Shiban Khaibri
“God hasgiven you one face
and you are making yourself another;
have more than you show and speak less than you know”…..(Shakespeare)
For Congress Party , it would be rightly a timely advice to follow the dictum that ” If you cannot change what you are but at least change that what you do.” At the outset, a devout Hindu like this writer feels deeply hurt over Salman Khurshid of Congress Party making an irrelevant and totally out of context comparison of his leader Rahul Gandhi with Maryada Parshotam Shree Ram and himself with Shree Barat . How can anyone dare go so far as ordinary living human beings cannot be compared with great incarnations of gods. Shree Ram is an incarnation of Vishnu, God of Protection. Needless to add, Vishnu is one of a trinity of the three most important Hindu gods- Brahma who is the creator of this universe, Vishnu the protector and Shiva the destroyer. Crores of people the world over do worship Him. Hence, any comparison or analogy in this respect and that too for petty and cheap political ends is totally unwarranted,if not blasphemous thanks to unparalleled and unchanged tolerant nature of Hindus.
It is , however, no occasion here to elucidate the issue as it concerns religious and spiritual aspects and that would amount to just pleading and clarifying which trivializesthe main theme and its fallout. The question is as to why should Hindu religion only be dragged in one way or the other with intent to dare making it appear just quite easy and ”ever ready” for making such comparisons and analogies in secular India. Whether it is that oft referredto creativity or free expression or ”promoting ”art through many movies made by Bollywood, Hindu religion, symbols, marks , icons etc are lavishly used and mostly in undesirable and disrespectful manner whether it is delivery of dialogues ormaking ”complaints” with tones of protests and conveying grievances or lamenting and grumbling before idols in Hindu temples over some trouble or ”injustice” undergone by actors. Again, if it comes to drawing paintings of Hindu religious deities, it is deliberately done in disparaging and vulgar manner landing at nudity or when it is dared to questioning the efficacies, beliefs, rites and festivals of Hindus even though celebrated and followed for thousands of years in this country and the like, the same attitude is displayed. Just you raise a feeble voice against it all, at once the lobby and the self-proclaimedsecular brigade coupled with painted liberal free minded intellectuals come to the rescue of the habitual offenders holding such lavishly indulged in liberties taken with Hindu religion quite normal, in the ordinary course and rather as a right to be exercised even though 82% of the population of this country are followers of the most ancient religion of the world- the Hindu religion -which is synonymous of Hindutava about which no reservations need to be nursed.
Salman Khursheed should have shown his broad-mindedness and courage by giving analogies and comparisons from religionsother than Hindu religionif it was absolutely necessary thought by him and in case he amply wanted to appease, cajole and hold high the morale of his leader by indulging in such comparisons. The question most relevant is as to how a Party taking pride in denying the very historical existence of Shree Ram be otherwise now singing hymns in His praise and in the burst of heaping sycophancies on its leaders especially from the Parivar, unnecessarily bring in His name? Rahul Gandhi may be a “Superhuman” for Mr Salman, a yogi , a tapsavi or whatever for him but surely not for others. Not for those who are repeatedly getting hurt at outbursts of demeaning Hindutavaby him trying to separate it from Hindu religion.If not anything else but at least what the ruling of the Honb’le Supreme Court in respect of Hindutava was given as ”a way of life – infact it is being Hindu which is a way of life”………has conveniently been disregarded by the ”views” of Rahul Gandhi .We have not forgotten his fears of ”greatest threat to India ” not from known terror groups but from radicalized Hindu ”groups”as conveyed by him to US Ambassador to India Timothy Roemer in 2009.We have not forgotten the active role of those Congress leaders who played negative role inrespect of building a temple of Shree Ram in Ayodhya.
By coining the term”Saffron Terror” , Congress has gravely overlooked its own glorious past history as this Party in 1931 had established the Flag Samiti whose head was Dr. Rajendra Prasad and the members on it were JawaharLal Nehru, Sardar Patel, Maulana Aazad, Dr.N .S. Hardikar, Master Tara Singh, Kakasaheb Kalelkar, K .L. Munshi, Dr.B.PattabhiSitararamyaetc . It is noteworthy that the members overwhelmingly had recommended that the national flag of India should be saffron with a blue colouredCharkha. How then could the central government led by Congress Party coin and spread the word about ”Saffron terror”. In hundreds of years of slavery and repeated invasions, our great patriots in each time period have been sacrificing themselves under the saffron flag hence saffron has its peculiar sanctity which Congress Party willy nillyor otherwise tagged with terror for reasons better known to it .Therefore,attempting to prove or floating anyirrelevant analogy or any sort of comparison in respect of ordinary human beings with Hindu religious deities and lineages is tantamount to committing a sin. For that matter with any religion as such.
Coming to confusions galore that the said Party is encountering. Just recalling the observations of A.K.Antony report on the “causes” of debacle in general elections of Congress in 2014 which the report largely attributed to a greater tilt towards minorities and neglecting the majority community which has been reiterated by Mr Antony again recently , Congress must change its stance and policy . At the same time the advice of Mr Antony to Congress that “we need to take Hindus in our flock if Modi Ji is to be defeated and fight fascism” otherwise in his opinion minorities are not enough to defeat BJP etc, has various connotations. Again, it depicts that there is and should be no change of heart in Congress to treat Hindus equally and not continue with its 70-year-oldappeasement policy but now to use Hindus in elections merely and only to defeat Modi Ji and BJP sounds queer and quite astonishing. Please recall Mr Antony as CM in 2003 ,when he had strongly criticized Congress’s UDF ally in Kerala ,the Indian Muslim League and further had lamented that ”Minorities in Kerala are powerfully organized and have secured more privileges and benefits from the Government through ”collective bargaining”. He further made it clear that ”Unlike the rest of India minority community here dominate the state’s political and administrative echelons which cannot be allowed”. Needless to add , such outright voices from within and with intent to reform and revamp CongressParty are unheard and overlooked but to its own peril.
Congress looks and feels really challenged on two counts . One – its conventional and confirmed vote bank is slipping from out of its hands and going to regional parties like TMC, SP, NCP, AIMIM, AAP, JDS, etc including the national level party the BJP. Two- progressive consolidation of Hindu community though the development across the country is not on even basis . Bharat Jodo exercise is an experiment to somehowmeet these two challenges to some extent . However, political experts and analysts alone can evaluate such a bid . Kharge Ji of Congress is hard trying to project ”India as a pit of hate” blaming the BJP and Sangh for spreading “Nafrat”and Mr Rahul is toiling hard to put forward his theory of presence of “fear and hate” en-route his “yatra” and justifying his cause and purpose of taking out this much hyped yatra. However, he contradicted his own theory very clearly and made things quite smooth to be fathomed by everyone which barring 2 out of 18 opposition parties could comprehend by refusing to join it. It is another thing that NC, PDP etcare going to ”join” it at Srinagar which is its last leg or final destination. Said Mr Rahul at Red Fort address , ” During my travel of over 2000 kmsthrough various states so far , I did not come across any hate or fear anywhere” . In this connection, then what is the logic and purpose of spreading unfounded fears of presence of hate and threats and feeling of something like ”Nafrat ka baazar” etc. Again, what then is the rationale behind undertaking this foot march and how it can be termed as “Bharat jodo” when Bharat is fully “Juddahua” .Yes, it can be termed as ”Congress Jodo” and to what extent it got connected will undergo a litmus test in the forthcoming Assembly elections of nine states . That again will be followed by decisive verdict of the people in 2024 who have to choose between a cohesive, strong, honest and performing Government and unstable hotchpotches of coalitions with divergent political ideologies with susceptibilities of falling and breaking apart very frequently .
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