September  2000 Editorial

Kaun na banega cynic?

So, Atal Behari Vajpayee’s Bangaru Laxman has professed that Muslims are "flesh of our flesh, blood of our blood". And the government of Sonia Gandhi’s Vilasrao Deshmukh and Sharad Pawar’s Chhagan Bhujbal has sworn in an affidavit to the Supreme Court of India that the Mumbai police is "secular".Forget Ayodhya, forget Mumbai riots. Forget what the ‘kar sevaks’ of the RSS, VHP and Bajrang Dal did to the Babri Masjid as LK Advani and a host of the BJP high command witnessed the ‘Remaking of History’ in December 1992. Forget the findings of three judges of the Mumbai high court — justices BN Srikrishna (officially appointed by the then Congress government), Hosbet Suresh and SM Daud (People’s Verdict) — on the shocking role of far too many of Mumbai’s men in uniform soon thereafter, as Sudhakarrao Naik and Sharad Pawar watched the ‘Burning of Bombay’. Forget also the silence of the saffron brotherhood over the plight of some three lakh Kashmiri Pandits who have become refugees in their own country. And forget the Gujarat Congress’ callous disregard for the state’s Muslims and Christians, life for whom seems to be an unending nightmare.

One slick statement from Nagpur, one affidavit drafted in Mantralaya, and whoosh! Between them, the only two parties that today can legitimately claim a national following — the BJP and the Congress — have jointly vanquished the communal demon in a flash! Jai Shri Secularism!

Stuck on a political plateau for the last few years, the BJP appears to have awakened to the fact that 12 crore Muslims mean a lot of votes which "cannot be ignored". How convenient it would be for the party if only India’s Muslims could forget. Forget the terrible price Hindutva’s stridency has extracted from them in terms of life and property in the last decade alone. Forget the vicious targeting of yet another religious minority (Christians) in the last two years. Forget Bajrang Dal chief Vinay Katiyar’s statement in the midst of the Kargil conflict last summer that no peace is possible between Hindus and Muslims until the Quran was banned. Forget camps for training Bajrang Dal activists in the use of arms in UP this summer "to counter anti–Hindu forces". Forget the "revenge" against the killing of innocent Hindus in Kashmir in early August which cost Gujarat’s Muslims property loss of nothing less than Rs.20 crore.

There is a lot that the BJP would like India’s Muslims to forget. The problem, however, is that the Indian Muslim (or Christian for that matter) cannot afford to forget. Nor will he be allowed to forget, by the more honest and consistent soldiers of saffron such as are to be found in the ranks of the VHP, Bajrang Dal, Shiv Sena, Hindu Munnani.

If the BJP is trying to mesmerise Muslims, the Congress–NCP combine is Maharashtra is trying to hoodwink even the apex court in India with an affidavit that is not worth the paper it has been typed on. It, too, would like the people of Mumbai, Maharashtra and India to forget that less than a year ago, in the state assembly and out on the streets, Congressmen were demanding action on the recommendations of the very same report of Justice Srikrishna for which they have now shown cynical contempt. Even their election manifesto had sworn allegiance to the findings of the Srikrishna Commission.

Milan Kundera words, ‘The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting’, seem quite appropriate to our present setting. The victims of engineered hate and violence, and all those who believe that without justice and fair play democracy has no meaning will not be taken in by the cynical games our politicians are playing.

— EDITORS