Beyond petty politics

Elections 2004 have shown how the nation has risen above narrow concerns.

After the results of the 14th Lok Sabha polls are out, Indian politics will have hopefully changed forever. It should show that Muslims have started voting like other citizens, abandoning the ‘Islam-is-in-danger-so-defeat-the-BJP’ mode of thinking. Differences in ideologies should get submerged in the ‘Idea of India’.

HT Image

Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s success is based on this ‘discard-hate’ principle. There were times when leaders in India and Pakistan contested and won on the issue of ‘crushing each other’. This time, what was most illuminating was that the elections were contested on the agenda of peace and progress, not on the ‘war phobia’ plank or the promise to teach Pakistan ‘a lesson’.

India has risen above the narrow considerations of religion and sectarianism. Muslims go the way Allah has shown them and we follow Ramji’s path. Why should there be a clash? For in India, we are a single entity, nothing matters but India, and nothing is more important than progress and harmony in the country.

This attitude should have been welcomed universally. But the so-called ‘secular elements’ saw something awry in this and attempted to provoke the Muslim community. Their sense of equality and justice and fairness ends when their vote bank shrinks even a little bit.

For the first time, the RSS deputed one of their senior pracharaks to have a continued dialogue with Muslims across the country and several Hindutva ideologues were sent to small villages and towns to establish a direct rapport with members of the community. This was either ignored or mocked at. Because of their political compulsions, the ‘seculars’ have become the single-most dangerous source of communal hatred in this country. They have created vote banks that drive them to spread lies that if the BJP comes to power, Muslims will be eliminated and that their only safety lies in supporting the seculars.

Having failed to bring the revolution through the gun, the Left has now tried to do so through electoral politics. Their outfits, often surviving on government and UN grants, send jholawalas to have a good time in Washington and New York even while alerting the world about the so-called ‘communal dangers’ existing in India. Their grants were replenished, but they failed to get results. They should know that despite being the most active power-brokers in the last 50 years and having commanded a vicious media war against the Hindutva forces with the full backing of the government, they have not succeeded. Hindutva has become the main ‘agenda provider’ to the nation.

One lesson that the Vajpayee government’s stable five years in power has given is that extremism never pays. The BJP has tried to become a Congress of the immediate post-Partition days. During pre-Partition days, where every ideological hue existed without any problem, Savarkar was as good a Hindu as Gandhi. Vajpayee has provided that kind of an umbrella in the United Colours of the NDA. He spoke about the need for Article 370 and letting every state have its own flag if a constituent assembly provided for it.

Astonishing as it may seem, this announces a new age of avoiding conflicts and adjusting differing voices. It also underlines an enhanced level of self-confidence of India that supported Gandhi a hundred times more than Savarkar. Extremism has never benefited any individual or organisation. In the shastras, one’s reputation is considered worth a million times ‘Kubera’s wealth’.

This new age of enlightenment is symbolised in Goddess Laxmi. Like Deng Xiaoping, Vajpayee has been able to rekindle the urge to earn and grow rich among Indians. It has yet to reach the economically lower sections of society, but the path is more credible than the past slogans of ‘Garibi Hatao’. Hindutva also means ‘Param Vaibhav’, the highest level of prosperity and glory.

In this journey of making a new Bharat, we must shun petty issues and learn to worship Bharat through economic development. Without material progress, dharma also remains stuck in a half-completed journey.

The making of a glorious and strong nation should always be a greater task than erecting a hundred temples. All our gods come second to our nation. Amen.

The writer is Editor, Panchajanya