The Hindu : Digvijay warns of danger posed by `fascists'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, May 28, 2002

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Digvijay warns of danger posed by `fascists'

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI MAY 27. Critical of the "conscious effort to denigrate the cultural rights'' of different communities in the name of a "pan-Indian national culture,'' the Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister, Digvijay Singh, today said Gujarat was something India would have to face if the people who believed in fascism came to power.

Urging people to be vigilant of the danger posed to the country's cultural freedom by fascist forces, Mr. Singh described Gujarat as an experiment that could be extended to the rest of the country. He made these comments on Gujarat while delivering the first Minoo Masani memorial lecture on "More Governance with Less Government" here.

Though for the most part the Chief Minister dwelt on governance in Madhya Pradesh, he brought up Gujarat at the fag end of his lecture to underline the fact that democracy is an evolving process to realise individual freedoms. "Protection and enhancement of individual freedoms have to be the touchstone to judge a polity's commitment to democracy.''

Given the fact that Gujarat borders Madhya Pradesh and Godhra is close to Ratlam, Mr. Singh said efforts had been made to stage-manage a similar course of events in his State after the train carnage. "But, we managed to stop it because we had the will to do so.'' Earlier, referring to the `Rath Yatra' taken out by the BJP in the name of cultural nationalism, he asserted: "It was not cultural nationalism, but cultural terrorism.''

Beginning his lecture with a reference to the ongoing process of economic reforms, Mr. Singh said the process begun by the slain Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi, found its full expression under the economic reforms of Manmohan Singh. On the view that Rajiv Gandhi had been prevented from following up the process during his tenure, the Chief Minister said the youngest Prime Minister of the country would have been a better Premier had fate allowed him a second term.

Stating that economic reforms alone would not bring about good governance, he lamented the fact that the liberalisers of the 1990s had not effectively connected economic liberalisation with the process of political liberalisation. Also, he commented on the irony in the fact that strong advocates of liberalisation were today talking about swadeshi. "When swadeshi was needed, they had other ideas.''

Though an advocate of the `gram sabha' system, Mr. Singh said the Panchayati Raj institutions envisaged by Rajiv Gandhi unleashed the power of the subdued. "It brought about a change in the attitude of women, and snowballed into a million mutinies in the villages.''

Organised by the Indian Liberal Group, the lecture saw Mr. Singh — described by the Editor-in-Chief of The Statesman, C. R. Irani, as "a Chief Minister first, a politician next, and a member of a party last'' — cite the various measures being taken in Madhya Pradesh to remove the structure of governance that cramps individual initiative and weakens accountability.

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