S. V. Raju

Freedom First does not support the demand for the removal of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi. He heads a party that was returned with an overwhelming majority in the last general elections to the Gujarat State Assembly. The next elections are due in September. Till then his party has the right to remain in office. In a mature democracy, considering the scale of violence and the near total breakdown of law and order, the Chief Minister would have accepted responsibility for his failure to stop the killings and stepped down voluntarily. But such things do not happen in India though we pride ourselves in being the world’s largest democracy.

It is an accepted political axiom that when someone is elected to parliament or a state legislature he (or she) is the representative of all the people in the constituency and not only those who voted for him. In other words his primary responsibility is to his constituents and not his party or to sectional interests. This principle has been ignored in India by the large majority of members of legislatures and parliament. It surfaced brazenly and unashamedly in the ongoing Gujarat riots where, according to very reliable reports many elected members of the Gujarat legislature including some ministers were seen leading violent mobs and paralysing the police either into inaction or incorporating them as their partners in crime.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, ‘pogrom’ is a Russian word meaning ‘organised massacre’ (originally and especially of the Jews in Russia) and ‘genocide’ is the deliberate extermination of a race, nation etc.’ In terms of this dictionary meaning what is happening in Ahmedabad and Baroda is undoubtedly organised massacre of a people simply because they belong to a particular religion. And, if this continues unchecked, it will lead to genocide and if that happens it will be end of India as a nation.

The demand for the sacking of Narendra Modi makes little sense. As Mr. C. R. Irani points out in his column in The Statesman, what if Narendra Modi resigns and is replaced by Dr. Pravin Togadia the international general secretary of the VHP! Calling for the imposition of President’s Rule also does not make sense. Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi is an RSS activist, so is L. K. Advani, the union home minister Can Modi’s victims expect a fair deal in such a situation? Clearly, President’s Rule too is not the answer. The only answer at this point of time is public pressure, national and international, to compel the state and Central governments to do what is expected of any government - restore law and order and return to the rule of law. This means, inter alia, bringing to book the guilty wherever they are, in whatever position they may be, and to whichever community they may belong

Is it reasonable to expect that this will happen? If the BJP is prepared to eat crow vis-à-vis Kanshiram and the BSP to stay in (or share) power there is hope that they may still do the right thing in Gujarat even if be for the wrong reasons But it will at best be a strategic retreat.

Much has been made of the play-acting that goes on within that group known as the ‘Sangh Parivar’, Take the widespread demand for the resignation of Narendra Modi. The drama (the Hindi word ‘Natak’ would be more appropriate) that we witnessed before and during the now notorious BJP meet in Goa regarding this particular issue, is a case in point. The meet affirmed its confidence in their apparatchik (again a Russian word meaning ‘agent of the apparatus’. In the Russian case the apparatus of the Communist party. Here the apparatus is the RSS and Narendra Modi is its agent. How could the BJP ask him to resign? Narendra Modi as an RSS activist is assigned the task of making Gujarat safe for the BJP. And he was doing precisely that. The horrific massacre of the innocent at Godhra was merely the trigger Narendra Modi pulled to further his mission. Why blame the agent when he was merely carrying out the apparat’s directive.

The Goa meet also brought out without any ambiguity the real objective of the BJP - Installing Hindutva as the national policy of the country. Very much like the Indian National Congress of Jawaharlal Nehru imposing on the country a ‘socialistic pattern of society’ forty years earlier, and almost converting India into a satellite of the Soviet Union in the process.

As for the so-called ‘mask’ worn by prime minister Vajpayee. There never was a mask. At no time did he hide the fact that he was part of the RSS; at no time did he publicly admit that he had given up his faith in Hindutva. He used his charm and his poetic gifts to good advantage. He undoubtedly is an excellent team leader and he put it to good use. The spin doctors worked overtime to build up his image as a charismatic leader. L. K. Advani was projected as the hardliner and Vajpayee as the amiable and reasonable person. There could not have been a more stupid statement than this one attributed to many: that Mr. Vajpayee was the right man in the wrong party.

It is time we accepted facts of life as they are and not as we want them to be.

Take the BJP for instance. Everyone views the BJP as an independent political entity. This it is not. It is a creation of and controlled by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh – the RSS. The BJP’s separate existence is only apparent, not real.

There are two kinds of members in the BJP - the hard core consisting of the RSS swayamsevaks (roughly translated: volunteers) and the fellow travellers, that is those who are not RSS cadre but those who joined the BJP for various reasons. These are the ‘outsiders’ are not taken seriously by the leadership. They are kept in good humour with a few crumbs thrown their way such as a governorship here, a chairmanship there, or membership of the Rajya Sabha or of legislative councils.

Similarly the VHP, the Bajrang Dal, the Swadeshi Jagran Manch and their organisations in the labour and students movements are all very much RSS owned and controlled. Hence the term parivar or family. By profiling the RSS thus I am not seeking to pass judgment on their basic passions but merely to focus on the reality.

The reality is :

When you vote for the BJP, you are really voting for the RSS

When you support the VHP you are supporting the RSS

When you support the Bajrang Dal you are supporting the RSS… and so on.

All the coalition partners of the BJP-led NDA government are therefore supporting the RSS. This they know but will not admit. When they voted in parlia-ment against the opposition’s motion on Gujarat they were really supporting the pogrom in Gujarat. This includes those who abstained or walked out during the voting. The RSS has got the measure of its’ allies their love of office and the perks that go with it.

Even in the days when the RSS was being driven into a corner with vociferous demands that the organisation be banned, Freedom First opposed the demand. And, despite Gujarat, we still do not agree with the demands being made for banning the RSS or any members of its family. The RSS has as much right as any other group in India to campaign and seek support for their point of view. It is for the people to choose. But if members of the RSS and their family are accused of breaking the law, they must be charged, tried and if found guilty, punished. The same holds good for members of muslim fundamentalist groups. This is the Liberal way.

We know where we Liberals stand vis a vis religious fundamentalist groups But pitiable, if not contemptible are the non-BJP allies in and outside the NDA who, for the sake of the fishes and loaves of offices, are prepared to be accomplices rather than allies.

Mr. Narendra Modi has declared that 50 crores Gujaratis are behind him. The truth will be known in September when Gujarat goes to the polls.

Meanwhile there is need to examine the majority/minority question. Professor Bandukwala observed at a recent meeting that it is ridiculous to call a population of 40 million muslims a minority. In fact this majority/minority concept so badly misused by politicians if not dealt with head on could result in two nations living within one with one of them consigned to the ghettoes. This is certainly not what the people of India want certainly not the muslims.

In our view, in the present context and after fifty years of independence, we are not qualified to describe our Bharat as Mahan. It is still a long way off.

S. V. Raju