(The Hindu, April 7, 2007)
Editorial
PLAYING FOUL
That a mainstream party, the Bharatiya Janata Party, revels in Muslim-bashing is not the best-kept of India's political secrets. The campaign of vitriol gets particularly nasty at election time — for obvious reasons. Since the party's raison d'etre as well as life force is communalism as a political mobilisation plank, its electoral strategy can only be pitting India's overwhelming Hindu majority against its 150 million Muslim minority. A case in point is the inflammatory anti-Muslim compact disc released in Lucknow on April 3 and `withdrawn' following protests. A party less blasé about its communal ideology and politics might have quietly released the CD on the election circuit. The BJP made a production of it. The CD was unveiled by party veteran Lalji Tandon at a press conference where the invitees got free copies for their edification. A comparable CD made it to the press kit of journalists during the BJP's December 2006 national executive meeting held in Lucknow where, in fact, the party inaugurated its U.P. campaign; in an incendiary speech made on that occasion, Kalyan Singh called all Muslims terrorists. Both CDs contain inflammatory anti-Muslim footage, including explicit shots of cow and buffalo slaughter. Finding itself badly wrong-footed, the BJP's leadership at both the State and national levels has attempted to distance the party from the second CD's contents. It was a test case for the Election Commission of India and for the whole process of democratic elections in the country.
After all, the BJP has got away, time and again, with inciting communal passions. A dispassionate analysis reveals that the major milestones on its post-1984 road to power have been communal campaigns revolving round the project of demolishing the Babri Masjid and building a Ram temple on its grave, and exploiting anti-Muslim pogroms, most notoriously in Gujarat. As in the case of Muslim fundamentalism and communalism, whatever be the moderate pretensions of top political leaders, the life force that moves the cadre on the ground is hate ideology and politics. This time with evidence in hand, the Election Commission has shown commendable seriousness in moving against the offenders. It has ordered the registration of FIRs against Mr. Tandon, BJP national president Rajnath Singh, and others responsible for the CD's production, release, distribution, and exhibition on the ground that it contains "inflammatory material capable of creating enmity/hatred among different communities" and punishable under provisions of the Indian Penal Code and also the electoral law. Further, the ECI has served notice on the BJP asking it to show cause why it should not be de-recognised under the electoral law for violating the Model Code of Conduct. A lot rides on how the ECI handles this case and how the BJP responds to the challenge. The statute book — the Indian Penal Code, the Representation of the People Act, 1951 and the Election Commission's Model Code of Conduct, the binding character of which has been upheld by the Supreme Court — provides enough and more backing for action against parties intentionally causing enmity and hatred among communities. This legal empowerment of secularism and national unity is very much in line with a resolution adopted by the Constituent Assembly on April 3, 1948, following the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi, to the effect that "communalism should be eliminated from Indian life" and that it was impermissible to mix religion and politics. In its 1994 judgment in the Bommai case, a nine-judge Constitution bench of the Supreme Court full-throatedly upheld secularism as a part of the `basic structure' of the Constitution, with Justices B.P. Jeevan Reddy and S.C. Agrawal observing that if the Constitution required the state to be secular in "thought and action" the same requirement "attaches to political parties as well." The time has come to close the gap between precept and practice by enforcing the electoral and criminal law against the nth time offenders in U.P.
|
