PM's quandary over SIMI ban

By Harish Khare

NEW DELHI, SEPT. 28. Late last night the Prime Minister, Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee, felt constrained to direct the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, Mr. Rajnath Singh, to order an inquiry into the police firing on SIMI activists in Lucknow. That the violence and firing had taken place in his own constituency was enough to prompt Mr. Vajpayee to describe the police action as ``unfortunate''. PMO suggested that Mr. Vajpayee was particularly upset that whereas the ban was enforced all over the country violence broke out only in Lucknow.

But is Mr. Vajpayee's concern limited to avoidable killings in his constituency or is he concerned that once again his Home Minister has upended a larger policy paradigm? It is a fact that the decision to ban the Students' Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) was approved by the entire Cabinet early this week. To that extent the Prime Minister was very much a party to the decision, and would have been mindful of the possible repercussions and responses to the ban.

Nor could he be unaware that police officers in a number of States have periodically demanded a ban on various extremist organisations, including the SIMI and the Bajrang Dal. A few weeks ago at the annual conference of the top police officers, the Directors-General of Police in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh had demanded that a ban be imposed both on the SIMI and the Bajrang Dal. Though for the record, Union Home Ministry officials were asserting that no State had formally asked for a ban on the Bajrang Dal, at least three States had asked for a ban on the SIMI. Yet there is an acute awareness that perhaps unwittingly, the Union Home Ministry has struck a contrary note at a time when the Prime Minister is trying hard to make the point that India's enthusiastic endorsement of America's war on terrorism was not directed against Islam, and certainly not against Indian Muslims. It is both a measure of the Home Minister's depleted credibility and of the restiveness among the minorities of the new America led-`crusade' that the ban on the SIMI has not been seen as the decision of a fair administration.

Indeed, Mr. Vajpayee found himself in a quandary today, as he was scheduled to meet a group of Muslim elders. The meeting was planned days before the SIMI ban, and it was intended to convey to the Muslim community leaders that there was no need or reason for them to feel insecure on account of the Government's foreign policy.

In his remarks this evening, Mr. Vajpayee referred indirectly to the ban on the SIMI and sought to impress on his Muslim guests that the proscription had come about in a legal manner and that the legal process itself provided an opportunity for appeal and possible correction of the grievance of the banned organisation.

The Prime Minister's Office found itself engaged in a damage limitation exercise. It is believed that senior Muslim clerics have agreed to advise restraint to the community. At the same time, it is also acknowledged that the Home Ministry must be having a credible reason to take the step now. In fact, Mr. Vijay Goel, Minister of State in the PMO, is on record having demanded in the Lok Sabha a ban on the SIMI.

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