Madam,
will they be shamed by your blunt words?
By
S
Gurumurthy
http://www.newindpress.com/Newsitems.asp?ID=IEH20020301124139&Title=Top+Stories&rLink=144
Commenting
on the roasting alive of 60 persons inside the Sabarmati Express in Godhra in
Gujarat, she said, ``it is saddening and strange that when such acts are
perpetrated against the minorities all political leaders rush'' to condemn. But
when the majority is attacked, ``not a single political leader'' condemns it.
She rubbed it in further. ``It is not as if crime is a crime only if it is
committed against the minorities, and not so if it is committed against the
majority community.'' She is also a politician. She is all set to become the
Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu again. That is Jayalalithaa.
Indeed a stunning admonition of the secular pack by one from within. She has
exposed and shamed the entire political class by this single statement. She has
shown the courage to speak out on the malaise in our secular polity. But the
malaise runs deeper.
It is not
confined to politics. It extends to the entire secular class. And a large
intellectual class. It is founded on pseudo-intellectualism and
pseudo-secularism that presently form the foundation of the public discourse.
Let us analyse this in its full dimension.
The reaction of Indian seculars to the gruesome killing of over 58 persons in
the train in Godhra was predictable. From Star TV, for which anti-India
campaigns are a hobby, to every small English newspaper, virtually it is the
dead, that is, `the Ram sevaks', who provoked the mob to kill them. Their
thrust: ``The Ram Sevaks shouted provocative, abusive slogans.'' So goes their
report. ``The local people in Muslim-dominated Godhra got irritated'. This
virtually rationalises the rest. It means this: ``Yes, the roasting of a hundred
men, women and children is unfortunate, wrong, condemnable, but inevitable.''
That is, the Ram sevaks invited it upon themselves.
Look at the first facts. The Sabarmati Express stops in Godhra for just three
minutes. In three minutes a large mob of thousands of people cannot gather. It
has to be a planned attack. From what the Home Secretary of Gujarat says and the
news reports, a common thread emerges.
First, when the train approached Godhra, some people had thrown stones at it. At
this point there was no question of any provocative slogans being heard by
anyone. Because, from a moving train nothing decipherable can be heard.
Second, as soon as the train started moving out of the station, after its three
minutes' halt, some one _ unknown _ pulled the chain and stopped it. It is said
that it could be the handiwork of an attacker who had got into the train. The
train stopped near the signal point. It is unlikely that passengers who were
being stoned would stop the train to invite being hit. Particularly when the
train had many women and children. They would have only liked the train to move
away as fast as possible from the place. So the miscreant who stopped the train
could not be the victim. He could only be the attacker.
Third, as soon as the train stopped the mob did the rest. It rained stones on
passengers. One of the coaches was doused with kerosene and petrol and set on
fire. The fire, say reports, spread to more compartments. Many passengers jumped
out. But those who could not, some 25 women and 15 children, were burnt to
death.
The sequence establishes not a spontaneous outburst as the seculars in the media
attempt to make it out. It does establish a pre-meditated plan to attack the
train. The secular media virtually rationalises the killings.
Imagine it was the other way round. The passengers had been Muslims, and the
attackers Hindus. All hell would have broken loose.
``Hindu fundamentalists, blood thirsty Bajrang Dal goons on the rampage.''
``National shame.'' There would have been a national shutdown. Leader after
leader and party after party would have trooped towards Godhra and Ahmedabad.
There would have been global condemnation. The nation as a whole would have
stood condemned.
As chance would have it, those killed were only Hindus,
irrelevant to secular India. If a Christian church in thatched roof were
attacked, Christian governments in the west to US would pounce on us. If it were
Muslims the entire Muslim world would converge on us. Because the burnt were
Hindus there was no such danger of any one protesting too much. Even
more fortunately, those killed were after all Ram sevaks, Hindu bigots. After
all those who attacked them had enough justification because the Ram sevaks were
provoking them. So no one was at fault, except those who provoked their own
death. Like a victim of rape having invited it upon her.
Compare the Godhra carnage with what happened when some
tribals torched Staines and his children in Orissa. Hell broke loose. The entire
country was set upon and came to a halt. ``Hindu Fundamentalists,
RSS-VHP-Bajrang Dal'' goons have snuffed out a great social worker, shouted the
secular megaphones _ the media, leaders and parties. Thanks to the media in
India and missionaries, the entire world abused India as a country.
Then came the report of the Wadhwa Commission
on the Staines murder. The former Supreme Court judge ruled out the involvement
of RSS or VHP or Bajrang Dal. He also held Staines
responsible for effecting conversions, which was disliked by the local tribals.
The findings completely falsified the concoctions of the secular media and the
minority religious leaders. But the damage had been done. We were projected as a
nation of religious bigots. Not a single word of regret
from the media, which destroyed the nation's image in its enthusiasm to finish
off the Hindu movements.
The same was the case in Jhabua rape. It was established to be an intra-tribal
and intra-Christian affair. But the secular media and the minorities blamed the
Hindus and RSS. Even after the truth was established the secular media would not
report it, much less express regret.
Every such concocted charge demeaned India and destroyed its brand. All thanks
to the despicable role of the seculars in the media and the minority religious
leaders. Christian nations of Europe who had in the past baked over 9 million
women as witches and eliminated over 140 million native Americans to create the
present Christian US - a historic fact which Bill Clinton recalled in the wake
of the World Trade Center attack as what is haunting the US even now _ are
advising us about religious harmony.
So unlike the Jhabua rape, and the hyped Staines murder, the killing of a
hundred Hindus will fortunately not smear the honour of India. For, those women
and children, who have been reduced to ashes alive in Godhra, are not Christians
or Muslims. So the nation's name will not be tarnished. No one outside India
will ask a question, as fortunately there is no Hindu nation in the world. No
one will ask a question for they happen to be not just Hindus, but also Ram
sevaks. Their right of existence is lost once they provoked the attackers. So
even after being torched alive, the Ram sevaks will have to share the blame for
their death.
This is the real face of secularism as practised in
India, of the secular media, of the secular leaders and of the secular polity.
This is what the Ayodhya movement questioned. It is not just a movement for a
temple. A temple could not integrate the Hindus as it has done. It is far more.
Thanks to this the nation woke up to the pseudo among the seculars. But still
the pseudo masquerades as the real. Perhaps the Ayodhya movement will continue
as long as the very notion of secularism _ and who is the real secular and who
is the pseudo _ is not defined, only to question it. If Gujarat is on fire
today, and the country is witnessing fits of communal outburst the secular class
has to accept its own share of blame.
Jayalalithaa has implicitly condemned the entire secular class, not just the
political leaders. Rightly. Will they be shamed into accepting the truth?
|