Ministerial insensitivity

THE MOST CHARITABLE statement which one could make while commenting on the remarks of Mr. T. John, Karnataka Minister of State for Civil Aviation and Infrastructure Development, about the Gujarat earthquake being ``God's punishment for the attacks on missionaries'' is that he was incredibly insensitive and that no tears should be shed for the price he had to pay for it with his resignation. At a time when the victims of a dreadful natural calamity which had hit Gujarat were in need of all the sympathy and support they could get for a rapid recovery from their agony, the Minister had chosen to observe that they deserved what had happened to them. One could not think of another pronouncement which is both unchristian and inhuman. One could also be quite sure that the Christian missionaries he was referring to would have felt greatly embarrassed by the mindlessness of the Minister presuming to speak on their behalf. They would not share Mr. John's belief that Gujarat deserved the ``punishment'' inflicted on it by the killer earthquake for what the Christian missionaries suffered. Mr. John's remarks only match the barbarousness of the fanatics who had attacked the Christian missionaries of Gujarat and there could be no justification for his thinking about it as a right response to the earlier act of cruelty.

It is astonishing that the Minister in a State ruled by the Congress which believes in secularism could have been so thoughtless while commenting on the tragedy in Gujarat. At a time when even political parties which have long been regarded as being communal are trying to shed this image and are trying to project themselves as being secular, Mr. John is not rendering any service either to the Christians or the country as a whole by stoking the fires of religious intolerance connecting the earthquake to the earlier events in Gujarat though they were admittedly devilish. If he really had not made the remarks attributed to him while he was addressing World Peace Day celebrations as he had claimed with his subsequent denial, he would not have had to submit his resignation from the Government. Again, if as it appears his resignation was not voluntary and was forced upon him by the Chief Minister, Mr. S. M. Krishna had indeed acted rightly with a justified sense of outrage.

The John episode raises quite a few questions hinging upon the need for restraint in speech and behaviour. Though secularism has been widely accepted by the country as a whole as a rational creed and the BJP leadership has been forced to develop an awareness of this, the fact remains that religious intolerance persists and is spreading to domains which should have remained untouched and even inaccessible to it because of a strong faith in human brotherhood. It is a grim reminder of how intolerance, instead of being repelled as it should be, could become infectious. It should also recall what the French philosopher and statesman, Andre Malroux, had said about Time not always going forward in a straight line but at times reverting to a circle to invite attention to the likelihood of thought and behaviour at times becoming retrograde. This is borne out by the recurring eruption of religious bigotry and communal violence in India which as a free country has had to harbour obscurantists with an irretrievably stuck mindset. Incidentally, the description of religious intolerance as an aspect of ``revivalism'' is a striking instance of what just the addition of a few letters could do to ``revival'' having a positive connotation suggestive of enlightenment and renaissance.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Opinion
Previous : When the ground shakes
Next     : Salvaging the peace process in Kashmir