[Daily Times - September 16, 2004
URL: http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_16-9-2004_pg3_3 ]
Politics of appeasement
by J Sri Raman
What India witnesses today is not an encounter between two extremes in which Congress can cast itself in the role of referee. The only conflict is between the communal fascists and the rest of the country. Congress cannot survive the conflict in the long run without taking sides
Appeasement of the minorities is one of the Indian Far-Right’s favourite accusations against its political opponents, especially the Congress, which has returned recently to power at the head of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA). The charge has only helped the party by making it appear a champion of the minorities. A fairer charge against it, after four months in power, would be appeasement of a majoritarian fascism.
Appeasement marked the very formation of the government in May following a decisive electoral defeat of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its band. Conventions of parliamentary democracy were contemptuously thrown to the winds, as the Congress meekly capitulated in the face of an obscenely obscurantist BJP campaign to stall the swearing in of Sonia Gandhi as the country’s prime minister.
It was not a question of comparative merits of Gandhi and Manmohan Singh. It was no debate on ‘dynastic politics’ that decided the issue. The Far Right won no war against a ‘family rule’. It was an outrageous ‘anti-foreigner’ offensive, unleashed by BJP leaders Sushma Swaraj and Uma Bharti that achieved the objective. Swaraj threatened to cut off her tresses and start living in white apparel and on green gram, if Gandhi did not give up the post, to which the Congress Parliamentary Party had elected her. Bharti, the saffron-clad, then chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, announced her resolve to resign and proceed on a pilgrimage in order to make the same point.
Gandhi responded by giving in. The Congress and the media claimed that the “sacrifice” had nearly made Gandhi a saint and transformed her into a political titan. While the episode may indeed have invested her with a moral halo, it also raised the fascists’ morale as little else could have even as they were licking their wounds. They were trying to tell the country, besides their cadre, that the electoral debacle made no big difference. And the Congress, none else, was bearing them out!
Having tasted blood, they were bound to move in for more kills. They took their next chance by making an issue of ‘tainted ministers’. The BJP demanded the dismissal of arraigned ministers, without waiting for the courts to convict them. The Congress and its coalition government again appeased the obstreperous opposition, which blocked parliamentary proceedings on the issue disallowing a debate even on national budget. One of the ‘tainted ministers’, tribal leader Shibu Soren, involved in a case of political violence long ago, was thrown out of the government.
Also, the prime minister has repeatedly argued that the appointment of ‘tainted ministers’ cannot be avoided, if ‘tainted’ politicians continue to contest polls and be returned to the parliament. The idea of curtailing political rights on the basis of police charge sheets has gone unchallenged.
Bharti again figured in the next major instance of the Congress providing fresh issues for fascist exploitation. Her resignation as chief minister was real this time. It followed mysterious moves by the Congress-led government in a decade-old bunch of court cases dealing with communal riots. She had played a leading role in a BJP attempt to create an Ayodhya in the south. The party had run another campaign of religious communalism, another real-estate issue, charging that a minority community organisation had appropriated the Idgah grounds in small-town Hubli.
Bharti, who egged on the demolition squad at Babri Majid, had hoisted the tricolour national flag at Idgah during curfew hours. This led to loss of human lives. The charge against her (an attempt to incite communal violence) was not pursued. The criminal case against her in this connection was recently revived, as mysteriously as most of the other related cases were closed years ago. Even more mysteriously, the Karnataka government has now dropped all charges against her.
Many wonder whether or not there a political deal behind this. Will the charges in the Babri Masjid demolition case be dropped as well?
What these compromises and capitulations conceal — or reveal – is a curious lack of ideological clarity. The prime minister himself, despite his eminence as an economist, has provided proof. Asked about the moves to “detoxify” hate-peddling history textbooks prescribed during the BJP’s days in power, Mr Singh reportedly said that the intention was only to rectify errors. He added: “I am opposed to Left fundamentalism as well as to Right fundamentalism”.
What India witnesses today is not an encounter between two extremes in which Congress can cast itself in the role of referee. The only conflict is between the communal fascists and the rest of the country. Congress cannot survive the conflict in the long run without taking sides.
The writer is a journalist and peace activist based in Chennai, India
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