EDITORIAL

Saffron Brigade, Thy Name is Perfidy!

THE orchestrated opinion poll peddled by pro-saffron drum-beaters of the India Today group, predicting a two-thirds victory for the BJP in Gujarat elections, is obviously not being taken seriously even by the saffron brigade. Having led a state-sponsored genocide, the self-anointed "chhota sardar" was nurturing hopes of a resounding victory but has chosen to change his own constituency for a “safer seat.” This in itself underlines the acute insecurity of the BJP in the coming polls. The acute infighting, leading on occasions to strife among the saffron aspirants in the state over the choice of candidates and constituencies, further confirms this insecurity.

As the elections draw closer, a macabre drama of saffron perfidy is unfolding. Atal Behari Vajpayee, an RSS pracharak, sent by the RSS “guru” Golwalkar way back in 1951 to set up a political front, i e the Jan Sangh, was earlier castigated by the VHP as being a moderate (!). This was because, in relation to the Election Commission’s directive to ban the VHP yatra in Gujarat, he had suggested that the law of the land be upheld. 

It is India’s tragedy that many well-meaning people saw in this act of the prime minister great sagacity. We have reached a state of affairs when we are asked to applaud a prime minister, under oath to protect the Indian constitution, when he seeks to do precisely that. As prime minister, it is his job to uphold the law of the land. In doing so, he is doing nobody a favour. But the accolades he receives for this, bring to mind the old machiavellian dictum of statecraft: first create fear among the people as to the worst that you are capable of doing, then proceed not to do that, and then the people will applaud you with a sigh of relief! 

Now it is the turn of another pracharak, sent on the same mission in 1951, to be castigated as a “moderate” and a “pseudo-secularist”! The architect of the Ramjanmabhoomi agitation, one whose yatras left behind an unprecedented trail of bloodshed and communal animosity, a person who articulated with fascist precision the agenda of the “Hindu Rashtra” is now being called by the VHP a moderate (!). The RSS, however, reacted more candidly when its spokesman stated that Advani is an old member of the organisation and hence he believes, like the RSS, that India always was and is a Hindu nation.

Further, the RSS spokesman told us that Advani's statement in the parliament, that India can never become a Hindu state, was the language of statecraft. Shorn of all obfuscation, what this means is perfidy --- pure and simple. Camouflaging the real intentions through demagogic rhetoric is the fascist methodology that the BJP employs to perfection today.

The real intention of the saffron brigade needs reiteration, even if it may appear repetition --- it is Modification of the secular democratic republican character of modern India into a fascistic rabidly intolerant “Hindu Rashtra.” It is this Modification process that needs to be stopped in its tracks in the coming Gujarat elections. 

Through these columns in the past, we had urged the secular forces to ensure a one-to-one contest in Gujarat to save India from such a metamorphosis.  As the largest opposition party in Gujarat, the Congress must take the lead to ensure this. It is only hoped that the Congress, unlike the myopic vision it adopted in Uttar Pradesh recently, will rise to the occasion in this case. If, on the contrary, the saffron brigade wins, then what is in store for India and its people is the unfolding of a lethal combination of machiavellian and fascistic agenda of India’s Modification.