The Hindu : Advani put on the defensive

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Jan 11, 2003

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Advani put on the defensive

By Anjali Mody

The Deputy Prime Minister, L. K. Advani, releasing the Hindi edition of a book by the Nobel Laureate, V. S. Naipaul (left), as L. M. Singhvi (centre) looks on at the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas in New Delhi on Friday. — Photo: S. Arneja

NEW DELHI JAN. 10. The Deputy Prime Minister, L.K. Advani, was forced on the defensive at the `Pravasi Bharatiya Divas' today, when Nadira Naipaul, wife of the Nobel-laureate, V.S. Naipaul, raised questions about the focus on Hindu NRIs and PIOs.

Mr. Advani said ``there is an image created abroad in certain sections that the present Government is concerned only about Hindus''. This impression, he said, ``could not be more unfair''.

He said ``secularism is so embedded in our thinking that there can be no departure from that.'' ``If anything like Gujarat happens, we feel sad and ashamed. But I have said, it is an aberration. It must not be repeated. Let us put it behind us.''

Ms. Naipaul's intervention was the only one, in what had been billed as an ``interactive'' meeting between Mr. Advani and the visitors. But, as the meeting broke up, agitated delegates said that it was unfair to have let the Minister have the last word. Sushila J. Gidwani-Buschi from New York said that ``Mr. Advani's speech was just a white wash''. Ingrid Therwath, a doctoral student from Paris, said, ``what he says is noble, but what he does is not. He has blood on his hands.''

Bakirathi Mani, an associate Professor of English at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, U.S., said ``how do you comprehend Advani's claim as a secularist ... and Gujarat is no aberration ...''. Farooq Ahmed Wasil, a school principal from Sharjah, said that ``their own media and their own civil servants have said that the State had a hand in the Gujarat massacres, what he must talk about is accountability...and not simply say `put it behind us'.''

But Mr. Advani received his fair share of applause. As he said, ``even before I have said what I want to say''. He commended the achievements of Indians abroad seeing reflected in their success the ``potential we have''. Potential, he said, which must be mobilised by making ``Indians proud to be Indians''. Acknowledging Mr. Naipaul's comment that those who left India did so because of the ``degradation they faced within the country and because the country did not give them any protection'', Mr. Advani said that the Pravasi conference should be the occasion in which a pledge was taken that ``never again shall Indians leave India out of compulsion, for want of opportunity.''

Mr. Advani clarified the Government's reasons for restricting the nominal `dual citizenship' to NRIs and PIOs to a select number of countries. The countries, he said, also had laws permitting dual citizenship. The second reason was ``our thinking about our national security''. The selection of countries was done ``in a way that will not jeopardise our national security.''

Navnit Dholakia, President of Britain's Liberal Democratic Party, said just as Hanuman, when asked to prove his loyalty to Ram, tore open his chest to reveal an image of Ram and Sita, so also NRIs, if asked to prove their loyalty to India, could open their hearts to reveal a map of India.

Mr. Advani, referring to Lord Dholakia's observation, said: ``You cannot imagine how happy it makes me to hear someone like Lord Dholakia talking about Hanuman and Ram and Sita.'' It was this selective reference that provoked Ms. Naipual's questions.

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