LOK SABHA ADJOURNMENT MOTION 

Advani Defends The Indefensible

 Harkishan Singh Surjeet

 THE debate on the adjournment motion which the Lok Sabha took up for consideration on November 18, on the very first day of its winter session, did underline once again how duplicity has been, and is, the Sangh Parivar’s stock in trade. Political observers have noted since long how one and the same person of the Parivar says two things at two different times, how two members or outfits of the Parivar speak contradictory things at the same time, and how their deeds have often been at variance with their words.

A similar spectacle was seen in Lok Sabha on the day.

 The gravity of the issue, that was stirring the minds of the members, was evident from the fact that as many as six members moved their adjournment motions on “failure of the government in curbing the communal elements in the country, specially in Gujarat.” They were Ramji Lal Suman (SP), Prabodh Panda (Congress), Raghuvansh Prasad Singh (RJD), Ajoy Chakraborty (CPI), Rupchand Pal and Subodh Roy (both CPI-M). Of these, the speaker accepted Roy’s motion on procedural grounds and asked him to introduce the same. (See a report on the motion’s introduction elsewhere in this issue.) The marathon debate in the house on the day saw the treasury benches completely on the defensive even if they, as was predictable, defeated the motion by their sheer number.  

TURNING REALITY UPSIDE DOWN

IT is not important to recall here who said what during the debate; our people do know the position of various parties and forces on all the important issues facing the country. But the way some BJP members defended the Sangh Parivar’s black deeds in Gujarat during at least four months (February-end to June-end) was really astonishing. Listen to a prominent BJP figure, Professor Vijay Kumar Malhotra, for instance:

 “This house must congratulate the Gujarat government that an atmosphere of peace prevails there at present, not a single such incidence is taking place. No incidence took place after the VHP took out a token yatra in Gujarat. Congress, Samajwadi Dal and others were waiting that some untoward incident, some massacre, some communal riot must take place in Gujarat, but peace was established there, foiling all their attempts. For this, the Gujarat government and the VHP must be congratulated” (emphasis added).  

This is nothing but turning the reality upside down  --- characteristic of those who lack any regard for truth. The impression Malhotra sought to give is that while others were itching to have some disturbance in Gujarat to reap narrow benefits, the VHP-Bajrang Dal killers, and the Modi government that patronised these killers, were out to preserve peace in the state!

About the charge that the Parivar had “turned the Gujarat of Gandhi into Gujarat of Godse,” Malhotra even resorted to a blunt lie. He challenged the opposition to tell him about a single Congress leader or municipal councillor who got hurt during the whole episode.

One does not have to go far to call the bluff. Later during the debate, former Gujarat minister Harin Pathak of Malhotra’s own party did mention late Shri Ehsan Jaffri, though in a twisted way. One will recall that the marauding RSS-VHP gangs had burnt alive the same Jaffri, a former Congress MP, along with some of his family members during the pogrom.

DEFENDING THE INDEFENSIBLE

BUT of all the interventions made during the debate, Advani’s was the most notable for the way he sought to defend the indefensible conduct of the Parivar in Gujarat. Speaking towards the end of the debate, before Roy was asked to make a reply, Advani had no guts to deny that minorities were killed in cold blood in the state in those horror-packed four months. Yet he obliquely sought to defend Modi whose government had backed the marauding gangs, by complimenting him for “good governance.” In fact, he even sought to give the whole issue a sentimental twist by quoting Harin Pathak to the effect that “five crore Gujaratis” were being defamed. This was like equating the Sangh Parivar with the whole people of Gujarat!

During his speech, Advani correctly pointed out that when the Constituent Assembly was busy framing a constitution for independent India, not a single member demanded that India must be declared a theocratic state. It is a fact that our constitution-makers were aware of the crucial importance of secularism for our national unity and integrity, even though it was only in 1976 that the word “secularism” was added to the constitution’s preamble. He said India is a secular country and nobody would be able to turn it into a theocratic one. He said India’s secularism owed its strength to the country’s cultural ethos and age-old civilisation and not to any particular political formation.

All this is so far so good. But in the same breath, our deputy prime minister cum home minister also sought to equate Hinduism with Hindutva; in fact he used these two words interchangeably a few times in his speech. Here, without going into what Shri Ramkrishna Paramhans, Swami Vivekanand or Swami Dayanand said of Hinduism, the simple fact is that Hindutva of the RSS-BJP’s conception is certainly not an equivalent of Hinduism which a great majority of our people follow. Therefore Advani’s complaint that some people take it as something communal when the Sangh Parivar talks of “Hindutva or Hinduism,” simply lacks any weight.   

Nor is there any use of Advani quoting from Justice Verma’s judgement, in a case a few years ago, that Hinduism indicates “more of a way of life of the Indian people.” A constitution bench of the Supreme Court has already laid to rest all controversy in this regard by stating that secularism constitutes the very basic framework of our constitution. In fact, Advani’s quotation from Justice Verma’s judgement represents a case of selective memory.

ABUSIVE VOCABULARY 

BUT what Advani sought to prove during his speech became clear when he said that “the people of India will not accept pseudo-secularism either.”   

  In fact, this term pseudo-secularism has its own pedigree. It is a term coined by RSS ideologues and is not used by anybody outside their circle. What the Sangh Parivar seeks to convey by this term --- though in vain --- is that its own men are genuinely secular while others only swear by secularism. The term is thus a part of the abusive RSS vocabulary against others.

The RSS logic is simple to the extent of being deceptive. If one defends the minorities, their rights and their interests from the attacks being launched by fascist communal outfits, one is “pseudo-secular” and guilty of what the RSS calls “minority appeasement.” On the other hand, to the RSS, genuine secularism means that one must never say a word if its goons are out to kill the Christians or Muslims, destroy their properties and livelihood, ransack their places of worship, and force them to live as second-class citizens in their own country. This was what late Shri Golwalkar taught them.

But going by this logic, all our constitution-makers (by whom Advani swore in his speech) were pseudo-secular!

Advani’s intention also became clear when he verbally regretted the Babri demolition while in the same breath terming the “Ayodhya movement” as a “noble” (shrestha) movement. As he himself said, here he only reiterated what he had deposed before the Liberhan commission, on which we have already commented. Here we would only say this much: how sad Advani felt on December 6, 1992, is clear from the widely disseminated pictures that showed him, M M Joshi and Ms Uma Bharati flaunting a broad smile when the mosque was being pulled down!  

Be that as it may, Advani himself could not escape having a taste of the abusive vocabulary that his party and its parent organisation have been using against others. The VHP took strong exception to his --- otherwise correct ---announcement that India would never become a theocratic state (mazahabi rajya) and that the state is duty-bound to protect the minorities. In a press conference next day, Ashok Singhal and V H Dalmiya accused him of indulging in “pseudo-secularism.” Whether this reflects or not the “VHP’s growing disillusionment with the BJP leadership,” as the Hindustan Times (November 20) has pointed out, the VHP “has for the first time chosen to target Advani.”

And now The Statesman’s contention (November 19): “With the defeat of the adjournment motion, the opposition has lost the opportunity to question the centre’s role vis-à-vis the conduct of Mr Narendra Modi, Acharya Dharmendra and Mr Praveen Togadia during the election process.” But do the paper’s scribes really think that the struggle to protect the nation’s fate and future have ended with the defeat of a motion in parliament?