The Hindu : Uneasy allies

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Apr 13, 2002

Opinion

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Uneasy allies

AFTER THE JANATA Dal (U), the Trinamool Congress and the Lok Janshakti (of Ram Vilas Paswan), it is now the turn of Chandrababu Naidu's Telugu Desam to openly call for the "immediate" removal of Narendra Modi from the Chief Ministership in Gujarat. The demand marks a major and sudden shift from the stand the party has been taking all along on the politically vital issue of a change of leadership in the wake of the establishment-shielded (or inspired) wanton communal killings in the State post-Godhra. Till the other day, Mr. Naidu had calculatedly downplayed the demand for Mr. Modi's ouster by projecting `restoration of peace and communal harmony' as an objective with overriding priority, and surely the Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister cannot be so naive as not to realise that Mr. Modi's exit was an essential condition for inspiring confidence in the terrorised minority community. In fact, all the reasons the TDP has presently advanced for its `oust Modi' demand already existed for quite some time now and they acquired greater weight after the damning indictments of the State administration by high-powered statutory bodies such as the National Human Rights Commission and the National Minorities Commission. But the TDP had based on its own political calculations been apparently reluctant to acknowledge them till now. That it has chosen to speak up for a regime change on the eve of the BJP's crucial national executive meeting in Goa is, however, very significant, and its view cannot be brushed aside lightly by the chief coalition partner, given the TDP's status as virtually the most critical prop to the Vajpayee Government and Mr. Naidu's own cultivated reputation for `dependability'.

For all the patently sincere responses of the Prime Minister to the communal holocaust witnessed by Gujarat — he called it a "national shame" — and the palpable dissatisfaction in his references to the way the Modi administration has handled the situation, it is clear that the Sangh Parivar has, actively aided and abetted by the Modi regime, succeeded in pushing its own viciously divisive agenda by carrying out a well-orchestrated pogrom targeting the Muslims that rendered them "refugees in their own land". That the BJP leadership, at least a section of its hard core, feels elated at the so-called `consolidation' of the Hindu vote and wants to capitalise on it by calling an early election to the Assembly is a measure of its cynical calculations. In the immediate context, this translates into stiff resistance to forcing Mr. Modi out of office — what with the BJP president, Jana Krishnamurthi, himself openly backing him to the hilt — and into veiled threats of a `Hindu backlash', read a fresh bout of targeted violence by the VHP/Bajrang Dal elements. Small wonder then that Mr. Modi remains absolutely unfazed and unchastened and shows little inclination to mend his ways.

At a more fundamental level, Gujarat under Mr. Modi, `hailed' by the Sangh Parivar as marking yet another `successful' experiment in the laboratory of Hindutva ideology, is replete with ominous signs for the country's future as a pluralist and secular polity. Particularly worrisome are indications of the Hindutva message being internalised, even if subconsciously — and possibly due to the virulently aggressive campaign mounted by the Parivar outfits projecting the Muslims as an `enemy'. Clearly, this falls into a pattern noticeable in the ways of the BJP, both as a party and as the head of Government at the Centre; some of the other notable elements are the saffronisation of the textbooks and the encouragement — and concessions — extended to the VHP's campaign to launch the Ram temple construction. The cruel irony of it all is that the `secular' partners in the coalition have contributed not a little to it by their acquiescence if not connivance. If the Gujarat happenings have any lesson to convey, it is that the corrosion of India's secular and multi-ethnic fabric by the Hindutva forces has assumed alarming proportions and that it is time the NDA constituents became alive to the looming danger.

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