People's Democracy

 CPI(M) General Secretary On Advani Episode

On June 11, Prakash Karat, general secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), issued the following reaction to Shri L K Advani withdrawing his resignation from the post of BJP president.

L K ADVANI’S resignation from the presidentship of the BJP and its withdrawal after three days underlines the fact that the BJP is a creature of the RSS. Only those with illusions about the true nature of the party, expected any defiance and break with the RSS ideology.

As for the issue of Jinnah, which was raised by Advani, it has been foreclosed by the resolution adopted by the BJP office bearers. The BJP has made it clear that it will not countenance any departure from the RSS view. Jinnah  was demonised by the Hindu communalists as solely responsible for the partition. Their version cannot be accepted by any objective view. The Muslim League, led by Jinnah, played the main role in the formation of Pakistan. At the same time, Hindu communalists made an equal contribution towards communalising politics and facilitating the two nation theory. In this category falls the RSS and the Hindu Mahasabha of Savarkar.

The effort of L K Advani to depict Jinnah’s advocacy of a benign tolerance of other religious communities within an Islamic state as a secular vision, is in line with his depiction of Savarkar and Hindutva as “secular.” Advani does not realise that it is not enough to decry a “theocratic state” to be secular.

It is, therefore, no surprise that this latest intellectual effort to legitimise communal politics has fallen flat. The only good thing to come out of this affair is that India-Pakistan relations continue to be on the path of progress.