The Hindu
May 14, 2007)
Editorial
Well done, Election Commission
The Election Commission of India's strategy on the Bharatiya Janata Party's defiant communalism has succeeded brilliantly. The ECI needed to pick up the gauntlet when the saffron party challenged it and the electoral law with a venomous CD at the start of the campaign for the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections. In asking the party to condemn the contents of the production while reserving the right to derecognise the party, it acted with firmness and reasonableness. In the end, the BJP, whose leaders quibbled and equivocated about the CD's contents and status right through the election campaign, was left with no choice but to come out with an unequivocal condemnation. The Commission did the sensible thing in turning down the plea that its powers should be used to derecognise the BJP as a national party. Invoking Paragraph 16(A) of the Election Symbols (Reservation and Allotment) Order 1968 — which empowers the Commission to "suspend or withdraw recognition of a recognised political party for its failure to observe [the] Model Code of Conduct" — would have set a dubious precedent with uncertain legal and risky political implications. As the Commission itself has conceded, its power to derecognise a party has not yet been judicially tested.
The condemnation wrested from the BJP has come on the back of defeat in an Assembly election that was fair and wondrously free from the predicted violence and anarchy. This was a tremendous achievement in a State that has a voter base of more than 110 million, 113,000 polling stations, 403 Assembly constituencies, and an unenviable history of bogus voting. It was accomplished by a thorough verification and cleaning up of the voter list, tight control of the polling process, and 100 per cent coverage of the polling stations with central paramilitary forces. Such an achievement would not have been possible without a cohesive, well-knit, and independent ECI. There is nothing wrong in criticising the Commission, for example, when it overdoes campaigning restrictions or seeks to `ban' opinion and exit polls. But what must be deplored is the attempt by the BJP to undermine the institutional integrity of the body through a self-damaging campaign against Election Commissioner Navin Chawla for alleged bias towards the Congress. For the sake of even-handedness, it needs to be pointed out that before N. Gopalaswami — L. K. Advani's chosen Home Secretary who was appointed Election Commissioner by the National Democratic Alliance government — took over as Chief Election Commissioner, there was a whispering campaign about his political inclinations. In both cases, the branding has been shown to be baseless and irresponsible. The elections of the past two years — in Bihar, West Bengal, Uttarakhand, Punjab, and now U.P. — have borne no evidence of any refereeing bias. It is ironic that during the campaign Mulayam Singh accused the Commission of being an agent of both the Congress and the BJP, and post-election he has blamed the ECI for his defeat. For argument's sake, it must also be pointed out that constitutional functionaries — be they judges, speakers, governors, or presidents — may come from different social and even political backgrounds and have their firm ideas and connections. The critical thing is that they must function with integrity, independence, and impartiality in high office. The three members of the ECI have certainly done that to the acclaim of democratic India.
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Showing posts with label CD. Show all posts
Showing posts with label CD. Show all posts
May 14, 2007
May 10, 2007
Indian Express editorial asks BJP to conform to Election Commision Order
(Indian Express
May 10, 2007)
Editorial
Correct, EC
BJP would emerge the better by conforming to the Commission’s order on the offensive CD
The Election Commission has had to tread a very fine line on the controversial compact disc released by Lalji Tandon, one the the party’s seniormost leaders in Uttar Pradesh, at the beginning of what has proved to be a long, arduous and complex election. On the one hand, the Commission had to reckon with angry demands, raised by BJP’s political opponents, that the party be de-recognised for promoting hate speech. On the other, it had to assess whether the party had sufficiently distanced itself from the offensive CD.
The first thing the EC did right was to separate the CD issue from the heat, dust and passion of electoral campaigning. It waited until the last vote was cast, before it spoke out. The EC refused to get intimidated by the BJP’s strategy of trying to undermine its credibility by attempting to target one specific election commissioner. Its verdict, when it came, also passed the test of electoral propriety. By asking the BJP to issue an “unequivocal and unambiguous declaration” in condemnation of the CD, it was abiding by the letter and spirit of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, which categorises the promotion of feelings of enemity between different groups of citizens as a corrupt electoral practice. The EC also refused to oblige those in favour of quickfix solutions like de-recognition although it did not, interestingly, completely rule out that possibility.
For the BJP, there is only one course of action. True, the party suffers from no dearth of individuals who believe that it should brazen its way out of the embarrassing strictures. But that would be a spectacularly obtuse thing to do, given that its top leaders had promptly disassociated themselves from the CD when the controversy first broke out. If the BJP wants to put this sorry saga behind it as swiftly as possible and move on, it should conform to the EC’s order.
editor@expressindia.com
May 10, 2007)
Editorial
Correct, EC
BJP would emerge the better by conforming to the Commission’s order on the offensive CD
The Election Commission has had to tread a very fine line on the controversial compact disc released by Lalji Tandon, one the the party’s seniormost leaders in Uttar Pradesh, at the beginning of what has proved to be a long, arduous and complex election. On the one hand, the Commission had to reckon with angry demands, raised by BJP’s political opponents, that the party be de-recognised for promoting hate speech. On the other, it had to assess whether the party had sufficiently distanced itself from the offensive CD.
The first thing the EC did right was to separate the CD issue from the heat, dust and passion of electoral campaigning. It waited until the last vote was cast, before it spoke out. The EC refused to get intimidated by the BJP’s strategy of trying to undermine its credibility by attempting to target one specific election commissioner. Its verdict, when it came, also passed the test of electoral propriety. By asking the BJP to issue an “unequivocal and unambiguous declaration” in condemnation of the CD, it was abiding by the letter and spirit of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, which categorises the promotion of feelings of enemity between different groups of citizens as a corrupt electoral practice. The EC also refused to oblige those in favour of quickfix solutions like de-recognition although it did not, interestingly, completely rule out that possibility.
For the BJP, there is only one course of action. True, the party suffers from no dearth of individuals who believe that it should brazen its way out of the embarrassing strictures. But that would be a spectacularly obtuse thing to do, given that its top leaders had promptly disassociated themselves from the CD when the controversy first broke out. If the BJP wants to put this sorry saga behind it as swiftly as possible and move on, it should conform to the EC’s order.
editor@expressindia.com
May 06, 2007
BJP’s CD calls for a bolder response
(The Tribune
May 5, 2007)
Not by de-recognition
BJP’s CD calls for a bolder response
by J. Sri Raman
TO derecognise or not to derecognise — that is not the question. It, certainly, is not the real issue raised by the infamous compact disc (CD), which records the unwritten manifesto of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for the ongoing Assembly elections in the country’s most populous and therefore politically most important State of Uttar Pradesh.
At the time of writing, the Election Commission has reserved its ruling on the issue. It has done so after hearing the legal luminaries doubling as the leaders of the BJP and the Congress, besides others. The former, who leave all crude propaganda to compact discs and similar other devices, have taken a lofty stand against the commission deciding questions of ideology like secularism. They have also taken the technical plea that a party cannot be derecognised for such a minor delinquency as violation of the non-enforceable model code of conduct. The Congress, for its part, has combined its demand for derecognition of its main rival at the national level to one for a public apology for the offending disc.
The contents of the disc, meanwhile, have received far wider dissemination than the cadre of the BJP and the “parivar” (the far-right “family”) could have given them in the sprawling State. For those who take an elevated view of our electoral exercises and disregard sordid details such as found in reports on the disc, it presents issues of fundamental importance to the party in a dramatic format.
It depicts the threat from a terrorist minority in diverse and dire forms. Without mumbling about “members of a certain community”, as “pseudo-secularists” may do, the disc has identifiable Muslims impersonating Hindus and committing heinous crimes and sins like killing cows and stealing girls of the majority community. It also talks of the Muslims engaging in rapid reproduction in order to reduce the Hindus to a minority. And, of course, it tags them as the “terrorists” who
threaten India.
Given the poisonous potency of the package, the mention of the Babri Masjid demolition would appear to be its only milk-and-water part. The immediate response of the BJP to the revelation of the contents of the CD, released officially, was to disown it and attribute it to outside conspirators. After its chief-ministerial candidate, Mr. Kalyan Singh, spoke up in defence of the disc (“nothing wrong with it”), the party has also moved to the aggressive mode. Elder non-statesman L. K. Advani even saw “an Emergency-type situation” developing as a result of the demand for action on the disc!
The party-political debate may continue until the cows come home (unless ambushed by those minority miscreants). Some of the basic facts about the BJP’s poll propaganda, however, are yet to figure in the debate, and unlikely to do so.
The first of these facts is that the disc really says nothing different or new. It only uses a new technology to repeat the traditional poll-time message of the “parivar”. No reporter, who has covered any election campaign of the BJP or its parent Jan Sangh at the grassroots, can really be shocked at the electronic version of the same. Election after election, strident calls for arms against the “enemies within” have been issued in street-corner rallies, without provoking so much as a mention of any model code of conduct.
Another basic fact, which media apologists for the BJP are trying hard to fudge, is that the disc’s contents are not just a crude version of the party’s policies. A “liberal vision of democracy”, according to this line of defence, demands that the disgust at the disc should not be allowed to obfuscate the serious issues it poses, even if in an inelegant manner. The argument cannot be more absurd.
It is the party’s policy, its propaganda that represents a crude distortion — or communalisation — of serious issues before the country. Nobody can deny, for example, that terrorism is indeed a serious issue, but it is only communalised when presented as nothing but a product of pampered “minorityism”. Even cow protection can be propagated as the need to preserve milch cattle, as done by Mahatma Gandhi who blamed Indians as a whole for neglecting this national resource. Or it can be communalised, as done by the disc and devotees of Godse, by portraying the Muslims as indulging in a massacre of cows just for some “jihadi” fun.
(It is hard to see any serious issue behind the dramatic scene in the disc that depicts some Muslims having non-“jihadi” fun with a Hindu girl. But, the party propagandists may see it as the “masala”, the spice, needed to sell the party’s serious message.”)
Just as the medium is the message in modern advertising, crudity is indeed the content of such propaganda. What devices like this disc are designed to promote is a debate that generates not mere heat, but murderous hate. The BJP remembers how the Babri Masjid demolition and its bloody trail helped transform it from a two-member party in the Lok Sabha into the main Opposition. The party is also proud of the way it used a pogrom to polarise the vote and score a major electoral victory in Mr Narendra Modi’s Gujarat. It is trying a similar track in UP.
More absurd than other arguments in defence of the disc and the BJP is the claim that equates such a rude, utterly uncultured campaign with “cultural nationalism”. If the disc has little to do with culture, the divisive propaganda has even less to do with a nationalism that sees a need for the Indian people’s unity. The anti-minorityism that finds an obscene display in the disc is actually a policy against the interests of India’s majority in any but the sectarian, religious sense.
It is a doubtful if the disc will lead to the BJP’s de-recognition. Even if the party faces some other legal action, it will have little effect on the electoral campaigns of the “parivar”. Mr Balasaheb Thackeray of the Shiv Sena was disenfranchised for six years for his communally inflammatory speeches during a Maharashtra Assembly byelection campaign in 1987. Can anyone claim that this turned the Fuehrer of the country’s financial capital into a practitioner of more tolerant politics?
Not legal derecognition of the party, but a clear political recognition of its ideological character is what the contents of the BJP’s disc call for. No such recognition is evident, alas, in the Congress counter-campaign, the main highlight of which in UP has been a bratty boast about a former Prime Minister’s role in “breaking Pakistan”.
May 5, 2007)
Not by de-recognition
BJP’s CD calls for a bolder response
by J. Sri Raman
TO derecognise or not to derecognise — that is not the question. It, certainly, is not the real issue raised by the infamous compact disc (CD), which records the unwritten manifesto of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for the ongoing Assembly elections in the country’s most populous and therefore politically most important State of Uttar Pradesh.
At the time of writing, the Election Commission has reserved its ruling on the issue. It has done so after hearing the legal luminaries doubling as the leaders of the BJP and the Congress, besides others. The former, who leave all crude propaganda to compact discs and similar other devices, have taken a lofty stand against the commission deciding questions of ideology like secularism. They have also taken the technical plea that a party cannot be derecognised for such a minor delinquency as violation of the non-enforceable model code of conduct. The Congress, for its part, has combined its demand for derecognition of its main rival at the national level to one for a public apology for the offending disc.
The contents of the disc, meanwhile, have received far wider dissemination than the cadre of the BJP and the “parivar” (the far-right “family”) could have given them in the sprawling State. For those who take an elevated view of our electoral exercises and disregard sordid details such as found in reports on the disc, it presents issues of fundamental importance to the party in a dramatic format.
It depicts the threat from a terrorist minority in diverse and dire forms. Without mumbling about “members of a certain community”, as “pseudo-secularists” may do, the disc has identifiable Muslims impersonating Hindus and committing heinous crimes and sins like killing cows and stealing girls of the majority community. It also talks of the Muslims engaging in rapid reproduction in order to reduce the Hindus to a minority. And, of course, it tags them as the “terrorists” who
threaten India.
Given the poisonous potency of the package, the mention of the Babri Masjid demolition would appear to be its only milk-and-water part. The immediate response of the BJP to the revelation of the contents of the CD, released officially, was to disown it and attribute it to outside conspirators. After its chief-ministerial candidate, Mr. Kalyan Singh, spoke up in defence of the disc (“nothing wrong with it”), the party has also moved to the aggressive mode. Elder non-statesman L. K. Advani even saw “an Emergency-type situation” developing as a result of the demand for action on the disc!
The party-political debate may continue until the cows come home (unless ambushed by those minority miscreants). Some of the basic facts about the BJP’s poll propaganda, however, are yet to figure in the debate, and unlikely to do so.
The first of these facts is that the disc really says nothing different or new. It only uses a new technology to repeat the traditional poll-time message of the “parivar”. No reporter, who has covered any election campaign of the BJP or its parent Jan Sangh at the grassroots, can really be shocked at the electronic version of the same. Election after election, strident calls for arms against the “enemies within” have been issued in street-corner rallies, without provoking so much as a mention of any model code of conduct.
Another basic fact, which media apologists for the BJP are trying hard to fudge, is that the disc’s contents are not just a crude version of the party’s policies. A “liberal vision of democracy”, according to this line of defence, demands that the disgust at the disc should not be allowed to obfuscate the serious issues it poses, even if in an inelegant manner. The argument cannot be more absurd.
It is the party’s policy, its propaganda that represents a crude distortion — or communalisation — of serious issues before the country. Nobody can deny, for example, that terrorism is indeed a serious issue, but it is only communalised when presented as nothing but a product of pampered “minorityism”. Even cow protection can be propagated as the need to preserve milch cattle, as done by Mahatma Gandhi who blamed Indians as a whole for neglecting this national resource. Or it can be communalised, as done by the disc and devotees of Godse, by portraying the Muslims as indulging in a massacre of cows just for some “jihadi” fun.
(It is hard to see any serious issue behind the dramatic scene in the disc that depicts some Muslims having non-“jihadi” fun with a Hindu girl. But, the party propagandists may see it as the “masala”, the spice, needed to sell the party’s serious message.”)
Just as the medium is the message in modern advertising, crudity is indeed the content of such propaganda. What devices like this disc are designed to promote is a debate that generates not mere heat, but murderous hate. The BJP remembers how the Babri Masjid demolition and its bloody trail helped transform it from a two-member party in the Lok Sabha into the main Opposition. The party is also proud of the way it used a pogrom to polarise the vote and score a major electoral victory in Mr Narendra Modi’s Gujarat. It is trying a similar track in UP.
More absurd than other arguments in defence of the disc and the BJP is the claim that equates such a rude, utterly uncultured campaign with “cultural nationalism”. If the disc has little to do with culture, the divisive propaganda has even less to do with a nationalism that sees a need for the Indian people’s unity. The anti-minorityism that finds an obscene display in the disc is actually a policy against the interests of India’s majority in any but the sectarian, religious sense.
It is a doubtful if the disc will lead to the BJP’s de-recognition. Even if the party faces some other legal action, it will have little effect on the electoral campaigns of the “parivar”. Mr Balasaheb Thackeray of the Shiv Sena was disenfranchised for six years for his communally inflammatory speeches during a Maharashtra Assembly byelection campaign in 1987. Can anyone claim that this turned the Fuehrer of the country’s financial capital into a practitioner of more tolerant politics?
Not legal derecognition of the party, but a clear political recognition of its ideological character is what the contents of the BJP’s disc call for. No such recognition is evident, alas, in the Congress counter-campaign, the main highlight of which in UP has been a bratty boast about a former Prime Minister’s role in “breaking Pakistan”.
April 23, 2007
BJP's Lies About The Hate CD
Tehelka
Apr 28 , 2007
EXPOSÉ
THE BJP SAYS IT NEVER KNEW ABOUT THE HATE CD. LIES, LIES AND MORE LIES
Days after releasing it, the BJP disassociated itself from the CD aimed at inciting communal hatred in poll-bound Uttar Pradesh. Sanjay Dubey and Etmad A. Khan capture party leaders on camera admitting it was indeed their handiwork
MANOJ MISHRA,
President,
UP IT Cell and sacked party spokesperson
It was all done in haste. It worked to our advantage that we could not put an official sticker on the CD. We are now saying that it is not a party CD because it doesn’t have a sticker… Kesri nath Tripathi had earlier seen the CD and had also suggested some changes… The party has made me the scapegoat because I called the press conference. But there is something called moral responsibility. When a rail accident takes place, the railway minister resigns, not the engine driver
Alpana Talwar is also an artiste who has acted in one of my films. She called me saying she wanted to make a film for the party. Once, when Kesri Nath Tripathi was visiting her in Saharanpur, she called me and introduced me and said I would work on the film, and he said okay. It is the same film which has now become objectionable. Tripathi also gave an interview which is part of the CD. She also gave me some BJP books and the script
VIRENDRA SINGH,
Producer of the CD
SUMER CHAND GOYAL,
BJP Metropolitan President, Saharanpur
I called the state President (Kesri nath Tripathi) and offered to take responsibility for making the CD. I told my party people to say that yes, we have made the CD and there is nothing wrong with the CD… Now that the election commission has objected, more people will watch it. We are still distributing it for the elections…
“That day is not far away when we will all be afraid to even call ourselves Hindu, and you will never be able to find a Sohanlal, Mohanlal, Atmaram or Radhakrishan anywhere. Wherever we look, we will only see Abbas, Naqvi, Rizvi, and Maulvi... They want to make India into Pakistan.”
“Do you know the Mulayam government has hired 13,000 Urdu teachers? So are ulema going to teach us from now on… What will happen to Hindu culture?
“I saw the butcher’s sons on my way here. Neither did they have a tilak nor kaleva. Aren’t you ashamed? You have sold your cow to butchers.”
Excerpts from the controversial Hate CD
This is just a small part of the hate campaign being spread by the second largest party of India at the time of the crucial Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, through a CD called Bharat Ki Pukar. If this sounds shocking to some, then this is just a trailer. The CD is full of such explicit remarks against the minority community. At one point, the visuals show the image of a Muslim man (wearing a cap on his head) planting a bomb under a white Ambassador, while elsewhere in the CD is the gruesome killing of a cow by butchers of the same community.
IN CAHOOTS: Alpana Talwar (in green) with UP BJP president Kesri Nath Tripathi in Saharanpur at a memorial for a deceased party worker on November 26, 2006
Yes, these are the contents of the same hate CD that even the BJP’s central leadership has quickly disowned, even though it was released along with other official election material by none other than the senior UP BJP leader Lalji Tandon on April 3, 2007. The reason: the media and several political parties took strong exception to this hate campaign and brought it to the notice of the public and the Election Commission (EC). The sword of de-recognition loomed large and the entire party went into damage-control mode. The panic in the BJP was so profound that different leaders sang different tunes to save the party from coming under the EC axe.
In response to a showcause notice issued by the EC, the BJP gave several reasons why Para 16 A of the Election Symbols Order 1968 — which might result in the de-recognition of the party — cannot be applied in this situation. The BJP also removed its state unit spokesperson Manoj Mishra — who was also the president of its information and technology cell and still retains that post — after describing the CD’s release and distribution as a mistake and holding Mishra entirely responsible for the mess. Tehelka, in a painstaking investigation, came up with the facts, which give the lie to this face-saving formula furnished by the BJP to the EC.
MORE THAN PAPER: The Saharanpur city supplement of a Hindi daily dated November 27, 2006. CD producer Virendra Singh told Tehelka that it was then that Tripathi had met him and had discussed the CD
The first point the BJP made in its reply to the EC — incidentally, signed by Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, its prominent Muslim face — states that the BJP neither produced, prepared, displayed nor distributed the impugned CD. The reply is also emphatic about the CD’s not being a part of the official campaign material. An utter lie, if we consider what Mishra and others who were behind making this 50-plus minute film told Tehelka on hidden camera.
Mishra, who had called the press conference and put the controversial CD into the media kit, says, “We could not prepare the cover and stickers for the CD and that is helping us now. Now we are telling the Commission that this is not our official CD but in reality it is an official CD.” But why did the CD not have a sticker? “Alpanaji (referring to Alpana Talwar, the BJP’s cultural wing president in UP) brought this CD just a day before its release. She brought with her some 50-odd CDs to give to the media. We thought that after the release we would get them dubbed in Lucknow itself. Now we are saying that if the CD had been authentic then we would have launched it on a bigger scale and it would also have had a sticker,” explains Mishra. The film’s director, Virendra Singh, corroborates this. He told Tehelka that he had delivered the CD to Talwar just a day or two before its release.
THE BRAIN BEHIND THE CD (TOP): UP BJP cultural cell president Alpana Talwar, who also plays the lead role in the CD
A PARTY AFFAIR: Saharanpur BJP women’s cell vice president Saroj Sharma (in glasses) and another party worker play Muslim women. (middle right) Inderjeet Sehgal, a functionary of the Saharanpur BJP
PANTOMIME PROTEST: Senior leaders of the Saharanpur unit also figure in the CD
The CD, in fact, was Talwar’s brainchild and it was she who commissioned it to Virendra Singh, a small-time filmmaker from western UP’s Saharanpur district — Talwar herself belongs to the place. Singh also revealed that she introduced him to state BJP president Kesri Nath Tripathi. He also confirmed that it was Tripathi who gave him the go-ahead for the film and also gave an interview for the very same CD. Tehelka spoke to various persons in Saharanpur and collected a few photographs of Tripathi’s November 26 visit to Saharanpur, which gives testimony to what Singh told us.
The BJP’s quick retreat is nothing but a ruse, for the controversial CD is full of its own office-bearers, senior and junior. Few people know that Alpana Talwar herself has played the central character of the film, and almost 70 percent of the other characters are played by BJP workers in Saharanpur. ” Mishra also corroborates this on the spycam, saying, “We involved the workers of the BJP in the making of the film and avoided employing professionals. Actually, we wanted to boost the morale of our party cadre.” The evidence is in the CD, right from the president of the BJP’s Saharanpur unit, Sumer Chand Goyal, to the ordinary worker, every kind of BJP functionary can be easily identified in the film.
The question then is: How can the CD not be termed official if it was released by a very senior leader (Tandon), prepared by a moderately senior leader (Talwar) and previewed by the president of the state unit (Tripathi) and when most of the film’s characters were played by BJP workers? Too many coincidences to call the CD unofficial. Obviously a lie, for Pravesh Gurjar, the dialogue writer, reveals, “In the very first scene itself, the newspaper man is Talwar’s driver and the persons who are reading the paper are her father and BJP worker Vikram Saini, and the place where it was shot is Talwar’s house in Chandra Nagar colony in Saharanpur.”
The BJP’s retreat is nothing but a ruse, for its office-bearers are the actors. Few know that Alpana Talwar has played the central role
The BJP is also emphatic in its defence that the CD was not seen or approved by the party leadership. But this is what Mishra has to say, “Kesriji had seen the film and suggested some changes which we made.” He further states, “This CD reached us (after changes) just a day before the release, and Kesriji told me he wanted to watch the film, so I gave the CD to him.” He also elaborates that it was decided on April 3 itself in the 11am daily meeting in the BJP office to release the CD. Further, he says, “Initially we were planning to show it to the media on lcd projector at 4pm, but we had to advance the press conference to noon as Smriti Irani had missed her plane to Lucknow.” When asked if senior party leaders usually review party CDs, Rishi Mohan, Mishra’s deputy, who has been credited in the CD, says that this happens without fail. But when asked about this particular case, he became evasive. When asked why he was made the scapegoat, Mishra says, “Perhaps it is because it is I who called the press conference. Being the spokesperson, it was my responsibility to call the press conference so Tandonji might have deemed it fit to remove me… Sometimes it so happens that the moral responsibility is fixed on some innocent person.”
The BJP has been caught on the wrong foot and is tripping over its own lies. Its Media cell chief admits that the party was caught unawares
Despite so much evidence, the BJP is still trying to sell the line that the CD was the handiwork of some unofficial individuals and that it was inserted in the media kit by mistake. The so-called individuals are actually senior state functionaries. Unlike the senior leaders, Goyal, the BJP Saharanpur unit chief, is neither embarrassed nor does he make an effort to watch his words. He told Tehelka, “After the controversy, I called up the state president and said, if you are facing problems, then tell everybody that it is I who made this CD and I did no wrong in making it. We have shown what is happening in reality.” Enough indication of the involvement of the BJP leadership in creating and releasing the seed of extreme hatred. Regarding accidentally putting the CD inside the kit, Mishra accepted in unequivocal terms before the hidden camera that it was a collective party decision because, after the elections, this CD would have been of no use.
The BJP’s fourth layer of defence in its reply to the Election Commission is that it took suo motu action of clarifying and withdrawing the CD even before a complaint was filed. It also said, “the party inquired into the matter and has since removed Manoj Mishra from the responsibility of a spokesman.” Yes, the party did act before any formal complaint, but it acted only after the media got wind of the inflammatory contents of the CD and started airing it.
Regarding the inquiry by the BJP and the removal of its spokesman, Mishra himself accepted that he had been made a scapegoat. He drew an interesting analogy saying that when there is a rail accident, for instance, it is the railway minister who takes moral responsibility and not the engine driver or the lineman.
How can the CD not be termed official when it was released by lalji Tandon, prepared by a moderately senior leader and viewed by Tripathi?
Mishra further revealed that the controversial CD was also sent for previewing to the EC but they returned it saying they do not preview publicity material parties use but they do so for materials to be used on mass media like print and television. Mishra says, “Now even we have stopped saying this. When the Commission is not saying this, then why should we say this?” Strong indication that the CD was meant to be used as the official campaign material.
The BJP has been caught on the wrong foot and is tripping over its own lies. Mishra admits that the party was caught unawares by the sudden attack from the media and other political parties. A part of its response appeared obfuscatory and it tried several tricks of the trade, accusing other parties of violating the model code of conduct. The obfuscation included its demand that Election Commissioner Navin Chawla recuse himself from hearing the case since an application against his appointment is pending in the Supreme Court.
Behind the scenes, the BJP also seems to have threatened those involved with the production of the CD into silence. The CD’s producer’s son told Tehelka that senior leader Vinay Katiyar had called Virendra Singh and Pravesh Gurjar. Was it because they were telling the truth? It is indeed interesting that Katiyar should call the two men related to the CD in the middle of a high-stake election in Uttar Pradesh? Also, how is the BJP going to explain the fact that its state president saw and made changes in the CD and that the president of its cultural wing is part of the same CD? The BJP, perhaps, wants to play it both ways: disown it before the Election Commission but try and accrue electoral benefits at the same time. Goyal, after all, has admitted, quite damningly, that the CD is still being distributed.
» Writers’ e-mail: sanjay@tehelka.com
etmad@tehelka.com
Apr 28 , 2007
EXPOSÉ
THE BJP SAYS IT NEVER KNEW ABOUT THE HATE CD. LIES, LIES AND MORE LIES
Days after releasing it, the BJP disassociated itself from the CD aimed at inciting communal hatred in poll-bound Uttar Pradesh. Sanjay Dubey and Etmad A. Khan capture party leaders on camera admitting it was indeed their handiwork
MANOJ MISHRA,
President,
UP IT Cell and sacked party spokesperson
It was all done in haste. It worked to our advantage that we could not put an official sticker on the CD. We are now saying that it is not a party CD because it doesn’t have a sticker… Kesri nath Tripathi had earlier seen the CD and had also suggested some changes… The party has made me the scapegoat because I called the press conference. But there is something called moral responsibility. When a rail accident takes place, the railway minister resigns, not the engine driver
Alpana Talwar is also an artiste who has acted in one of my films. She called me saying she wanted to make a film for the party. Once, when Kesri Nath Tripathi was visiting her in Saharanpur, she called me and introduced me and said I would work on the film, and he said okay. It is the same film which has now become objectionable. Tripathi also gave an interview which is part of the CD. She also gave me some BJP books and the script
VIRENDRA SINGH,
Producer of the CD
SUMER CHAND GOYAL,
BJP Metropolitan President, Saharanpur
I called the state President (Kesri nath Tripathi) and offered to take responsibility for making the CD. I told my party people to say that yes, we have made the CD and there is nothing wrong with the CD… Now that the election commission has objected, more people will watch it. We are still distributing it for the elections…
“That day is not far away when we will all be afraid to even call ourselves Hindu, and you will never be able to find a Sohanlal, Mohanlal, Atmaram or Radhakrishan anywhere. Wherever we look, we will only see Abbas, Naqvi, Rizvi, and Maulvi... They want to make India into Pakistan.”
“Do you know the Mulayam government has hired 13,000 Urdu teachers? So are ulema going to teach us from now on… What will happen to Hindu culture?
“I saw the butcher’s sons on my way here. Neither did they have a tilak nor kaleva. Aren’t you ashamed? You have sold your cow to butchers.”
Excerpts from the controversial Hate CD
This is just a small part of the hate campaign being spread by the second largest party of India at the time of the crucial Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, through a CD called Bharat Ki Pukar. If this sounds shocking to some, then this is just a trailer. The CD is full of such explicit remarks against the minority community. At one point, the visuals show the image of a Muslim man (wearing a cap on his head) planting a bomb under a white Ambassador, while elsewhere in the CD is the gruesome killing of a cow by butchers of the same community.
IN CAHOOTS: Alpana Talwar (in green) with UP BJP president Kesri Nath Tripathi in Saharanpur at a memorial for a deceased party worker on November 26, 2006
Yes, these are the contents of the same hate CD that even the BJP’s central leadership has quickly disowned, even though it was released along with other official election material by none other than the senior UP BJP leader Lalji Tandon on April 3, 2007. The reason: the media and several political parties took strong exception to this hate campaign and brought it to the notice of the public and the Election Commission (EC). The sword of de-recognition loomed large and the entire party went into damage-control mode. The panic in the BJP was so profound that different leaders sang different tunes to save the party from coming under the EC axe.
In response to a showcause notice issued by the EC, the BJP gave several reasons why Para 16 A of the Election Symbols Order 1968 — which might result in the de-recognition of the party — cannot be applied in this situation. The BJP also removed its state unit spokesperson Manoj Mishra — who was also the president of its information and technology cell and still retains that post — after describing the CD’s release and distribution as a mistake and holding Mishra entirely responsible for the mess. Tehelka, in a painstaking investigation, came up with the facts, which give the lie to this face-saving formula furnished by the BJP to the EC.
MORE THAN PAPER: The Saharanpur city supplement of a Hindi daily dated November 27, 2006. CD producer Virendra Singh told Tehelka that it was then that Tripathi had met him and had discussed the CD
The first point the BJP made in its reply to the EC — incidentally, signed by Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, its prominent Muslim face — states that the BJP neither produced, prepared, displayed nor distributed the impugned CD. The reply is also emphatic about the CD’s not being a part of the official campaign material. An utter lie, if we consider what Mishra and others who were behind making this 50-plus minute film told Tehelka on hidden camera.
Mishra, who had called the press conference and put the controversial CD into the media kit, says, “We could not prepare the cover and stickers for the CD and that is helping us now. Now we are telling the Commission that this is not our official CD but in reality it is an official CD.” But why did the CD not have a sticker? “Alpanaji (referring to Alpana Talwar, the BJP’s cultural wing president in UP) brought this CD just a day before its release. She brought with her some 50-odd CDs to give to the media. We thought that after the release we would get them dubbed in Lucknow itself. Now we are saying that if the CD had been authentic then we would have launched it on a bigger scale and it would also have had a sticker,” explains Mishra. The film’s director, Virendra Singh, corroborates this. He told Tehelka that he had delivered the CD to Talwar just a day or two before its release.
THE BRAIN BEHIND THE CD (TOP): UP BJP cultural cell president Alpana Talwar, who also plays the lead role in the CD
A PARTY AFFAIR: Saharanpur BJP women’s cell vice president Saroj Sharma (in glasses) and another party worker play Muslim women. (middle right) Inderjeet Sehgal, a functionary of the Saharanpur BJP
PANTOMIME PROTEST: Senior leaders of the Saharanpur unit also figure in the CD
The CD, in fact, was Talwar’s brainchild and it was she who commissioned it to Virendra Singh, a small-time filmmaker from western UP’s Saharanpur district — Talwar herself belongs to the place. Singh also revealed that she introduced him to state BJP president Kesri Nath Tripathi. He also confirmed that it was Tripathi who gave him the go-ahead for the film and also gave an interview for the very same CD. Tehelka spoke to various persons in Saharanpur and collected a few photographs of Tripathi’s November 26 visit to Saharanpur, which gives testimony to what Singh told us.
The BJP’s quick retreat is nothing but a ruse, for the controversial CD is full of its own office-bearers, senior and junior. Few people know that Alpana Talwar herself has played the central character of the film, and almost 70 percent of the other characters are played by BJP workers in Saharanpur. ” Mishra also corroborates this on the spycam, saying, “We involved the workers of the BJP in the making of the film and avoided employing professionals. Actually, we wanted to boost the morale of our party cadre.” The evidence is in the CD, right from the president of the BJP’s Saharanpur unit, Sumer Chand Goyal, to the ordinary worker, every kind of BJP functionary can be easily identified in the film.
The question then is: How can the CD not be termed official if it was released by a very senior leader (Tandon), prepared by a moderately senior leader (Talwar) and previewed by the president of the state unit (Tripathi) and when most of the film’s characters were played by BJP workers? Too many coincidences to call the CD unofficial. Obviously a lie, for Pravesh Gurjar, the dialogue writer, reveals, “In the very first scene itself, the newspaper man is Talwar’s driver and the persons who are reading the paper are her father and BJP worker Vikram Saini, and the place where it was shot is Talwar’s house in Chandra Nagar colony in Saharanpur.”
The BJP’s retreat is nothing but a ruse, for its office-bearers are the actors. Few know that Alpana Talwar has played the central role
The BJP is also emphatic in its defence that the CD was not seen or approved by the party leadership. But this is what Mishra has to say, “Kesriji had seen the film and suggested some changes which we made.” He further states, “This CD reached us (after changes) just a day before the release, and Kesriji told me he wanted to watch the film, so I gave the CD to him.” He also elaborates that it was decided on April 3 itself in the 11am daily meeting in the BJP office to release the CD. Further, he says, “Initially we were planning to show it to the media on lcd projector at 4pm, but we had to advance the press conference to noon as Smriti Irani had missed her plane to Lucknow.” When asked if senior party leaders usually review party CDs, Rishi Mohan, Mishra’s deputy, who has been credited in the CD, says that this happens without fail. But when asked about this particular case, he became evasive. When asked why he was made the scapegoat, Mishra says, “Perhaps it is because it is I who called the press conference. Being the spokesperson, it was my responsibility to call the press conference so Tandonji might have deemed it fit to remove me… Sometimes it so happens that the moral responsibility is fixed on some innocent person.”
The BJP has been caught on the wrong foot and is tripping over its own lies. Its Media cell chief admits that the party was caught unawares
Despite so much evidence, the BJP is still trying to sell the line that the CD was the handiwork of some unofficial individuals and that it was inserted in the media kit by mistake. The so-called individuals are actually senior state functionaries. Unlike the senior leaders, Goyal, the BJP Saharanpur unit chief, is neither embarrassed nor does he make an effort to watch his words. He told Tehelka, “After the controversy, I called up the state president and said, if you are facing problems, then tell everybody that it is I who made this CD and I did no wrong in making it. We have shown what is happening in reality.” Enough indication of the involvement of the BJP leadership in creating and releasing the seed of extreme hatred. Regarding accidentally putting the CD inside the kit, Mishra accepted in unequivocal terms before the hidden camera that it was a collective party decision because, after the elections, this CD would have been of no use.
The BJP’s fourth layer of defence in its reply to the Election Commission is that it took suo motu action of clarifying and withdrawing the CD even before a complaint was filed. It also said, “the party inquired into the matter and has since removed Manoj Mishra from the responsibility of a spokesman.” Yes, the party did act before any formal complaint, but it acted only after the media got wind of the inflammatory contents of the CD and started airing it.
Regarding the inquiry by the BJP and the removal of its spokesman, Mishra himself accepted that he had been made a scapegoat. He drew an interesting analogy saying that when there is a rail accident, for instance, it is the railway minister who takes moral responsibility and not the engine driver or the lineman.
How can the CD not be termed official when it was released by lalji Tandon, prepared by a moderately senior leader and viewed by Tripathi?
Mishra further revealed that the controversial CD was also sent for previewing to the EC but they returned it saying they do not preview publicity material parties use but they do so for materials to be used on mass media like print and television. Mishra says, “Now even we have stopped saying this. When the Commission is not saying this, then why should we say this?” Strong indication that the CD was meant to be used as the official campaign material.
The BJP has been caught on the wrong foot and is tripping over its own lies. Mishra admits that the party was caught unawares by the sudden attack from the media and other political parties. A part of its response appeared obfuscatory and it tried several tricks of the trade, accusing other parties of violating the model code of conduct. The obfuscation included its demand that Election Commissioner Navin Chawla recuse himself from hearing the case since an application against his appointment is pending in the Supreme Court.
Behind the scenes, the BJP also seems to have threatened those involved with the production of the CD into silence. The CD’s producer’s son told Tehelka that senior leader Vinay Katiyar had called Virendra Singh and Pravesh Gurjar. Was it because they were telling the truth? It is indeed interesting that Katiyar should call the two men related to the CD in the middle of a high-stake election in Uttar Pradesh? Also, how is the BJP going to explain the fact that its state president saw and made changes in the CD and that the president of its cultural wing is part of the same CD? The BJP, perhaps, wants to play it both ways: disown it before the Election Commission but try and accrue electoral benefits at the same time. Goyal, after all, has admitted, quite damningly, that the CD is still being distributed.
» Writers’ e-mail: sanjay@tehelka.com
etmad@tehelka.com
April 20, 2007
Family Lies
18/19 April 2007
Family Lies
Mukul Dube
When the Election Commission took the BJP to task for the communally charged content of its UP election propaganda CD, that party reacted immediately by disowning the CD. We see here a response which characterises the Sangh Parivar: an outright lie.
The BJP could not continue to hide behind that lie after the makers of the CD stated on record that they had been told what line was to be taken in it and that party high-ups, who were kept informed at every stage, had approved it when it was completed and had released it with some fanfare.
The BJP then swung out its usual second line of defence: different spokesmen saying different things, all false. One said that the CD was the work of uncontrollable fringe elements in the party, quite forgetting the central importance of Lalji Tandon in UP. Another said that the CD was an aberration in a record presumably unblemished otherwise. There was also the laughable but unsuccessful distraction of party luminaries courting arrest: another familiar Hindutva ploy, the Red Herring Defence.
I have not seen the UP election CD; but I have seen or heard some of the other propaganda material brought out by the Hindu Right over the years, and it has been consistent in its hate-mongering and its demonisation of Muslims. I therefore believe the TV channel which broadcast portions of this CD and said that it was deliberately not showing some, and that at places it was silencing the audio track, because they were altogether too lurid and offensive.
That various limbs of the Hindutva organism have routinely been putting out such propaganda without any action being taken against them is a reflection of the failure of the law and order machinery to live up to the promise of religious equality made in our Constitution. That machinery has failed to uphold what is clearly stated in various laws. As Achin Vanaik told Praful Bidwai (Inter Press Service, 12 April 2007): “The BJP got away with murder in the past because India's establishment failed to apply the law of the land and pandered to Hindu majoritarianism.”
What is the law of the land? It is perhaps stated the most clearly in Section 153-A of the Indian Penal Code, which deals with “promoting enmity between different groups ... and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony.”
Had the law been enforced, the now silent “Sadhvi” Rithambara would years ago have been put behind bars. Joining her would have been Narendra Modi, who fought the 2002 Gujarat election against “Miyan Musharraf”, in effect calling not just Gujarat’s but the whole of India’s Muslims Pakistanis, and who notoriously described the refugee camps for terrorised Muslims in his state as “breeding factories”.
In the matter of the UP election CD, other branches of the Hindutva “family” have thus far been silent. Indeed, the fact that the BJP is not in power in New Delhi seems to have kept them muzzled since the last general elections. It remains to be seen if they will be made to swing into action or if the old charioteer Advani will begin another “rath yatra”. Like those of Pavlov’s subjects, the Family’s responses are conditioned.
Family Lies
Mukul Dube
When the Election Commission took the BJP to task for the communally charged content of its UP election propaganda CD, that party reacted immediately by disowning the CD. We see here a response which characterises the Sangh Parivar: an outright lie.
The BJP could not continue to hide behind that lie after the makers of the CD stated on record that they had been told what line was to be taken in it and that party high-ups, who were kept informed at every stage, had approved it when it was completed and had released it with some fanfare.
The BJP then swung out its usual second line of defence: different spokesmen saying different things, all false. One said that the CD was the work of uncontrollable fringe elements in the party, quite forgetting the central importance of Lalji Tandon in UP. Another said that the CD was an aberration in a record presumably unblemished otherwise. There was also the laughable but unsuccessful distraction of party luminaries courting arrest: another familiar Hindutva ploy, the Red Herring Defence.
I have not seen the UP election CD; but I have seen or heard some of the other propaganda material brought out by the Hindu Right over the years, and it has been consistent in its hate-mongering and its demonisation of Muslims. I therefore believe the TV channel which broadcast portions of this CD and said that it was deliberately not showing some, and that at places it was silencing the audio track, because they were altogether too lurid and offensive.
That various limbs of the Hindutva organism have routinely been putting out such propaganda without any action being taken against them is a reflection of the failure of the law and order machinery to live up to the promise of religious equality made in our Constitution. That machinery has failed to uphold what is clearly stated in various laws. As Achin Vanaik told Praful Bidwai (Inter Press Service, 12 April 2007): “The BJP got away with murder in the past because India's establishment failed to apply the law of the land and pandered to Hindu majoritarianism.”
What is the law of the land? It is perhaps stated the most clearly in Section 153-A of the Indian Penal Code, which deals with “promoting enmity between different groups ... and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony.”
Had the law been enforced, the now silent “Sadhvi” Rithambara would years ago have been put behind bars. Joining her would have been Narendra Modi, who fought the 2002 Gujarat election against “Miyan Musharraf”, in effect calling not just Gujarat’s but the whole of India’s Muslims Pakistanis, and who notoriously described the refugee camps for terrorised Muslims in his state as “breeding factories”.
In the matter of the UP election CD, other branches of the Hindutva “family” have thus far been silent. Indeed, the fact that the BJP is not in power in New Delhi seems to have kept them muzzled since the last general elections. It remains to be seen if they will be made to swing into action or if the old charioteer Advani will begin another “rath yatra”. Like those of Pavlov’s subjects, the Family’s responses are conditioned.
April 15, 2007
Take the bully by the horns
(Tehelka.com
April 21 , 2007)
VIEW POINT
BULLY BY THE HORNS
PRAFUL BIDWAI
Independent India has dealt with many practitioners of strong-arm methods — from maharajahs to powerful landlords and dacoits, and from business mafias and self-proclaimed godmen-impostors to street-level goons.
But it has never seen anything akin to the political bully commonly known as the BJP, an entity steeped in self-righteousness and forever in search of martyrdom. Nor has India dealt with a challenger to democracy with as much confusion, vacillation and outright pusillanimity.
The BJP is sworn to transforming India into a Hindu-supremacist society and state. It has used democracy with the utmost cynicism merely as a means to power, while denuding it of its content, including pluralism and universal rights for all citizens. It’s a half-miracle — and a shame — that the BJP ruled India for six years.
It’s even more shocking that it has again fallen on outrageously communal campaigning in Uttar Pradesh. The CD it officially released on April 3 concentrates communal venom calculated to divide citizens, incite visceral hatred, provoke a reaction from its victims, and engineer a majoritarian backlash.
There is nothing unambiguous about the CD’s purpose. It was commissioned expressly for the UP elections by the party’s top leadership, which ordered all its content, dictated the revisions, and approved the product at every stage. It’s futile to say the party has “withdrawn” it. The CD is in circulation and has already served part of its purpose: to recapture a virulent anti-Muslim platform and prevent erosion of the BJP’s upper-caste base (from 72 to 50 percent, according to one survey).
The Election Commission has done well to file a First Information Report against the BJP under the ipc and the election law which prohibit/punish resort to inflammatory communal material. It must pursue the case with single-minded determination.
How should citizens understand the BJP’s deplorable conduct in using the CD even while “disowning” it? And how should it be punished, so there’s a deterrent effect?
The Jan Sangh-BJP has always pushed our political system to its outermost limits. The Hindutva mobilisation around the Somnath temple in the 1950s, the sadhus’ storming of Parliament House in the 1960s, the engineering of riots to gain votes in the 1970s, the Ramjanmabhoomi campaign of the mid-1980s culminating in the Babri demolition in 1992, and the Gujarat pogrom of 2002 all subjected the system to maximal stress and shifted the political goalposts to the Right.
Yet, Hindutva’s proponents weren’t penalised for their assaults on democracy. Almost 15 years after the Babri demolition, our courts have failed to bring its perpetrators to book. The murderers of Mumbai and Surat 1992-93 roam free. As do the perpetrators of India’s worst state-assisted communal butchery, in Gujarat.
The BJP was never punished politically for these — certainly not adequately. No prime minister since 1992 has dared to treat the patently illegal temple, erected on dubious religious grounds, as an affront to pluralism. If this speaks of indulgence towards majoritarianism and pandering to sectarian religious sentiment, the failure to punish Narendra Modi is even more distressing. India’s Milosevic now struts about as “development’s” messiah.
Such indulgence has allowed the BJP to become increasingly audacious. Three years ago, it vetoed the appointment of India’s prime minister after having lost the national elections! The BJP is deeply, naturally, duplicitous. It simultaneously expresses regret, and claims credit, for its shocking communal acts. Advani (unconvincingly) says December 6 was the “saddest day” of his life, but justifies the ideology that led to it and claims it removed “an ocular insult” to “Hindu India”. Gujarat “shocked” Vajpayee for a few days, but he was soon back taunting Muslims.
The party is being duplicitous about the CD too. That’s why it’s staging a lurid melodrama by courting arrest. No authority, it claims, can question it — that’s “emergency”.
The EC must not let the BJP off the hook. It must consider its de-recognition if the fir’s charges are established. In any case, it must formally reprimand the BJP and heavily fine it for the CD (itself akin to another one it issued “officially” in December).
More, it should extract an explicit, categorical commitment that the BJP will never resort to communal propaganda, directly or through innuendo, or question anyone’s patriotism on grounds of religion — on pain of de-recognition. The Congress may lack the will to fight the BJP. But the EC is duty-bound to reaffirm constitutional principles and discipline this communal bully. We must demand it succeeds.
April 21 , 2007)
VIEW POINT
BULLY BY THE HORNS
PRAFUL BIDWAI
Independent India has dealt with many practitioners of strong-arm methods — from maharajahs to powerful landlords and dacoits, and from business mafias and self-proclaimed godmen-impostors to street-level goons.
But it has never seen anything akin to the political bully commonly known as the BJP, an entity steeped in self-righteousness and forever in search of martyrdom. Nor has India dealt with a challenger to democracy with as much confusion, vacillation and outright pusillanimity.
The BJP is sworn to transforming India into a Hindu-supremacist society and state. It has used democracy with the utmost cynicism merely as a means to power, while denuding it of its content, including pluralism and universal rights for all citizens. It’s a half-miracle — and a shame — that the BJP ruled India for six years.
It’s even more shocking that it has again fallen on outrageously communal campaigning in Uttar Pradesh. The CD it officially released on April 3 concentrates communal venom calculated to divide citizens, incite visceral hatred, provoke a reaction from its victims, and engineer a majoritarian backlash.
There is nothing unambiguous about the CD’s purpose. It was commissioned expressly for the UP elections by the party’s top leadership, which ordered all its content, dictated the revisions, and approved the product at every stage. It’s futile to say the party has “withdrawn” it. The CD is in circulation and has already served part of its purpose: to recapture a virulent anti-Muslim platform and prevent erosion of the BJP’s upper-caste base (from 72 to 50 percent, according to one survey).
The Election Commission has done well to file a First Information Report against the BJP under the ipc and the election law which prohibit/punish resort to inflammatory communal material. It must pursue the case with single-minded determination.
How should citizens understand the BJP’s deplorable conduct in using the CD even while “disowning” it? And how should it be punished, so there’s a deterrent effect?
The Jan Sangh-BJP has always pushed our political system to its outermost limits. The Hindutva mobilisation around the Somnath temple in the 1950s, the sadhus’ storming of Parliament House in the 1960s, the engineering of riots to gain votes in the 1970s, the Ramjanmabhoomi campaign of the mid-1980s culminating in the Babri demolition in 1992, and the Gujarat pogrom of 2002 all subjected the system to maximal stress and shifted the political goalposts to the Right.
Yet, Hindutva’s proponents weren’t penalised for their assaults on democracy. Almost 15 years after the Babri demolition, our courts have failed to bring its perpetrators to book. The murderers of Mumbai and Surat 1992-93 roam free. As do the perpetrators of India’s worst state-assisted communal butchery, in Gujarat.
The BJP was never punished politically for these — certainly not adequately. No prime minister since 1992 has dared to treat the patently illegal temple, erected on dubious religious grounds, as an affront to pluralism. If this speaks of indulgence towards majoritarianism and pandering to sectarian religious sentiment, the failure to punish Narendra Modi is even more distressing. India’s Milosevic now struts about as “development’s” messiah.
Such indulgence has allowed the BJP to become increasingly audacious. Three years ago, it vetoed the appointment of India’s prime minister after having lost the national elections! The BJP is deeply, naturally, duplicitous. It simultaneously expresses regret, and claims credit, for its shocking communal acts. Advani (unconvincingly) says December 6 was the “saddest day” of his life, but justifies the ideology that led to it and claims it removed “an ocular insult” to “Hindu India”. Gujarat “shocked” Vajpayee for a few days, but he was soon back taunting Muslims.
The party is being duplicitous about the CD too. That’s why it’s staging a lurid melodrama by courting arrest. No authority, it claims, can question it — that’s “emergency”.
The EC must not let the BJP off the hook. It must consider its de-recognition if the fir’s charges are established. In any case, it must formally reprimand the BJP and heavily fine it for the CD (itself akin to another one it issued “officially” in December).
More, it should extract an explicit, categorical commitment that the BJP will never resort to communal propaganda, directly or through innuendo, or question anyone’s patriotism on grounds of religion — on pain of de-recognition. The Congress may lack the will to fight the BJP. But the EC is duty-bound to reaffirm constitutional principles and discipline this communal bully. We must demand it succeeds.
April 14, 2007
BJP must be punished for communal electoral campaigning
(The News
April 14, 2007)
Back to BJP's anti-Muslim roots
The writer, a former newspaper editor, is a researcher and peace and human-rights activist based in Delhi
By Praful Bidwai
Three years after sending the Bharatiya Janata Party packing, India again faces a fresh communal challenge to its democracy and electoral system. Nothing symbolises the emerging contention over this better than a despicably foul, rabidly anti-Muslim compact disc (CD) commissioned and distributed by the BJP for the Uttar Pradesh elections.
The CD was released with fanfare by senior UP party leader Lalji Tandon and state unit president Kesri Nath Tripathi four days before the first round of polling in the seven-phase election. So obnoxious was its content that the BJP hastily withdrew it. But it has since "disowned" it and tried to pretend that it knows nothing about it.
Yet, faced with a First Information Report filed by the Election Commission for using communal means to canvass support, party president Rajnath Singh melodramatically offered to be arrested. Lest it be thought that the rustic, crude and pugnacious Singh was solely responsible for this, the BJP's "urbane" veterans Atal Behari Vajpayee and Lal Krishna Advani went along with the tactic.
The BJP's stand on the CD is egregiously contradictory. On the one hand, its leadership wants to dissociate itself from it while blaming low-level "party workers" for adding "undesirable elements to it." On the other hand, it has behaved as if it owned the CD and was wrongly punished for producing it. That's why the feigning of injured innocence.
Duplicity comes naturally to the BJP and is integral to its politics. After the Babri mosque's razing, Advani said December 6 was "the saddest day" of his life. But he quickly proceeded to defend the ideology that led to the removal of this "ocular insult" to "Hindu India". After Gujarat, Vajpayee "hung his head in shame". But within days, he was asking: "Lekin aag kisne lagayee", thus blaming Muslims for the pogrom. The BJP has seamlessly vacillated between expressions of shame and achievement/pride for the same act!
However, BJP leaders can't pretend they weren't consulted during the CD's production. According to the Bulandshehr-based Fakira Films, which produced the CD: "At every stage of writing the CD, the leadership of the state BJP was consulted, the script modified, (words) added and fine-tuned."
'Withdrawing' the CD doesn't mean much. Its copies are in unrestricted circulation. Excerpts have been aired on television channels. The CD's potential to vitiate the election process remains unmitigated.
The EC is thus perfectly right to treat the CD as an unfair electoral practice under various sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Representation of the People Act, 1951, which pertain to "inflammatory material capable of creating enmity/hatred among different communities", and the EC's Model Code of Conduct.
The CD pours hatred upon Muslims as treacherous "anti-Hindu" citizens who will again divide India. It's designed to provoke a strong reaction from Muslims -- and a Hindu backlash. It says Muslims are duplicitous: they kidnap, forcibly marry and convert Hindu women; they kill cows while offering to look after them; they run "anti-national" madressahs.
The pivotal message is: "This time if you don't vote for the BJP, disaster will strike this country. The BJP is a party that thinks about [India]. It thinks about the Hindu religion. All other parties are agents of the Muslims."
The CD contains false, malicious allegations about Mulayam Singh Yadav having organised iftaar parties on the ghats of the Ganga, and new textbooks being published under the United Progressive Alliance saying that Goddess Durga is fond of liquor and that Emperor Aurangazeb was a saint. Its purpose is to hurt, arouse hatred, and turn hatred into votes.
The BJP routinely distributes obnoxious propaganda material during its election campaigns and organisational meetings. During its national executive meeting last December, it distributed a similar CD as part of its press kit, duly stamped with the lotus symbol.
In content, the December CD is no different from the present one. The BJP's intent to use religious identities as political instruments is well established. It mobilises votes by spreading religious hatred, often wrapped in "nationalist" attire. Such communal practices should be altogether banished from India's public discourse. Unfortunately, they aren't effectively banned. Hate-speech and many hate-acts directed at religious-ethnic minorities go unpunished. A sordid example of such concession to majoritarianism is the questioning of the patriotic credentials of the minorities, especially when terrorist incidents take place.
But India does have an electoral law developed under an independent and assertive Election Commission, which explicitly prohibits the use of inflammatory means - on pain of disqualification of candidates. Such disqualifications have indeed taken place. Shiv Sena leaders had to quit their seats because they used communal means during the elections. But such disqualification isn't enough to deter abuse. India needs a far more explicit code of conduct, and solemn commitments by political leaders that they won't resort to innuendo, vulgar slang, or indirect references to particular communities while canvassing electoral support. The present case offers an opportunity for such reform. The Election Commission must seriously consider de-recognising the BJP as a political party if its FIR's charges are established.
The EC must supplement this by extracting from BJP leaders serious pledges that they won't use religion as "a loyalty test", that they won't exploit the Ayodhya temple for electoral gains, nor depict the Babri mosque's razing in triumphant colours, as the present CD does. Should the BJP violate these assurances, it should be automatically de-recognised.Such reform is imperative. Secularism is not an option in India. It's a categorical imperative. It's part of the "basic structure" of India's Constitution and a precondition for India's survival as a pluralist, vibrant democracy which respects diversity and minority rights.
As two Supreme Court judges put it in a trend-setting (Bommai) case (1994), the Constitution requires not just the Indian state, but "political parties as well", to be secular in "thought and action". The BJP -- with the Shiv Sena -- stands apart from all other parties in India insofar as it seeks to transform India into a Hindu-majoritarian entity. Like its predecessor, the Jana Sangh, the BJP has often incited communal passions to win votes. It must be prevented from doing so. The BJP must be watched very closely in UP, where it's desperate to prevent its already narrow base from fragmenting. According to two major opinion polls, the BJP and its allies are likely to do much worse in these assembly elections than in 2002.
The BJP's upper-caste support in UP has shrunk from 72 per cent to 50 per cent. Extremist, illiberal parties like the BJP act waywardly when faced with defeat. They must not be allowed to damage India's secular fabric and shift the goalposts of democratic politics.
The Election Commission deserves the unstinting support of the citizenry in its efforts to impose a modicum of discipline on the BJP. The party has got away with murder, and worse, in its cynical pursuit of communalism, thanks to the reluctance of the Establishment to bring it to heel -- witness the Babri demolition and the Gujarat carnage.
The BJP must be legally punished and politically isolated for the CD. This can only happen if the EC and enlightened public opinion remains unshaken by the BJP's bullying tactics.
April 14, 2007)
Back to BJP's anti-Muslim roots
The writer, a former newspaper editor, is a researcher and peace and human-rights activist based in Delhi
By Praful Bidwai
Three years after sending the Bharatiya Janata Party packing, India again faces a fresh communal challenge to its democracy and electoral system. Nothing symbolises the emerging contention over this better than a despicably foul, rabidly anti-Muslim compact disc (CD) commissioned and distributed by the BJP for the Uttar Pradesh elections.
The CD was released with fanfare by senior UP party leader Lalji Tandon and state unit president Kesri Nath Tripathi four days before the first round of polling in the seven-phase election. So obnoxious was its content that the BJP hastily withdrew it. But it has since "disowned" it and tried to pretend that it knows nothing about it.
Yet, faced with a First Information Report filed by the Election Commission for using communal means to canvass support, party president Rajnath Singh melodramatically offered to be arrested. Lest it be thought that the rustic, crude and pugnacious Singh was solely responsible for this, the BJP's "urbane" veterans Atal Behari Vajpayee and Lal Krishna Advani went along with the tactic.
The BJP's stand on the CD is egregiously contradictory. On the one hand, its leadership wants to dissociate itself from it while blaming low-level "party workers" for adding "undesirable elements to it." On the other hand, it has behaved as if it owned the CD and was wrongly punished for producing it. That's why the feigning of injured innocence.
Duplicity comes naturally to the BJP and is integral to its politics. After the Babri mosque's razing, Advani said December 6 was "the saddest day" of his life. But he quickly proceeded to defend the ideology that led to the removal of this "ocular insult" to "Hindu India". After Gujarat, Vajpayee "hung his head in shame". But within days, he was asking: "Lekin aag kisne lagayee", thus blaming Muslims for the pogrom. The BJP has seamlessly vacillated between expressions of shame and achievement/pride for the same act!
However, BJP leaders can't pretend they weren't consulted during the CD's production. According to the Bulandshehr-based Fakira Films, which produced the CD: "At every stage of writing the CD, the leadership of the state BJP was consulted, the script modified, (words) added and fine-tuned."
'Withdrawing' the CD doesn't mean much. Its copies are in unrestricted circulation. Excerpts have been aired on television channels. The CD's potential to vitiate the election process remains unmitigated.
The EC is thus perfectly right to treat the CD as an unfair electoral practice under various sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Representation of the People Act, 1951, which pertain to "inflammatory material capable of creating enmity/hatred among different communities", and the EC's Model Code of Conduct.
The CD pours hatred upon Muslims as treacherous "anti-Hindu" citizens who will again divide India. It's designed to provoke a strong reaction from Muslims -- and a Hindu backlash. It says Muslims are duplicitous: they kidnap, forcibly marry and convert Hindu women; they kill cows while offering to look after them; they run "anti-national" madressahs.
The pivotal message is: "This time if you don't vote for the BJP, disaster will strike this country. The BJP is a party that thinks about [India]. It thinks about the Hindu religion. All other parties are agents of the Muslims."
The CD contains false, malicious allegations about Mulayam Singh Yadav having organised iftaar parties on the ghats of the Ganga, and new textbooks being published under the United Progressive Alliance saying that Goddess Durga is fond of liquor and that Emperor Aurangazeb was a saint. Its purpose is to hurt, arouse hatred, and turn hatred into votes.
The BJP routinely distributes obnoxious propaganda material during its election campaigns and organisational meetings. During its national executive meeting last December, it distributed a similar CD as part of its press kit, duly stamped with the lotus symbol.
In content, the December CD is no different from the present one. The BJP's intent to use religious identities as political instruments is well established. It mobilises votes by spreading religious hatred, often wrapped in "nationalist" attire. Such communal practices should be altogether banished from India's public discourse. Unfortunately, they aren't effectively banned. Hate-speech and many hate-acts directed at religious-ethnic minorities go unpunished. A sordid example of such concession to majoritarianism is the questioning of the patriotic credentials of the minorities, especially when terrorist incidents take place.
But India does have an electoral law developed under an independent and assertive Election Commission, which explicitly prohibits the use of inflammatory means - on pain of disqualification of candidates. Such disqualifications have indeed taken place. Shiv Sena leaders had to quit their seats because they used communal means during the elections. But such disqualification isn't enough to deter abuse. India needs a far more explicit code of conduct, and solemn commitments by political leaders that they won't resort to innuendo, vulgar slang, or indirect references to particular communities while canvassing electoral support. The present case offers an opportunity for such reform. The Election Commission must seriously consider de-recognising the BJP as a political party if its FIR's charges are established.
The EC must supplement this by extracting from BJP leaders serious pledges that they won't use religion as "a loyalty test", that they won't exploit the Ayodhya temple for electoral gains, nor depict the Babri mosque's razing in triumphant colours, as the present CD does. Should the BJP violate these assurances, it should be automatically de-recognised.Such reform is imperative. Secularism is not an option in India. It's a categorical imperative. It's part of the "basic structure" of India's Constitution and a precondition for India's survival as a pluralist, vibrant democracy which respects diversity and minority rights.
As two Supreme Court judges put it in a trend-setting (Bommai) case (1994), the Constitution requires not just the Indian state, but "political parties as well", to be secular in "thought and action". The BJP -- with the Shiv Sena -- stands apart from all other parties in India insofar as it seeks to transform India into a Hindu-majoritarian entity. Like its predecessor, the Jana Sangh, the BJP has often incited communal passions to win votes. It must be prevented from doing so. The BJP must be watched very closely in UP, where it's desperate to prevent its already narrow base from fragmenting. According to two major opinion polls, the BJP and its allies are likely to do much worse in these assembly elections than in 2002.
The BJP's upper-caste support in UP has shrunk from 72 per cent to 50 per cent. Extremist, illiberal parties like the BJP act waywardly when faced with defeat. They must not be allowed to damage India's secular fabric and shift the goalposts of democratic politics.
The Election Commission deserves the unstinting support of the citizenry in its efforts to impose a modicum of discipline on the BJP. The party has got away with murder, and worse, in its cynical pursuit of communalism, thanks to the reluctance of the Establishment to bring it to heel -- witness the Babri demolition and the Gujarat carnage.
The BJP must be legally punished and politically isolated for the CD. This can only happen if the EC and enlightened public opinion remains unshaken by the BJP's bullying tactics.
April 12, 2007
Indian Express Editorial on BJP's Election propaganda CD
(Indian Express
April 11, 2007
The CD chakra
BJP, for its own credibility, has to be accountable to both democratic institutions and itself
The Supreme Court of India, in its 1995 judgment that found Shiv Sena’s Bal Thackeray and Ramesh Prabhoo guilty of fomenting communal hatred during the 1987 Maharashtra assembly elections, ended with the “fervent hope that our observations have some chastening effect in the future election campaigns”. It’s interesting to recall these words at the current moment when the BJP finds itself in a corner over allegations that a particularly offensive CD was part of its Uttar Pradesh election campaign. We don’t think the response should at all be that the BJP be de-recognised. De-recognition is a blunt instrument and is not useful in addressing the issues inherent in the present controversy. However, it would have been far wiser on the part of the BJP to have distanced itself decisively from that sorry CD — something it had initially attempted to do — and issued the necessary apologies, and moved on, rather than attempted to eke some political mileage out of the episode and cast aspersions on the credibility of the Election Commission.
Related Stories
CD issue: BJP cries foul against Chawla to score over rivalsBJP seeks time, EC defers CD hearingDirector, producer of CD record statementWithdrawing CD is a drama, says CongressPolice draw curtains on arrest drama
For its own credibility the party has to be accountable to national institutions. The Representation of the People Act expressly forbids the “promotion of or attempt to promote, feelings of enmity and hatred between different classes of the citizens of India on the grounds of religion, race, caste, community, or language...” The CD in question clearly invites censure under this clause, and leaders of a party that had once been in power at the Centre should have immediately recognised this fact. The party should now look within. A thorough inquiry into how such a CD — and others of its kind — came into circulation may in itself provide the necessary correctives.
Going back to the Supreme Court judgment on the Shiv Sena, the three-judge bench explained that communal electioneering was unacceptable, because it “discarded the cherished values of our rich cultural heritage and tended to erode the secular polity”. Over the years, the best and brightest interpreters of the Constitution — H.M. Seervai and Nani Palkhiwala to name just two — have consistently argued that inflammatory writing or speech amounts to a serious subversion of the law and the secular foundations of the Indian Constitution. The BJP, as a national party, must internalise this sense of the Constitution. And the sorry CD story presents it with the right moment to begin this process.
editor@expressindia.com
April 11, 2007
The CD chakra
BJP, for its own credibility, has to be accountable to both democratic institutions and itself
The Supreme Court of India, in its 1995 judgment that found Shiv Sena’s Bal Thackeray and Ramesh Prabhoo guilty of fomenting communal hatred during the 1987 Maharashtra assembly elections, ended with the “fervent hope that our observations have some chastening effect in the future election campaigns”. It’s interesting to recall these words at the current moment when the BJP finds itself in a corner over allegations that a particularly offensive CD was part of its Uttar Pradesh election campaign. We don’t think the response should at all be that the BJP be de-recognised. De-recognition is a blunt instrument and is not useful in addressing the issues inherent in the present controversy. However, it would have been far wiser on the part of the BJP to have distanced itself decisively from that sorry CD — something it had initially attempted to do — and issued the necessary apologies, and moved on, rather than attempted to eke some political mileage out of the episode and cast aspersions on the credibility of the Election Commission.
Related Stories
CD issue: BJP cries foul against Chawla to score over rivalsBJP seeks time, EC defers CD hearingDirector, producer of CD record statementWithdrawing CD is a drama, says CongressPolice draw curtains on arrest drama
For its own credibility the party has to be accountable to national institutions. The Representation of the People Act expressly forbids the “promotion of or attempt to promote, feelings of enmity and hatred between different classes of the citizens of India on the grounds of religion, race, caste, community, or language...” The CD in question clearly invites censure under this clause, and leaders of a party that had once been in power at the Centre should have immediately recognised this fact. The party should now look within. A thorough inquiry into how such a CD — and others of its kind — came into circulation may in itself provide the necessary correctives.
Going back to the Supreme Court judgment on the Shiv Sena, the three-judge bench explained that communal electioneering was unacceptable, because it “discarded the cherished values of our rich cultural heritage and tended to erode the secular polity”. Over the years, the best and brightest interpreters of the Constitution — H.M. Seervai and Nani Palkhiwala to name just two — have consistently argued that inflammatory writing or speech amounts to a serious subversion of the law and the secular foundations of the Indian Constitution. The BJP, as a national party, must internalise this sense of the Constitution. And the sorry CD story presents it with the right moment to begin this process.
editor@expressindia.com
Telegraph Editorial on BJP's communal election propaganda
(The Telegraph
12 April 2007)
Editorial
WRONG LEANINGS
A criminal offence does not become less so because it is committed by a political party. Spreading communal hatred is an offence punishable by law. There is no doubt whatsoever that the Bharatiya Janata Party has committed a serious crime by releasing a compact disc full of communal propaganda as part of its campaign for the elections in Uttar Pradesh. By doing so, the party has exposed once again its communal leanings. That the party has done it so openly suggests that its problems in UP have forced it to go back to its communal roots. Usually, political parties in India bare their fangs when they feel cornered. The Left parties, especially the Communist Party of India (Marxist), are known to depend on violence and terror in times of adversity. The danger from the BJP’s communal propaganda is not limited to either an election or a particular state. The BJP shares with the Congress most of the political space in the country. The party had ruled at the Centre and will be a prime contender for power during the 2009 general elections. It runs several state governments. The future of the Indian polity cannot be safe in the hands of a party that is so brazenly communal. It is not enough for the party’s central leadership to pass on the blame to their compatriots in Lucknow. Senior BJP leaders must plead guilty.
However, what the Election Commission does in order to punish the BJP for its crime is another matter. The EC’s threat to derecognize the party may not be a feasible solution. The law does not empower the EC to take such an action. The Representation of the People Act provides for punishment of individuals guilty of spreading communal, caste or racial hatred. It does not apply to parties or organizations. But the application of this act may open a Pandora’s box because other parties could also be charged with similar offences, particularly those relating to caste. The result will be an interminable legal wrangle that could defeat the EC’s purpose. The present law enables the EC only to withdraw an offending party’s election symbol. The derecognition of a party is linked to the percentage of its votes and seats from an election. All this, however, does not detract from the need for some exemplary punishment for the BJP. There is a case for stronger laws to punish politicians who think nothing of dividing the people in the name of electoral campaigns.
12 April 2007)
Editorial
WRONG LEANINGS
A criminal offence does not become less so because it is committed by a political party. Spreading communal hatred is an offence punishable by law. There is no doubt whatsoever that the Bharatiya Janata Party has committed a serious crime by releasing a compact disc full of communal propaganda as part of its campaign for the elections in Uttar Pradesh. By doing so, the party has exposed once again its communal leanings. That the party has done it so openly suggests that its problems in UP have forced it to go back to its communal roots. Usually, political parties in India bare their fangs when they feel cornered. The Left parties, especially the Communist Party of India (Marxist), are known to depend on violence and terror in times of adversity. The danger from the BJP’s communal propaganda is not limited to either an election or a particular state. The BJP shares with the Congress most of the political space in the country. The party had ruled at the Centre and will be a prime contender for power during the 2009 general elections. It runs several state governments. The future of the Indian polity cannot be safe in the hands of a party that is so brazenly communal. It is not enough for the party’s central leadership to pass on the blame to their compatriots in Lucknow. Senior BJP leaders must plead guilty.
However, what the Election Commission does in order to punish the BJP for its crime is another matter. The EC’s threat to derecognize the party may not be a feasible solution. The law does not empower the EC to take such an action. The Representation of the People Act provides for punishment of individuals guilty of spreading communal, caste or racial hatred. It does not apply to parties or organizations. But the application of this act may open a Pandora’s box because other parties could also be charged with similar offences, particularly those relating to caste. The result will be an interminable legal wrangle that could defeat the EC’s purpose. The present law enables the EC only to withdraw an offending party’s election symbol. The derecognition of a party is linked to the percentage of its votes and seats from an election. All this, however, does not detract from the need for some exemplary punishment for the BJP. There is a case for stronger laws to punish politicians who think nothing of dividing the people in the name of electoral campaigns.
April 07, 2007
BJP's election campaign CD `Bharat ki Pukar' — excerpts from the transcript
(The Hindu
What the BJP's election campaign CD `Bharat ki Pukar' presents — excerpts from the transcript
Special Correspondent
New Delhi: Here are some detailed excerpts from the verbatim transcript, translated from the Hindi original, of the VCD titled `Bharat ki Pukar' released by the Bharatiya Janata Party as part of its campaign material for the Uttar Pradesh elections. It is on the basis of the contents of this VCD — which the BJP says it has `withdrawn' — that the Election Commission has directed the registration of an FIR against a veteran State party leader who launched the VCD, the party's national president, and some others.
The VCD consists of a series of fictionalised scenes revolving around several dramatis personae including Masterji, a BJP campaigner, and an unnamed social worker. Judging from the final credits, a large number of actors were used to make the VCD.
[Editor-in-Chief's note: The Hindu considers the dialogue and message contained in this CD to be highly communal and offensive. It is publishing excerpts from the transcript because it believes the Indian public has a right to be informed about the reasons behind the ongoing controversy. Several TV channels have already shown visuals from the offensive CD.]
Opening credits: BJP Uttar Pradesh presents `Bharat ki Pukar' (`The Call of India')
Voiceover: Today Mother India is screaming aloud, "Oh my sons, save me from being broken into pieces again. I no longer have the strength to be enslaved another time. By using terrorists, spreading fear and dividing us, Pakistan wants to break India into pieces. Hyenas hungry for political power are egging them on. They have forgotten what the consequences of this will be. Now, ordinary people of India have to think, do they want slavery again or Ram Rajya in their independent India."
(Cut to image of Ram)
[Song — Ai Bharat ma tere charano mein... ]
[Flag of the BJP, clips of BJP leaders]
Section title: A contemporary picture of India and Uttar Pradesh
The scene: Newspaper delivery boy cycles past shouting headlines about terrorist attacks.
1. Bharat desh aatankvad ke giraft mein.
Masterji goes around telling people to come to January 26 flag hoisting. At the meeting, only four or five people come. Masterji laments the poor showing but gives a stirring speech and shouts `Vande Mataram.'
The camera immediately cuts to the image of a Muslim man (identified by cap on head) planting a bomb under a white Ambassador car.
Episode: Cow slaughter
Cut to scene in idyllic village home with soothing music. Two men rest in courtyard next to tethered cow.
Cut to two young men walking outside, wearing pants and shirts and carrying long lathis.
Youth 1: Bhai Javed, the Hindu village has come.
Youth 2: Salim, you are right. Hurry up and take out the stuff, the tika and red thread (kalava).
[Javed opens bag and puts tika on Salim's forehead.]
Salim: Bhai, put it properly.
[They then tie the kalava on each other's wrist while Javed looks around furtively.]
Javed: Now no one will recognise us [laughs].
The two walk into the courtyard of the home with the cow.
Javed: Uncle, Ram, Ram!
Uncle: What's up? Where have you come from?
Javed: We want a cow. The doctor has said we should give milk to our child. So seeing your cow, we have come. Will you sell me your cow?
Uncle: We have cow's milk. And we can sell it too.
Javed: What you say is true. But sell us this cow. Our child can drink milk and we will look after the cow.
Uncle: The sons of butchers have come around many times ...
[Cut to look of panic on Javed's face, cut to kalava on wrist]
... and even offered me 3,500 rupees. I told them I wouldn't sell it for even a lakh. But if you keep it at home and look after it, you can have it.
Javed: But uncle, 3500 is too much.
Uncle: Brother, give me what you want. You are one of us.
Javed: Uncle, I can only give 3000. I'm a poor man.
Uncle: Take it, but on one condition. Don't sell it to the butchers.
Javed: Uncle, we are not Muslims.
[He pays the money and takes the cow.]
[Cut to scene of Uncle sleeping. His nephew comes in.]
Nephew: Uncle, you've sold the cow to butchers and now you are sleeping!
Uncle: No, they were the Hindu boys. They had a tika on their forehead and kalava on their wrists. I saw it with my own eyes. It's only after seeing that that I sold it.
Nephew: I saw the butcher's sons on my way here. Neither did they have a tilak nor kalava. Aren't you ashamed? You sold your cow to the butchers.
Uncle: Are you telling me the truth?
Nephew: I know those boys.
Uncle: Oh, no this is a terrible thing that has happened. [Starts calling out for help, if anyone can find them] ... We'll find them and beat them up and bring my cow back.
Nephew: Ha! You are not going to find your cow. They've probably already killed her.
[Cut to 50-second-long footage of a buffalo being slaughtered, including scenes of the blood pouring out from its throat.]
Text: The present government is giving full support to butchers. Cruel atrocities are being committed on Gaumata.
Uncle [head in hands]: This is a terrible crime, what am I going to do?
Nephew: You can cry about this your whole life. You've committed a big sin by selling your cow to the butchers.
Scene 2: `Duty of Muslim women to increase population'
Masterji stops a woman on the road.
Masterji: My child.
Woman: Yes.
Masterji: Elections are coming. Think carefully before you vote. And put your stamp only on the lotus symbol. Because if peace can come to this country, then it can come only under the BJP's rule. Congress and Samajwadi are the government of mullahs and maulvis.
Woman: Forgive me for saying so, but I am also a Muslim and Mullahs and Maulvis consider women their personal property.
[Cut to group women in black chador]
Woman 1: The duty of a woman is to produce children and increase the population.
Woman 2: What this sister says is right. Our leaders have issued an order. That those who produce more than 10 children will get economic assistance.
[Cut back to woman and Masterji]
Woman: This religion considers us as objects to be used.
Masterji: Well said, my child. If all the women become educated and wise like you, then this country's fate will improve.
[Cut to real news clip of speech by saffron-clad woman. "Hindus will produce two children and Muslims will marry five times and produce 35 pups and make this country into an Islamic state."]
Scene 3: "You will all have to grow beards"
Masterji [to group of shopkeepers]: Don't let this opportunity pass by. This time if you don't vote for the BJP, disaster will strike this country. The country will be destroyed. The BJP is a party that thinks about the country. It thinks about the Hindu religion. There is no other party like it. The other parties, they are all agents of the Muslims. What else have they done other than this? Prices have gone up. I tell you, we must vote only for the BJP.
Shopkeeper: Masterji, it's time for me to run my shop. Here Hindus and Muslims both come. What is it to me whose government is formed? You have unfurled the BJP's flag first thing in the morning. If you'd like a cup of tea, you are welcome. Otherwise, please excuse me.
Masterji: Tea? You think I am desperate for your tea? It's because I'm concerned about this country and our religion that I'm asking you to vote for the BJP. If you don't vote BJP, you will regret it. This country will be enslaved. First it was enslaved by the British, now it will be enslaved by the Muslims. Even earlier it was enslaved by the Muslims. That Aurangzeb earlier cut your choti [tuft of hair] and took off your sacred thread. And now these tikas on your forehead will have to go and in their place you will have to grow beards. That day you will repent, Panditji. And you will be destroyed and so will this country.
Shopkeeper: He is really irritating!
Friend: Panditji, you are calling the Masterji mad but everything he said is right. If today we don't take care, these tilaks will go and we will all be sporting beards and caps.
Scene 4: `You will end up in burqas'
Masterji [to group of women complaining about the price rise]: Listen, elections are coming and only by your votes can this country and the Hindu religion be saved. Otherwise we are standing in the jaws of slavery again. This time we have to make the BJP victorious and vote on the Lotus symbol.
Woman 1: Well you men know best, we will vote where you say.
Woman 2: People keep coming to ask for our votes.
Woman 3: No one is bothered about prices.
Masterji: That is why I am saying: if the BJP is in power, everything will be all right.
Woman 1: Masterji, why are you chewing your brains? People will vote for whoever they want.
Masterji: It is your brain that has been ruined! You will end up covered in burqas and eating paan!
Scene 5: Muslims abduct Hindu girl
[A social worker comes to a village looking for Chameli chachi. Chachi is lying huddled in bed.]
Social worker: Chachi, what happened?...
Chameli: A Muslim boy pretended to be a Hindu and lured my young daughter away. Fearing badnami, my husband committed suicide. If I say I am going to the police, then those people threaten me [cut to visual of a Muslim man wearing a turban and looking threateningly] that if you report us, we will kill your child. Now you tell me what should I do?
Social Worker: Don't worry, now that I am here, we will take care of you, we will solve everything.
Chameli: Please bring my daughter back. Who knows what kinds of terrible things are happening to her.
[Cut to scene of Chameli's daughter praying in front of a portrait of Krishna.]
Daughter: Om Jai Jagadish Hare!...
[A man walks up and throws the Krishna portrait on the floor.]
Man: If you perform puja in this house again, I will really fix you. Remember that.
Girl: What is this you have done, Ram? You have thrown Bhagwanji's picture! What is this you have done, Ram?
Man: Ram? Ha ha ha! My name is not Ram, it is Shehzad Ali. And I am not a Hindu but a true Muslim! Ha Ha ha ha!
Girl: What is this you are saying? You are lying.
Man: Listen carefully to what I say because from today, I am no longer Ram and you are no longer Geeta. From today your name is Fatima Begum. And tomorrow, you will be married to this boy, Yaamin, according to our rituals. [Cut to picture of an older man laughing in an evil manner.] And then you will have to live with him.
Girl: [Crying] You are lying. This can't be.
Man [slaps girl]: And don't ever utter a name that is against our Islam. What is there in these pictures? [Camera pans to portrait of Krishna on floor.]
Where is God? This is all lies. If you want to pray, pray to that Khuda who has made the whole universe.
Girl: [Breaks down, falls at his feet, and says with folded hands] Let me go back to my home.
Man: Home? Ha ha ha! Which home? This is your home and you will have to live here. And stop this puja-wuja and start namaz. Because by tomorrow, you will have become a true Muslim. Yaamin! Come here. Take this girl away. Tomorrow you will be married to her.
Yaamin: [Grabs girl's hand] Come on, begum. I will make you happy.
[Yaamin drags girl away, minus her dupatta.]
Man: Ha ha ha! When Hindu girls get ensnared by us, they scream and shout but sadly there is no one to listen to them and we have great fun. Ha ha ha ha ha!
Written text on screen: Love in Jihad, injury to Hindu religion, and forced conversion. This is the protection provided by the SP government.
[Social worker goes on a political mission, meets Samajwadi and Congress leaders, and finally decides that the BJP is the party to support.]
Scene 6: `Soon there will be only Naqvis, no Sohanlals'
The newspaper man brings headlines of terrorist attacks. Masterji shouts that this is what he has been warning about for years but people thought he was mad. In anger, he pushes the newspaper man's bicycle, but then has a heart attack and dies.
Funeral scene: Social worker, shopkeepers, and all the dramatis personae we have met so far congregate around his body.
Shopkeeper: He was a great man, always worried about the country and our religion. One day he came to my shop and said Ramlalji, the country will be partitioned once again because Hindus are forgetting their culture and the government is taking the side of the Muslims ...
Shopkeeper 2: Yes, he was a true patriot. He used to consider the Samajwadi government as pro-Muslim and that is what is happening in reality.
Mourner: Do you know the Mulayam government has hired 13,000 Urdu teachers. So are ulema going to teach us from now? And they have removed all laudatory references to Hindus from the curriculum. What will happen to Hindu culture?
Social Worker: Who knows how many more masters will be martyred because of their concern for this country? But your eyes will still not open. And now, that day is not far away when we will be afraid to even call ourselves Hindu, and you will never be able to find a Sohanlal, Mohanlal, Atmaram, or Radhakrishan anywhere. Wherever we look, we will only see Abbas, Naqvi, Rizvi, and Maulvi. All schools and colleges will be shut down. What will open are madrasas from where fatwas will be issued to drive Hindus out from this country, enslave them — because they want to rule over here, they want to make India into Pakistan. Then it will be difficult for Hindu girls to ever venture outside their houses. Muslims will seize their houses. Then who will protect their honour?
Old man: No. We will never allow this to happen. In order to realise Masterji's dreams and prevent India from becoming Pakistan, we must live and die for the nation.
Social worker: Come, let us take a vow.
[All join hands over Masterji's body and shout `Vande Mataram! Jai Sri Ram! Vande Mataram! Jai Sri Ram!']
Social worker: Just as the slogan of Vande Mataram inspired us to throw out the British, today we have to take an oath to drive those traitors out of the country.
Visual of BJP flag
Social worker: Let us move ahead waving the flag of the BJP and the saffron flag. Jai Sri Ram!
[The CD concludes with songs, visual montages of BJP leaders giving speeches, clips of the Babri Masjid being demolished, etc.]
What the BJP's election campaign CD `Bharat ki Pukar' presents — excerpts from the transcript
Special Correspondent
New Delhi: Here are some detailed excerpts from the verbatim transcript, translated from the Hindi original, of the VCD titled `Bharat ki Pukar' released by the Bharatiya Janata Party as part of its campaign material for the Uttar Pradesh elections. It is on the basis of the contents of this VCD — which the BJP says it has `withdrawn' — that the Election Commission has directed the registration of an FIR against a veteran State party leader who launched the VCD, the party's national president, and some others.
The VCD consists of a series of fictionalised scenes revolving around several dramatis personae including Masterji, a BJP campaigner, and an unnamed social worker. Judging from the final credits, a large number of actors were used to make the VCD.
[Editor-in-Chief's note: The Hindu considers the dialogue and message contained in this CD to be highly communal and offensive. It is publishing excerpts from the transcript because it believes the Indian public has a right to be informed about the reasons behind the ongoing controversy. Several TV channels have already shown visuals from the offensive CD.]
Opening credits: BJP Uttar Pradesh presents `Bharat ki Pukar' (`The Call of India')
Voiceover: Today Mother India is screaming aloud, "Oh my sons, save me from being broken into pieces again. I no longer have the strength to be enslaved another time. By using terrorists, spreading fear and dividing us, Pakistan wants to break India into pieces. Hyenas hungry for political power are egging them on. They have forgotten what the consequences of this will be. Now, ordinary people of India have to think, do they want slavery again or Ram Rajya in their independent India."
(Cut to image of Ram)
[Song — Ai Bharat ma tere charano mein... ]
[Flag of the BJP, clips of BJP leaders]
Section title: A contemporary picture of India and Uttar Pradesh
The scene: Newspaper delivery boy cycles past shouting headlines about terrorist attacks.
1. Bharat desh aatankvad ke giraft mein.
Masterji goes around telling people to come to January 26 flag hoisting. At the meeting, only four or five people come. Masterji laments the poor showing but gives a stirring speech and shouts `Vande Mataram.'
The camera immediately cuts to the image of a Muslim man (identified by cap on head) planting a bomb under a white Ambassador car.
Episode: Cow slaughter
Cut to scene in idyllic village home with soothing music. Two men rest in courtyard next to tethered cow.
Cut to two young men walking outside, wearing pants and shirts and carrying long lathis.
Youth 1: Bhai Javed, the Hindu village has come.
Youth 2: Salim, you are right. Hurry up and take out the stuff, the tika and red thread (kalava).
[Javed opens bag and puts tika on Salim's forehead.]
Salim: Bhai, put it properly.
[They then tie the kalava on each other's wrist while Javed looks around furtively.]
Javed: Now no one will recognise us [laughs].
The two walk into the courtyard of the home with the cow.
Javed: Uncle, Ram, Ram!
Uncle: What's up? Where have you come from?
Javed: We want a cow. The doctor has said we should give milk to our child. So seeing your cow, we have come. Will you sell me your cow?
Uncle: We have cow's milk. And we can sell it too.
Javed: What you say is true. But sell us this cow. Our child can drink milk and we will look after the cow.
Uncle: The sons of butchers have come around many times ...
[Cut to look of panic on Javed's face, cut to kalava on wrist]
... and even offered me 3,500 rupees. I told them I wouldn't sell it for even a lakh. But if you keep it at home and look after it, you can have it.
Javed: But uncle, 3500 is too much.
Uncle: Brother, give me what you want. You are one of us.
Javed: Uncle, I can only give 3000. I'm a poor man.
Uncle: Take it, but on one condition. Don't sell it to the butchers.
Javed: Uncle, we are not Muslims.
[He pays the money and takes the cow.]
[Cut to scene of Uncle sleeping. His nephew comes in.]
Nephew: Uncle, you've sold the cow to butchers and now you are sleeping!
Uncle: No, they were the Hindu boys. They had a tika on their forehead and kalava on their wrists. I saw it with my own eyes. It's only after seeing that that I sold it.
Nephew: I saw the butcher's sons on my way here. Neither did they have a tilak nor kalava. Aren't you ashamed? You sold your cow to the butchers.
Uncle: Are you telling me the truth?
Nephew: I know those boys.
Uncle: Oh, no this is a terrible thing that has happened. [Starts calling out for help, if anyone can find them] ... We'll find them and beat them up and bring my cow back.
Nephew: Ha! You are not going to find your cow. They've probably already killed her.
[Cut to 50-second-long footage of a buffalo being slaughtered, including scenes of the blood pouring out from its throat.]
Text: The present government is giving full support to butchers. Cruel atrocities are being committed on Gaumata.
Uncle [head in hands]: This is a terrible crime, what am I going to do?
Nephew: You can cry about this your whole life. You've committed a big sin by selling your cow to the butchers.
Scene 2: `Duty of Muslim women to increase population'
Masterji stops a woman on the road.
Masterji: My child.
Woman: Yes.
Masterji: Elections are coming. Think carefully before you vote. And put your stamp only on the lotus symbol. Because if peace can come to this country, then it can come only under the BJP's rule. Congress and Samajwadi are the government of mullahs and maulvis.
Woman: Forgive me for saying so, but I am also a Muslim and Mullahs and Maulvis consider women their personal property.
[Cut to group women in black chador]
Woman 1: The duty of a woman is to produce children and increase the population.
Woman 2: What this sister says is right. Our leaders have issued an order. That those who produce more than 10 children will get economic assistance.
[Cut back to woman and Masterji]
Woman: This religion considers us as objects to be used.
Masterji: Well said, my child. If all the women become educated and wise like you, then this country's fate will improve.
[Cut to real news clip of speech by saffron-clad woman. "Hindus will produce two children and Muslims will marry five times and produce 35 pups and make this country into an Islamic state."]
Scene 3: "You will all have to grow beards"
Masterji [to group of shopkeepers]: Don't let this opportunity pass by. This time if you don't vote for the BJP, disaster will strike this country. The country will be destroyed. The BJP is a party that thinks about the country. It thinks about the Hindu religion. There is no other party like it. The other parties, they are all agents of the Muslims. What else have they done other than this? Prices have gone up. I tell you, we must vote only for the BJP.
Shopkeeper: Masterji, it's time for me to run my shop. Here Hindus and Muslims both come. What is it to me whose government is formed? You have unfurled the BJP's flag first thing in the morning. If you'd like a cup of tea, you are welcome. Otherwise, please excuse me.
Masterji: Tea? You think I am desperate for your tea? It's because I'm concerned about this country and our religion that I'm asking you to vote for the BJP. If you don't vote BJP, you will regret it. This country will be enslaved. First it was enslaved by the British, now it will be enslaved by the Muslims. Even earlier it was enslaved by the Muslims. That Aurangzeb earlier cut your choti [tuft of hair] and took off your sacred thread. And now these tikas on your forehead will have to go and in their place you will have to grow beards. That day you will repent, Panditji. And you will be destroyed and so will this country.
Shopkeeper: He is really irritating!
Friend: Panditji, you are calling the Masterji mad but everything he said is right. If today we don't take care, these tilaks will go and we will all be sporting beards and caps.
Scene 4: `You will end up in burqas'
Masterji [to group of women complaining about the price rise]: Listen, elections are coming and only by your votes can this country and the Hindu religion be saved. Otherwise we are standing in the jaws of slavery again. This time we have to make the BJP victorious and vote on the Lotus symbol.
Woman 1: Well you men know best, we will vote where you say.
Woman 2: People keep coming to ask for our votes.
Woman 3: No one is bothered about prices.
Masterji: That is why I am saying: if the BJP is in power, everything will be all right.
Woman 1: Masterji, why are you chewing your brains? People will vote for whoever they want.
Masterji: It is your brain that has been ruined! You will end up covered in burqas and eating paan!
Scene 5: Muslims abduct Hindu girl
[A social worker comes to a village looking for Chameli chachi. Chachi is lying huddled in bed.]
Social worker: Chachi, what happened?...
Chameli: A Muslim boy pretended to be a Hindu and lured my young daughter away. Fearing badnami, my husband committed suicide. If I say I am going to the police, then those people threaten me [cut to visual of a Muslim man wearing a turban and looking threateningly] that if you report us, we will kill your child. Now you tell me what should I do?
Social Worker: Don't worry, now that I am here, we will take care of you, we will solve everything.
Chameli: Please bring my daughter back. Who knows what kinds of terrible things are happening to her.
[Cut to scene of Chameli's daughter praying in front of a portrait of Krishna.]
Daughter: Om Jai Jagadish Hare!...
[A man walks up and throws the Krishna portrait on the floor.]
Man: If you perform puja in this house again, I will really fix you. Remember that.
Girl: What is this you have done, Ram? You have thrown Bhagwanji's picture! What is this you have done, Ram?
Man: Ram? Ha ha ha! My name is not Ram, it is Shehzad Ali. And I am not a Hindu but a true Muslim! Ha Ha ha ha!
Girl: What is this you are saying? You are lying.
Man: Listen carefully to what I say because from today, I am no longer Ram and you are no longer Geeta. From today your name is Fatima Begum. And tomorrow, you will be married to this boy, Yaamin, according to our rituals. [Cut to picture of an older man laughing in an evil manner.] And then you will have to live with him.
Girl: [Crying] You are lying. This can't be.
Man [slaps girl]: And don't ever utter a name that is against our Islam. What is there in these pictures? [Camera pans to portrait of Krishna on floor.]
Where is God? This is all lies. If you want to pray, pray to that Khuda who has made the whole universe.
Girl: [Breaks down, falls at his feet, and says with folded hands] Let me go back to my home.
Man: Home? Ha ha ha! Which home? This is your home and you will have to live here. And stop this puja-wuja and start namaz. Because by tomorrow, you will have become a true Muslim. Yaamin! Come here. Take this girl away. Tomorrow you will be married to her.
Yaamin: [Grabs girl's hand] Come on, begum. I will make you happy.
[Yaamin drags girl away, minus her dupatta.]
Man: Ha ha ha! When Hindu girls get ensnared by us, they scream and shout but sadly there is no one to listen to them and we have great fun. Ha ha ha ha ha!
Written text on screen: Love in Jihad, injury to Hindu religion, and forced conversion. This is the protection provided by the SP government.
[Social worker goes on a political mission, meets Samajwadi and Congress leaders, and finally decides that the BJP is the party to support.]
Scene 6: `Soon there will be only Naqvis, no Sohanlals'
The newspaper man brings headlines of terrorist attacks. Masterji shouts that this is what he has been warning about for years but people thought he was mad. In anger, he pushes the newspaper man's bicycle, but then has a heart attack and dies.
Funeral scene: Social worker, shopkeepers, and all the dramatis personae we have met so far congregate around his body.
Shopkeeper: He was a great man, always worried about the country and our religion. One day he came to my shop and said Ramlalji, the country will be partitioned once again because Hindus are forgetting their culture and the government is taking the side of the Muslims ...
Shopkeeper 2: Yes, he was a true patriot. He used to consider the Samajwadi government as pro-Muslim and that is what is happening in reality.
Mourner: Do you know the Mulayam government has hired 13,000 Urdu teachers. So are ulema going to teach us from now? And they have removed all laudatory references to Hindus from the curriculum. What will happen to Hindu culture?
Social Worker: Who knows how many more masters will be martyred because of their concern for this country? But your eyes will still not open. And now, that day is not far away when we will be afraid to even call ourselves Hindu, and you will never be able to find a Sohanlal, Mohanlal, Atmaram, or Radhakrishan anywhere. Wherever we look, we will only see Abbas, Naqvi, Rizvi, and Maulvi. All schools and colleges will be shut down. What will open are madrasas from where fatwas will be issued to drive Hindus out from this country, enslave them — because they want to rule over here, they want to make India into Pakistan. Then it will be difficult for Hindu girls to ever venture outside their houses. Muslims will seize their houses. Then who will protect their honour?
Old man: No. We will never allow this to happen. In order to realise Masterji's dreams and prevent India from becoming Pakistan, we must live and die for the nation.
Social worker: Come, let us take a vow.
[All join hands over Masterji's body and shout `Vande Mataram! Jai Sri Ram! Vande Mataram! Jai Sri Ram!']
Social worker: Just as the slogan of Vande Mataram inspired us to throw out the British, today we have to take an oath to drive those traitors out of the country.
Visual of BJP flag
Social worker: Let us move ahead waving the flag of the BJP and the saffron flag. Jai Sri Ram!
[The CD concludes with songs, visual montages of BJP leaders giving speeches, clips of the Babri Masjid being demolished, etc.]
April 05, 2007
Hindutva overdrive gone wrong? BJP pulls out its hate-Muslim CD
Indian Express
April 05, 2007
PAGE 1 ANCHOR
Hindutva overdrive gone wrong? BJP pulls out its hate-Muslim CD
Siddharth Kalhans
Party leaders run for cover, claim it was released as UP campaign material without their knowledge; EC will take a look
His party says senior leaders not shown CD
LUCKNOW, APRIL 4: n Integrity of Muslims is suspect ... Muslim youths are behind elopement of Hindu girls, they get support from their parents and clerics. Hindu girls are then forced to adopt Islam... Madrasa teachers are engaged in anti-national activities, still Mulayam gives aid to madrasas... If Muslims have first right to resources, what should Hindus do? Leave the country?
These are some of the utterances in a BJP CD, released in UP yesterday as part of the party’s campaign for the Assembly polls in the hope that it would help them win Hindu votes. But 24 hours later, the party hurriedly withdrew the twin-CD pack — it was called UP Victimised — and leaders began disowning it, saying it was never brought to their notice before its release.
BJP’s Lalji Tandon, who’s Leader of Opposition in the UP Assembly, admitted it was a “mistake” and asked the media not to show the CD to anyone. With the Election Commission also calling for a copy of the CD and promising action, state BJP president Kesrinath Tripathi too promised an inquiry to find out who prepared the CD.
BJP leader L K Advani, while making clear that the party’s central leadership had not been shown the CD, said he did not think any mention of Babri or the Godhra train attack could be deemed provocative. “State units do come out with posters carrying my and Atalji’s pictures. They don’t have to consult us for these posters and banners,” he said.
BJP vice-president Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi too said that “the CD was not released officially but was meant for press preview. We are withholding it. Any portion, if found objectionable, will be deleted.”
For now, state BJP spokesperson Manoj Mishra has been removed from his post and party leaders have decided to take a look at all campaign material.
Remarks in CD meant to hurt
The BJP CD, while slamming both the UPA and Mulayam governments, makes some remarks which are meant to hurt and arouse passions. Consider these:
- During the Mulayam regime, iftaars were organised on the Ganga ghats in Haridwar, insulting Hindu religion
- Textbooks approved by the UPA government say goddess Durga was fond of liquor, Aurangzeb was a living saint, Lord Ram and Krishna were fictitious characters, Guru Gobind Singh was a Mughal employee
April 05, 2007
PAGE 1 ANCHOR
Hindutva overdrive gone wrong? BJP pulls out its hate-Muslim CD
Siddharth Kalhans
Party leaders run for cover, claim it was released as UP campaign material without their knowledge; EC will take a look
His party says senior leaders not shown CD
LUCKNOW, APRIL 4: n Integrity of Muslims is suspect ... Muslim youths are behind elopement of Hindu girls, they get support from their parents and clerics. Hindu girls are then forced to adopt Islam... Madrasa teachers are engaged in anti-national activities, still Mulayam gives aid to madrasas... If Muslims have first right to resources, what should Hindus do? Leave the country?
These are some of the utterances in a BJP CD, released in UP yesterday as part of the party’s campaign for the Assembly polls in the hope that it would help them win Hindu votes. But 24 hours later, the party hurriedly withdrew the twin-CD pack — it was called UP Victimised — and leaders began disowning it, saying it was never brought to their notice before its release.
BJP’s Lalji Tandon, who’s Leader of Opposition in the UP Assembly, admitted it was a “mistake” and asked the media not to show the CD to anyone. With the Election Commission also calling for a copy of the CD and promising action, state BJP president Kesrinath Tripathi too promised an inquiry to find out who prepared the CD.
BJP leader L K Advani, while making clear that the party’s central leadership had not been shown the CD, said he did not think any mention of Babri or the Godhra train attack could be deemed provocative. “State units do come out with posters carrying my and Atalji’s pictures. They don’t have to consult us for these posters and banners,” he said.
BJP vice-president Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi too said that “the CD was not released officially but was meant for press preview. We are withholding it. Any portion, if found objectionable, will be deleted.”
For now, state BJP spokesperson Manoj Mishra has been removed from his post and party leaders have decided to take a look at all campaign material.
Remarks in CD meant to hurt
The BJP CD, while slamming both the UPA and Mulayam governments, makes some remarks which are meant to hurt and arouse passions. Consider these:
- During the Mulayam regime, iftaars were organised on the Ganga ghats in Haridwar, insulting Hindu religion
- Textbooks approved by the UPA government say goddess Durga was fond of liquor, Aurangzeb was a living saint, Lord Ram and Krishna were fictitious characters, Guru Gobind Singh was a Mughal employee
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