People's Democracy

Harkishan Singh Surjeet

WHILE having his year-end rest at Kumarakom resort in Kerala, prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee has chosen to convey to the nation the outcome of his "musings" on some of the legacies which the Indian nation has inherited from the past and which need to be addressed in earnest in order to reach a solution of the problems involved. The prime minister’s views come to us through a two-part article that was published by some newspapers on January 2 and 3. Other newspapers had to be content with a summary of the same.

Overall, however, one can only say that though the prime minister has sought to present his case on two vital issues, Jammu & Kashmir, and Ayodhya, his case cannot be justified on either count.

Take the case of J&K which the prime minister himself has taken first. It is true that, after assuming office, Shri Vajpayee took certain steps to give an impression that he was trying to evolve a solution to this problem. These steps included the bus trip to Lahore and recently the unilateral ceasefire announced by the government of India. The whole nation welcomed these steps. However, as we have said in these columns (see People’s Democracy, December 24), neither earlier nor now, has the Vajpayee government spelt out the perspective in which it wants to solve the Kashmir problem. Suffice it to say that, in the absence of concrete steps, all the professions of good intentions at the time of the Lahore bus trip could not prevent a war from taking place in Kargil.

Where, then, does the problem lie?

The crux of the matter is that the regimes in independent India have constantly failed the people of Jammu & Kashmir who, in 1947, acceded to the Indian Union with great hopes, and in the face of great difficulties. On the one hand, they had to contend with the schemings of the Maharaja who, aided by organisations like the Praja Parishad (with which name the RSS functioned in the princely state), wanted to carve out an independent state for himself. On the other hand, they spurned the idea of merging with Pakistan in the name of religion and unambiguously rejected the Muslim League’s "two-nation theory." The Kashmiri people, on the contrary, held the opinion that their fate lay not with a theocratic Pakistan, but with a secular India. And it was this realisation that made them fight the Pak-trained raiders and make sacrifices in order to defend their choice.

However, all the hopes the people of J&K entertained while merging with India have been belied, giving rise to a deep sense of alienation among them. There were indeed a few instances when the people’s hopes were resurrected, e.g., when the Indira-Sheikh accord was signed in 1976, or when a United Front government was in office at New Delhi. Barring these stray instances, however, none of the union governments took the trouble to think as to why the Kashmir situation was going from bad to worse. Regarding the issue of the extent of autonomy to be provided to the state within the Indian Union, P V Narasimha Rao did say that the sky was the limit, but even at that time nothing concrete finally came out.

The situation further worsened after the BJP government assumed office at New Delhi. It is a well-known fact that the BJP (like its predecessor, the Jan Sangh, or its remote control, the RSS) has always been against Article 370 of the Indian Constitution, that symbolises the hopes and aspirations with which the J&K people acceded to the Indian Union. The BJP justifies its stand by saying that inclusion of the said article in the constitution was meant to be a temporary measure. But even if one accepts this argument, the question is: Has the purpose of the said article been achieved? Far from it.

Needless to say, the BJP has not yet given up its opposition to Article 370; it has simply postponed it for the sake of maintaining its power.

In the first part of his article, Shri Vajpayee says, "India never accepted the pernicious two-nation theory that brought about the partition." The statement needs to be qualified; the fact is that leaders of the country’s freedom struggle did finally accept the partition of the country under the pressure of the events. There is no point to lament over the past, however. The important point to note here is that Shri Vajpayee’s statement does not apply to his own organisations, i.e., the BJP and the RSS. The two-nation theory was an offshoot of the idea that seeks to define a nation on the basis of religion, and the BJP has not yet given up this equation. On the other hand, BJP leaders are never tired of abusing as "pseudo-secularists" those who advocate complete separation of politics and religion. As recently as on New Year's Eve, a top BJP leader and union minister, Murli Manohar Joshi, tried to virulently defend the practice of mixing religion with politics.

This line of thinking has a great bearing on the Kashmir question and its resolution. The fact is that the RSS and the BJP have all along viewed the Kashmir issue through the spectacles of communalism; to them, it is not a question of fulfilling the genuine aspirations of the J&K people, but a problem involving the Muslims. It was this very communal attitude with which the RSS recently advocated a trifurcation of the state into three regions --- namely, into a Hindu-majority Jammu, a Muslim-majority Valley and Ladakh. Not only that, the RSS even floated a frontal organisation in the state to press for the trifurcation move.

To reiterate, it is simply impossible to solve the Kashmir problem with such a communal attitude. The fact is that, all through his musings, Shri Vajpayee has been oblivious of the sense to the alienation that has gripped the Kashmiri masses. He correctly talks of "those Kashmiris who have become refugees in their own motherland," and there is indeed the need to create a situation conducive for a safe and honourable return of these Kashmiris to their ancestral places. But, sadly, our prime minister has no word to say about the problems the Kashmiri people as a whole have been facing all these years.

In fact, Vajpayee’s article does not indicate that he has any way out of the impasse in the state. He does talk of the need to talk with Pakistan or the militant groups operating in the Valley, and nobody can have any valid objection to the commencement of such talks. But he is silent about the need to take steps to activise the patriotic forces in the state that stand by Indian unity, to initiate developmental activities in the state, and to overcome the people’s sense of alienation in order to win them over. Our prime minister is also silent on the issue of restoring maximum possible autonomy to the state in accordance with the letter and spirit of Article 370. It is simply ridiculous to hope that the Kashmir question can be solved without fulfilling these imperatives.

As for talking to the militant groups, we have already said that they are proposing only two solutions to the problem --- either the state’s merger with Pakistan or its independence --- and that these are no genuine solutions at all. A genuine and lasting solution to the problem is possible only within the framework of Indian unity. If, therefore, the Vajpayee government falls into the trap under the US pressure, which is very much there, it will only play havoc with our national unity and integrity.

Coming to the Ayodhya issue, Shri Vajpayee seems to be concerned with justifying what he said on December 6, 2000, eighth anniversary of the Babri Masjid demolition. Pretending to be hurt, he even accuses his "political adversaries" of stalling the parliament’s proceedings for three days in a row and twisting his arguments "for no other reason but to gain political advantage." He further claims that his reply in both the houses of parliament has set the record straight forever.

Before we come to Shri Vajpayee’s argument in self-justification, we must also put the record straight by saying that the reality is contrary to his description of the Ayodhya dispute as "a legacy of the last millennium." Implicit in the prime minister’s words is the assumption that there did exist a temple at the site of the Babri Masjid and that the temple was demolished in 1528; otherwise the dispute could not be a legacy of the last millennium. But the fact is that the Ayodhya dispute arose only after some idols were surreptitiously placed within the mosque one night in December 1949; before that the temple-mosque dispute did not exist. What Shri Vajpayee tells us is thus no reality, but a piece from the Saffron Brigade’s propaganda armory.

Shri Vajpayee also glosses over the fact that, while the dispute was in a dormant state for about three and a half decades, it was the VHP, a constituent of the Sangh Parivar, which raked it up in the 1980s. Nor is the prime minister willing to recall that, after playing neutral for some time, his own party plunged into the temple movement, leading to the heinous demolition of the mosque on December 6, 1992.

Defending his December 6, 2000 statement describing the temple movement as "an expression of the national sentiment" and "an unfinished task," Shri Vajpayee tries to correct his adversaries by saying that he had "consciously" used the expression in the past tense which was overlooked. He says: "…..the movement for the construction of a Ram temple in Ayodhya was an expression of our national sentiment" before it became narrow and restrictive in the wake of the demolition. The same pernicious equation of nation with religion is evident in this verbal jugglery as well. Whether it is in the past tense or in the present tense, it is the sentiment of a sectarian organisation, preposterously claiming to represent a whole religious community, which has been presented here as a "national" sentiment.

Shri Vajpayee is absolutely correct when he says that "the wrongs of a medieval past cannot be righted by a similar wrong in modern times." But he must also not forget what position his party and other frontal organisations of the RSS took during the run-up to the demolition. His party and cabinet colleague, Shri L K Advani, who was BJP president at the time of the Babri demolition, is on record saying that the issue of the temple construction at the Babri site was a matter of "faith" which no court could adjudicate. The VHP even went a step ahead, saying it would accept a court verdict only if it was in its favour. This abject disregard for the laws of the land was in total contrast to the stand taken by Muslim leaders that would accept the court verdict, no matter what it was.

Even today, while Shri Vajpayee talks of the need of resolving the Ayodhya dispute either through a court verdict or through mutual negotiations, the VHP is hell bent on pursuing its dangerous game. It is in fact such organisations, or rather the Sangh Parivar as a whole, whom Shri Vajpayee should have addressed, instead of taking a dig at his political adversaries.

It is useless for Shri Vajpayee to pretend hurt by saying that he was transformed from a moderate into a hardliner. Not to talk of his earlier pronouncements, his well-documented statement at Staten Island, off New York, or his December 6 statement, leaves no one in doubt as to where his heart actually lies. During Shri Vajpayee’s clarification in parliament, the press reported the presence of important VHP leaders in the visitors’ gallery and their sense of satisfaction over the former’s reply. Was it accidental?

And now comes the clinching fact. After having continued their temple prefabrication drive all these years, VHP leaders say they would announce from their January 19-20 "dharma sansad" at the Kumbh Mela, the date on which temple construction would begin. Despite Shri Vajpayee’s fulmination against any attempt to disturb the status quo at Ayodhya, these VHP leaders seem to be unmoved.

For example, when The Pioneer (a pro-BJP paper these days) telephonically contacted Acharya Giriraj Kishore, a senior VHP leader, about Shri Vajpayee’s "warning," the Acharya was "unperturbed" and said "it was his (PM’s) duty to say so and he is doing that only." The Acharya even retorted: "Where is the question of breaking the law? We act like Narasimha avtaar..… who, while keeping all his promises which he had made to Hiranyakashyap, was still able to get rid of him." It is clear that Shri Vajpayee’s warnings have no real value for the organisations of the Sangh Parivar and they are in no mood to give up their communal drive. Will Shri Vajpayee accept this unpalatable reality and do something about it?