The Hindu : `Peace march will not serve the purpose'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Apr 28, 2002

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`Peace march will not serve the purpose'

By Our Special Correspondent

AHMEDABAD April 27. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad Kendriya Margadarshak Mandal member, Acharya Dharmendrasinhji, has described as a "drama'' the proposed "peace march'' in Ahmedabad tomorrow to be led by the Defence Minister, George Fernandes, and regretted that none of the "so called secular leaders'' ever bothered to visit the family members of those killed in the Godhra carnage.

Talking to newspersons here, the Acharya said the need of the hour was not the peace march but "a proper treatment with sympathy and understanding of the Hindu Samaj troubled by long neglect and insult.'' Gujarat, he said, should serve as a laboratory for the researchers to find out why the "most tolerant Hindus'' had become such intolerant. Unless the causes were found and solution applied, no amount of peace marches would serve any purpose, he said.

The State unit of the VHP, however, has extended support to the peace march. The Gujarat VHP general secretary, Dillip Trivedi, pointed out that the Parishad had refrained from giving any agitational programme for the last two months for the sake of peace in the trouble-torn State. It had not even organised public programmes to celebrate Ramnavmi or Hanuman Jayanti so that peace was not disturbed, he said.

The Acharya however expressed the apprehension that if the march was disturbed it could cause more trouble in the State.

Hitting out at the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, for his remarks that the majority community needed no protection, the Acharya said he was not saying anything new. Similar sentiments had been expressed by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, and Mr. Vajpayee, despite hailing from the RSS ranks, had a frame of mind more "like the Congress.'' He believed the Sangh Parivar should "drop'' such pseudo seculars from its ranks, "we don't need them.''

He also had a dig at the United States and the European countries urging tolerance and wondered what the U.S. President, Mr. George Bush, would have done if a train load of Americans were burnt alive by the Asian Muslims. "They should better guard their own house rather than advising India to continue to tolerate quietly the extremist elements.''

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