Politics without soul by Amit Sengupta 15 Oct 08 (http://epaper.sakaaltimes.com/default.aspx?selPg=163&page=15_10_2008_001.jpg&ed=987&BMode=100&artHigh=12)
Something sinister is in the air and there is a pattern to this inevitable, vicious and repetitive circle of diabolical events that has come to haunt the country yet again. And if one follows the philosophical concept of reality as a complex synthesis or anti-thesis of multiple layers, then the principle of totality would remind us that all that is happening in various parts, and timed accordingly at this moment in contemporary history, is basically interlinked, woven into each other like a circle within an unfinished circle. That is why it is crucial to reveal the sinister mentality that is masterminding this sequence of dark events, despite the apparent lack of transparency and clarity.
Soon after the nuke deal debate and cash for votes scam in Parliament, suddenly, this bubble burst, as if they were meticulously designed, moving from one bubble to another, as the simmering wounds waited for its time during this summer of discontent. The UPA regime, led by a one-dimensional Prime Minister obsessed with market fundamentalism, the nuclear deal and "deep love" for George Bush, its governor in Jammu and Kashmir with his bureaucratic India International Centre baggage carried over from Delhi, especially its home minister, in his immaculate sartorial misconception, botched up what seemed a rational and legitimate demand of the Amarnath Yatris. Only to make a predictable U-turn -- but by then it was too late.
The Valley, which till recently, was actually involved in popular gossip about an impending assembly elections, erupted like an enraged animal. The Hurriyat and pro-Pakistani hardliners like Syed Shah Geelani, who were effectively sidelined and were totally discredited, suddenly became the messiah of the masses. While slogans of Azadi rent the air, scores were killed in the Kashmir protests, shot by the security forces. Even while Jammu, strategically led by the RSS, fought pitched battles with the police forces shouting Bharat Mata ki jai, waving the tri-colour.
If there were two parties which were full of glee with this scheme of things, it was the Islamist hardliners in Pakistan, and the BJP and Sangh Parivar in India - both feeding onto each other's vicious Ku Klux Klan kind of sectarian dogmatism.
Meanwhile, the bomb blasts across Indian cities killing ordinary citizens shattered whatever little faith people had of peace and security in public spaces. The home ministry, the state governments, the police, the intelligence machinery, failed to anticipate the terror attacks, even while unexploded bombs were found hanging from trees and hoardings in Surat. What followed has been equally bizarre, with the Karnataka police denying the Delhi police claims, the Bombay police accusing the Delhi police of botching it all up after the Batla House encounter (real or fake?), while the Ahmedabad police and Modi claimed credit for all that was under the sky, quite forgetting that they too failed to anticipate the blasts. The Delhi police, in just about one day, claimed to have solved the Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Delhi and UP blasts, while the media lapped it all up as the ultimate and only version of this Rashomon narrative! In this jumbo puzzle, several masterminds have been showcased, with the police of different states rewriting their own brands of C-grade crime fiction.
I ndeed, if public perception decides the trajectory of mass consciousness, and hence the future of elec toral politics, the Batla House encounter and the consequent "witch-hunt" of youngsters of the Muslim community, often without a shred of evidence or proper constitutional and legal proceedings, might boomerang on the Congressled UPA. Sonia Gandhi will pay a heavy price for patronizing an incompetent home minister, who, apparently, was in the police control room when the encounter was staged. And her party will pay heavily in having a prime minister, who seems to have completely lost his sense of timing or administrative acumen in dealing with the domestic front - from back-breaking inflation, farmer suicides, land struggles against SEZs etc, to terrorism State-sponsored communal attacks against Christians in Orissa and Karnataka.
The spiral seems to be getting out of control, as orchestrated attacks on Christians follows the same pattern, as it was in the Dangs some years ago under the Narendra Modi regime, and then of course, what followed the tragic post-Godhra deaths - the Gujarat genocide, 2002. Between Kandhamal and Karnataka, and now, low intensity communal violence in many parts of India, the sinister shadow of the Sangh Parivar's hydra-headed octopus like fronts is as transparent as daylight. Every narrative proves the state governments' complicity in the organised violence against hapless citizens, even while the police (and the Centre) remain passive eye-witnesses. It's no joke: a nun gangraped in front of the police, a Hindu woman caretaker or an orphanage burnt alive, priests bashed into pulp, women paraded naked, 50,000 plus homeless or hiding in forests in Orissa, hundreds of churches desecrated in Karnataka while the police beat up mercilessly peaceful Christian protestors, including scores of women. And now, an entire Muslim family of a poor tailor burnt alive in Adilabad district, along with his little children.
If these are not futuristic signs of apocalypse now, what are we waiting for? Another prototype of the Gujarat carnage or the massacre of Sikhs 1984? Or the Shiv Sena-led pogrom against Muslims in Congress-ruled Maharashtra in that bloody winter of 1992-93, after the Babri Masjid was ravaged and communal killings spread across India - thanks to LK Advani? The Sangh moves in a sinister symphony, however jarring it may seem. Banning the Bajrang Dal (also found making bombs in several places and suspected to be involved in some blasts) is dicey, because this is an incestuous 'family of conspiracy'. Between the Bajrangis, the VHP, the RSS, the BJP, the Hindu/Swadeshi Jagran Manch and hundreds of front outfits, its layer upon layer of multiple, conspiratorial relationships, as they move to and fro from one layer into another. This is more complex than dual membership.
Praveen Togadia hates Modi for sidelining him in Gujarat but has manufactured the "successful Gujarat experiment" in Orissa. Even while he marched, homes were identified and burnt along the route, even while the RSS smiled in the twilight zone of this happy family. Ditto with Vinay Katiar, a former Bajrang Dal chief and a key factor behind the Babri demoliton, or Babu Bajrangi, notorious on the Tehelka tapes, glorifying murder, blood and gore, as if this is what nationalism or Hinduism is all about. It's time to rethink the politics of both secularism and patriotism. The non-BJP parties have struggled to find the wood from the trees.
Between soft and hard Hindutva, or various versions of the Modi model, if the nation yet again slips into bloody anarchy, and thousands of Indians are trapped in a dark tragedy driven by the desperate realpolitik of power, then democracy itself will be at stake. This is because the soul of India is under attack. Because this godless politics has neither faith nor soul.
(The writer is a freelance journalist)
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