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Who is Alice in Blunderland?
Alice In
Blunderland is a classic phrase that has not only captured the
imagination of the Indian political animals but aptly explains the
very way the Indian polity runs. That the phrase was born out of the
petty squabbling of a defeated party is a matter besides the point;
the fact remains that it underlines the polity of the entire
country.
And if the
Akalis or the SGPC or the myriad power centres who claim to
represent the Sikhs in India have so far failed to become a part of
the debate and have not used the occasion to put forth the
community's point of view on historical blunders, it is because they
themselves are so many Humpties-Dumpties put on the wall by masters
who stand on feet of clay themselves.
Imagine the
silence of the leaders of a community that not only witnessed the
carnage of 1947 but was the prime victim of it. When the country is
tying itself up in knots about whether or not M A Jinnah was
responsible for the Partition, how avoidable was the Partition, who
was secular and who was communal, the Akalis, locked in a fraternal
vice-like grip with the BJP, are mum.
There is, of
course, no end to the self-contradictions involved among those who
today claim to have taken on an undemocratic top brass of the BJP.
For example, Jaswant Singh finds Jinnah a great man, Arun Shourie
says he is repelled by him. Sudheendra Kulkarni says there is no
essential difference between what Advani had said about Jinnah in
Pakistan and what Jaswant Singh has said in his book, but he does
not then say the most logical thing about why Advani is silent now.
For him, Advani also continues to be a great and tall leader.
Yashwant Sinha
thinks he has said enough, so his voice on Jaswant-Sudheendra-Arun
Shourie episode is a matter of guess.
Jaswant Singh's
idea of secularism is also measured on a strange touchstone. He
thinks if a man eats pork, drinks wine and enjoys shaking a leg, he
must be secular. How hollow are the tall men's claims and ideas of
what makes up secularism? No wonder the Badals land up at havans
periodically and are seen in the company of one or the other swamy
from time to time; afterall, it is to such a party that they have to
appear secular.
As for the BJP,
there is a Nero-like quality to it. It expels people for reading and
writing and having a point of view. Worse, it expels those whose
views are close to what its prime ministerial candidate spouted
sometime back. Worse still, the so-called men of integrity like Arun
Shourie who walk out of it are so bereft of ideas and a vision that
they actually spout on prime time national television that the job
of inducing integrity, great conduct, honesty and righting whatever
wrongs have happened in the party should be outsourced to, hold your
breath, the RSS!
Even a BJP
chintan baithak could not have arrived at such a fantastic solution.
The truth is
that expelling senior leaders or taking action against them was
BJP’s way of digressing from the party’s much more serious
existential crisis.
It is time for
those with an iota of integrity left to state the real problem that
the BJP faces: its own identity.
Men like Jaswant
Singh and Arun Shourie would have done their party and themselves a
better service had they said openly that the BJP needs to become a
genuine Right of Center party by shunning the agenda of hatred
towards minorities, its anti-Muslim policies, its policy to
assimilate the Sikhs, its strategy of creating a Pakistan phobia
among the Hindus, its idea that hard Hindutva and communalism some
how helps countries make progress.
But there is
another problem for the BJP: If it indeed takes this line, then it
will pit itself up against its parent RSS. For hatred is one of the
prime agendas of the RSS. The talk of Akhand Bharat and
ultra-nationalism that rides on the aspirations and dreams of the
minorities, marginalized and dalits is something the BJP thrives on.
Its achievement so far has been to absorb every demerit of every
other party and then build on it. It is with such a party that the
Akalis have tied their faith. That’s some food for you.
26
August 2009
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