Feb 8, 1999
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FIFTH COLUMN Ban Bajrang Dal Why is Advani defending those he should punish? By Tavleen Singh As one of only a handful of journalists in this country who do not believe Lal Krishna Advani is Hindutva's devil incarnate, it both saddened and sickened me to see him defend the Bajrang Dal this past week. Did he think the Bajrang Dal was responsible for the murder of the Australian missionary and his two sons in Orissa, he was asked on national television. Pursing his lips in irritation he said, "No. I have known these organisations and I do not believe they have criminal links." As this totally unnecessary defence of the most violent wing of the Sangh Parivar came on the very day that Graham Staines and his two small sons were buried, it was all the more repugnant. The burning to death of Staines and his little sons while they were asleep in their station wagon was an act of such horror, such barbarism that there is almost no Indian who does not feel personally shamed. As home minister of India it is frightening that Advani does not feel some of the shame. His reaction was cold-blooded, unfeeling and stupidly defensive, compared to that of the prime minister and the President, whose distress was so visible on their faces that they almost did not need words to express it. Coincidentally, I had occasion to interview the home minister a few days before the horror in Orissa. Among the issues we talked of was the question of why things had gone so wrong in India in the past 50 years. Did he think, I asked, that things had gone wrong mainly because the governments we were ruled by did not fully understand the meaning of governance. He replied that in his view the main thing that had gone wrong was that India had become "a soft state". He explained that what he meant was the state had revealed itself to be completely incapable of fighting the forces of violence and terrorism. He could have added the word evil. What happened in Orissa was evil and would perhaps not have happened if the home minister's friends in the Bajrang Dal had not spent the past 10 months spreading hatred against Christians and Muslims. Whatever the leaders of the Sangh Parivar may say about organisations like the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the Bajrang Dal being "cultural" rather than political, what we have seen from them is a mainly political agenda. An agenda whose entire basis, whose raison d'etre is communalism of the most vicious kind. It is the sort of political agenda that inevitably ends up harming its proponents as much as its victims. Because its very essence, its soul is destructive. This is now beginning to happen to the Bajrang Dal. No longer will its members be able to proudly prance around the country dressed up as Hindu gods, burning M.F. Husain's paintings in the name of "culture". There is likely to be as much revulsion attached to its name as there already is across the country to the Shiv Sena's. Unfortunately, as home minister, Advani has allowed not just the Bajrang Dal to get away with its depredations but has also allowed Bal Thackeray to get away with criminal acts that should have put him behind bars years ago. Inciting communal violence is a crime in India. So is the destruction of public property. But nothing has been done to jail those who have been digging up cricket pitches and smashing cinemas, just as nothing has ever been done to jail Thackeray for his vicious writings in the Shiv Sena's mouthpiece. He has also been allowed in recent weeks to spew venom at Pakistan and to openly threaten violence if its cricket team came here. He stopped it only when the home minister went personally to Mumbai to persuade him to put an end to his hateful behaviour. The question I would have asked Advani, if this had happened before my interview with him, is whether he would have done the same for Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale. Would he have gone to the Golden Temple when Bhindranwale was in his heyday and requested him to stop spreading communal hatred? It is worth remembering that it was largely on account of Bhindranwale's propaganda that some misguided Sikhs attempted to disrupt the Asian Games held in Delhi in 1982. They were dealt with so firmly that Sikh generals travelling to Delhi in the week before the Games were stripped and searched by the police. That was hardly the sort of thing you would associate with a "soft state". What we have seen in the past 10 months though is a state that has been not just soft but really quite selective in its softness. Advani, as an example of his firmness, told me how tough the Government had been with extremists in Kashmir. Could it be only because they are Muslim? I have never believed Advani is anti-Muslim. I have also agreed with many of the points he has raised in his fight against what he calls pseudo-secularism. But when he stands up publicly and defends the Bajrang Dal -- instead of banning it -- I begin to get seriously worried about what his plans as home minister are. Has the anti-Christian mood that we now see spreading from Gujarat to Orissa been deliberately created? Is it true that anti-Christianism was the underlying theme of a recent RSS meeting in Nagpur? Is it true the RSS believes it is Advani rather than Atal Bihari Vajpayee who will carry forward its agenda? And considering the softness the Home Ministry has shown towards Hindu criminals in the past 10 months, can we not conclude that the real soft state is becoming evident only now? |
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