People's Democracy

GEORGE Fernandes excelled his own high standards of litany and disinformation in the debate on the Gujarat genocide in the Lok Sabha. Suffering from a myopic conception that as the defence minister, it is his job to defend the indefensible, he rose to display a pathetic, "more loyal than the king" attitude.

In a shameless defence and justification of the cruel genocide in Gujarat, Mr Fernandes tried to remind the House that what happened to women and children is nothing new! The deliberate rape of women in front of their children and other family members and then setting them on fire to burn to death is for Mr Fernandes, something that keeps happening. The rape and the subsequent slitting open of the stomach of a pregnant woman and setting the foetous on fire for Mr Fernandes, is a common occurrence. Nauseating!

Mr Fernandes seeks to justify the worst of crimes that a human being is capable of committing taking recourse to the fact that this has happened earlier. He may even justify cannibalism and human sacrifices since these happened earlier in human civilisation. An elementary norm of human civilisation is to learn to mature by not repeating the crimes of the past. This, however, does not apply to those like the saffron brigade and their fascist advocates who actually seek to turn back the clock of the civilisational advance. If at all, any confirmation were needed, it came during this debate that political opportunism has acquired a fathomless bottom under Mr Fernandes's leadership. Human life is too small a price to pay to remain in office. The rape of mothers, the butchery of sisters, the extermination of entire families can be justified, if necessary, to continue to remain in office.

By George, what a shame!