Masks And Their Makers
Tomorrow is the final day of the winter session of parliament. India’s six month old BJP majority government, elected on the plank of development and governance, has been unable to push through important Bills through the Rajya Sabha, where it continues to be in a minority, because of consecutive political rows relating to the utterances of their own MPs, as well as the leading figures of all their related organizations – the RSS, the VHP, the Dharma Jagran Manch/Samiti and other similar fora.
Yogi Adityanath, Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti, Sakshi Maharaj, and Rajeshwar Singh Solanki of uncommon conversive zeal have near eclipsed Narendra Modi of Madison Square Garden, Obama’s Republic Day invitation, intimate radio ‘Man ki Baat’ and Swachh Divas homilies to Mahatma Gandhi.
Today, on Times Now channel’s News Hour, under Arnab Goswami and his panelists’ insistent questioning, the BJP spokesperson Chandan Mitra, a journalist who has been a Rajya Sabha MP, became very indignant when asked to spell out whether he agreed with Mohan Bhagwat’s vision of a Hindu Rashtra. ‘What does it matter if I believe in Hindu Rashtra or not?’ he was asking. ‘In what way is my personal opinion relevant to the passage of the Insurance Bill in parliament?’
In what way, indeed?
It was such an opportune moment for all present to note how the mask of the BJP majority government, which had been spouting ‘development’ all through the campaign, was finally being prised off by its own MPs and associates.
When Mohan Bhagwat of the RSS, an organization which was the political cradle of our present PM, speaks of making India a Hindu Rashtra, when Ashok Singhal states that the time is now ripe for a Hindutva agenda to forge ahead, since a government to facilitate it has come about ‘after 800 years,’ they ignore a question very similar to the one Chandan Mitra was raising.
In what way is being a Hindu, or a Christian, or a Muslim, relevant to being a citizen of India? Why must citizens’ rights, good governance, and most importantly, patriotic sentiment be measured in communal terms, the parameters of which have been defined by the likes of Singhal and Bhagwat and Yogi Adityanath?
Its time we began to ask aloud of these loud-mouthed politicians who use every public opportunity to take our country back by seven hundred years, at the very least, ‘How is anything you or your cohorts believe, relevant to us, the people of India?’
The masks are coming off, and their makers are accountable.
