All is well that ends well? Not really. For as inane (and perversely laughable) as these symbolic gestures and the accompanying rabble are, there lurks behinds these a serious danger. By nominating a pliant person of a persecuted community, the rulers hope to erase a history of injustice. After Abdul Kalam's nomination was announced, VHP international general-secretary Parveen Togadia proclaimed, "The choice of Kalam shows that this government does not discriminate on communal lines if the person concerned is a diehard nationalist." Wait a minute, wasn't Toghadia one of the assailants identified by the survivors of the Gujarat pogrom? How the hell is he not in prison yet? Yes, he was named, but so what? Ever heard of one Justice Srikrishna? I don't know of a harsher indictment, but Bal Thackarey has escaped that and been spouting his endless sequence of venomous editorials in Saamna. If history is any indication, they will never be brought to justice. Worse still, they get to decide who is patriotic and who is not! This also applies equally well to the Jaideep Patels, the Ashok Singhals and every leader of their ilk. And now, we want to brush all this under the carpet and our magnanimity in electing Abdul Kalam, THE Muslim, to be appreciated. Come on, who do we want to fool?
By electing a Muslim to a largely symbolic and impotent position, we want to establish our secular credentials. You and I couldn't have conjured up such a wonderful scheme, can we? 40 odd years of esperience has stood Atalji in good stead. "Aap ke janma lene ke pehle se hum rajniti mein hein (I have been in politics since before you were born)", as he would vouch! And in case of a murmur of discontent, here's my take on what's going to come from the echelons of power: "There's only so much one can do. If this doesn't satisfy the Muslims, nothing else will! We didn't kill them en masse (except maybe in a few places; Anyways, there never was a simultaneous nationwide anti-Muslim pogrom) like the Nazis did to Jews nor did we purge them from India as our Guruji (Golwalkar) had suggested. We've been too soft on them and that's why they seem to take us for granted. It's a nice time to remind them that their real safety lies in the goodwill of the majority. If they still ask for more, maybe it's time to catch them by their necks and tell them where their place lies."
Five years back, we made a lot of gung-ho about having elected a Dalit as our first citizen. Dalit or non-Dalit, I can't think of a better President than Dr. Narayanan, but unfortunately, this was completely lost on our leaders. Anyways, after all the bragging, did it really help the Dalits? Last September, Dr. Narayanan was a mute spectator as the government successfully lobbied to keep discrimination against Dalits off the agenda of the UN World Conference Against Racism. And more recently, the presence of a Syed Shahnawaz Hussain in the Union Cabinet didn't save an Ehsan Jaffri and hundreds of other Muslims, did it? Nor has Jayalalitha's being in power stopped female infanticide in Usilampatti. Unless followed up with meaningful actions, symbolic gestures often do more harm than good, for they create the illusion of having solved a problem. I have this faint hope that Dr. Abdul Kalam will speak out against this euphoria, that his election to the highest office doesn't necessarily reflect the status of Muslims in India; a large dose of realism is what we badly need. Maybe he won't, for we have shown the door to his predecessor who did some plainspeak.
The debate for electing the Vice-President hasn't started yet, but I fear it will be much the same. Maybe the NDA will go for a Christian candidate. We can then forget Graham Steines, also forget Vajpayee's demand for a national debate on conversions, and forget everything that has happened in the past. Things improve automatically, unless the non-patriotic pseudo-secularist Leftists and others muckrake. And our rulers know how to take care of them - POTA!
Ra Ravishankar
June 12, 2002