive brand of politics of the Sangh Parivar, at least in this part of the country. However, I would want to utilize this occasion to caution my compatriots of the presence of such elements from within whose idea of a new world order smacks of a similar regressive outlook that is in abundant evidence in the school of the Sangh Parivar. And there is no dearth of such voices across the border that deserve the same kind of opprobrium as should be reserved for the protagonists of Hindutva on this side of the fence. The good news is that unlike in the rest of India, there is no significant support base for such forms of divisiveness in the valley. The urgent need is for such an ethos to continue and sustain in the midst of a frenzy marked by an onslaught of religious intolerance and revanchism.

(Prof.M.A.Sofi teaches at the Department of Mathematics, Kashmir University, Srinagar. Feedback at aminsofi@rediffmail,com)

Lastupdate on : Mon, 28 Jun 2010 21:30:00 Mecca time
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