The Harebrained Tactics

The current spats of skirmishes, arson in Maharashtra and the killing of an innocent in Pune, have left all of us puzzled on why this & why now.

Maharashtra is under the rule of Cong + NCP combined for the last 15 years. No untoward incidents or large scale communal clashes have happened in this period. The opposition parties, especially Shivsena & MNS have done little to whip up communal frenzy as they are known to do, but have in fact desisted from during the elections to the Lok Sabha. Why suddenly this carpet bombing of incidents?

 Even the most critical political commentators would agree that the Mahayuti would spoil its chances of winning the coming state elections, by instigating communal clashes, when it has won 42 seats of the Loksabha without these tactics.

Why does a state government which was aware of a person called Dhanajay Desai, his outfit Hindu Rashtriya Sena (HRS), his antecedence, records of his past, keeps quite & does not make preventive arrests when trouble started in Pune over the FB postings? How could the mob roam around freely, threatening people openly, as is reported? Trouble started three days before, ending in the brutal killing of that boy and near fatal state of another few.

Clearly the congress led state government, with a Chankya like figure in Sharadji sahib guiding, was going slow with kid gloves, expecting to find some link between the HRS & BJP /RSS –SS. When a link could not be established, the Maharashtra Govt., reluctantly booked Desai under bailable clauses. Why was Desai and his goons not booked under MACOCA? Why was his outfit not banned?

Remember, this is the same Govt. of Maharashtra that locked up Hundreds of Muslims for ’93 & all other blasts in Mumbai & its surroundings, Sadhvi Pragya, Lt. Joshi and many others for Malegaon with a lexicon of Hindu terror thrown in & has the keys put away for years now.

If these are the parameters for handling communal issues, why are guys like Desai & co let free? The Pawar & co. have lost touch with the masses and communication world of today. They think propping up hate & fear mongers to create trouble would get them the votes as seculars who are there to protect minorities, then insinuate that these were BJP/RSS people, which would make BJP to lose popular mandate. If not for this brilliant strategy, why did Powerji in his speech, drag in the Central Govt. & BJP, by saying that these troubles have started since the advent of NDA in the centre, insinuating that somehow the election of NDA is the cause for the trouble in the state and not the lax security under his Home Minister. The fact that law and order is a state issue was conveniently forgotten! He just jumped the gun!

For precisely this reason, the BJP Central Govt. is holding the state responsible at an administrative level & asking questions at that level. The trap of trying to get a political response from BJP/SS has failed miserably.

Should politics go down to this level, just to gain power, obviously for the pelf of it and not for giving the people good governance? Are the stakes so high that a few deaths & a few rifts in communities, castes & religions are just collateral damages in the course of attaining Power?

Is it just a coincidence that these clashes have stopped since the sudden demise of Mr. Gopinath Munde, who was considered the next CM of Maharashtra & BJP has started looking weaker in Maharashtra?

Even the followup reporting on the issue has stopped!!

Time for the Politicos to understand and accept the Indian politics has a new paradigm & that Yeh Indian public sab jaanti hain. 

Secular India

At the end of his waiving the white flag article A missive to distraught liberals | Times of India Blogs , Dileep Padgaonkar tells his co liberals, “….we must not lower our vigil to ensure that casteist, communal, sexist, hyper-nationalist and regional chauvinist forces of all shades do not threaten the fundamental rights of citizens. These rights are the foundation on which rests the edifice of our Republic.” Now being an intelligent man, he conveniently drops the S word & replaces it with Liberals!!

Do we conclude that all those named above are not seculars, against whom Mr. Padgaonkar wants to keep vigil of the Republic along with the sepoys in his platoon?

A Secular as defined by Oxford is: “Not connected with religious or spiritual matters”

By this definition:

1.     Every person in any way connected to any religion becomes non secular. In short only an atheist can be termed as secular.

2.      Nations that can be called secular are the Communist Countries, which do not believe in religion. But then we are left with just a handful of such Countries.

Since the majority of Nations have religious freedom or are declared religious states, seculars as a community based on this definition are in a grave minority in the whole world.

India has been a Nation of religious worshippers with a spiritual heritance that has a history of Thousands of years; hence by no stretch of imagination can this Country be called secular based on this definition of secular.

But then, the way of life adopted by Indians is the Hindu way or Hinduism in colloquial terms. This way of life gives liberty for discussions, disagreements, acceptance for new thoughts and amalgamating them in the main discourse, including those which have come from lands afar.

India was one of the first Countries that has had people of all shades, religions in its land for centuries, living in harmony with each other for due to the ethos practiced by the natives.

Every community, religion that faced threat in their Country / region of birth, rushed to India as they found it to be the only place that they knew would accommodate and absorb them. Today we have Jews, Parsis, Siddis & innumerable explorers from Europe, Persia, and China etc.., who have settled here for centuries. Each one has continued to practice their faiths without fear or favor.

This is now an anti-thesis to the definition of Secular as described in the beginning.

Probably, this is the real definition of being secular and was established before the word was coined or came into popular usage. Ethos of which, are expressed as Sarva Dharma Samabhava  and Ganga Jamuni tehzeeb.

This definition of Secular is all inclusive whereas the oxford definition is all exclusive.

The Padgaonkar platoon should reorient their liberal & secular values to this definition and look at India from this prism instead of the Victorian value prism of secular. Remember this definition was coined to keep the church at bay.