Shameful Varun Gandhi Hate Speech (editorial, Mail Today)

Mail Today
18 March 2009
Editorial


Varun’s inflammatory remarks are a shame

FRUSTRATION can make men do queer things. This seems a reasonable explanation for the rabidly communal stance adopted by Varun Gandhi in the course of electioneering in Pilibhit, the seat from which the Bharatiya Janata Party wants to send him to Parliament. He has been making anti- Muslim statements of late that would put many from the Sangh Parivar to shame. He has talked of beheading ‘ them’, of how scary ‘ they’ look at night and defending Hindus to death, the kind of hateful gibberish that one expects from rabid Hindutva extremists.

It is true that fate has doled out a raw deal to Varun Gandhi. He not just lost his father Sanjay Gandhi at a tender age but also was deprived of the family legacy that perhaps would have been his had his father’s life not been cruelly cut short.

With her links with the Gandhi family severed, his mother Maneka Gandhi explored several political options before her desire for political relevance landed her in the camp of the Sangh Parivar.

But to belong to a right- wing party through inheritance and to speak the language of its lunatic fringe for carving a political space for oneself are not one and the same thing — for once even the BJP seems embarrassed by statements made by a party member. More so, considering that even Varun’s much maligned late father was not accused of being against the minorities.

In any case, since the law is not concerned with the whys and wherefores of an illegal act, it must go ahead and punish Varun Gandhi for it. Gandhi now says that the CD which carries footage of the controversial speech he made in Pilibhit in early March is ‘ doctored’. Prima facie much should not be made of this assertion considering that it has become a norm for politicians to say or do unpardonable things and later claim that footage capturing it is doctored or that the media has quoted them out of context.

The Election Commission has already served a notice on the misguided Varun Gandhi for breach of the model code of conduct and ordered filing of a criminal case against him. It must consider Varun’s reply, examine the CD and, in case the charges against him are found true, disenfranchise him from the impending electoral exercise. Making an example of a politician, irrespective of his distinguished lineage, will send the right message to the political class in the run- up to the general elections.