BJP sans introspection

The controversy over Jaswantsingh’s expulsion and the ongoing crisis over Arun Shourie is nothing new. The RSS has again let the genii of its essentialism out of the bottle and the monster does not want to be imprisoned anymore. The ideological base of the BJP and RSS is also their raison d’etre. At the core is its twisted view of cultural nationalism which excludes the minorities, mainly the Muslims. The Dalit Christians are hardly distinguishable except when they attend the church. The Jains and Sikhs do not arouse any ill will as they are viewed to be culturally embedded in Hinduism. Therefore sanitized enough to be national minded.
To have a peep at the trouble in BJP is to look back at their practices and precepts. Or, to see the extreme reaction in defense of Pragyasingh Thakur and the other accused in Malegaon blasts.

PTI In this August 1, 2009 photo activists of Sanskriti Bachao Manch in Bhopal celebrate after a special court dropped charges under MCOCA against Sadhvi Pragnya Singh, Lt. Col. Purohit and nine other accused in the 2008 Malegaon blast case.
At the Panjim conclave of BJP on April 12 2002 the Prime Minister Mr Vajpayee remarked what no Prime Minister had ever uttered even in private. Post 9/11 when Huntington was made out to be relevant, Vajpayee without bothering to see any nuance in meaning and implication and relevance said of Muslims “not wanting to live together with other communities and wanting to propagate their viewpoint with terror and faith…In Indonesia, Malaysia, wherever Muslims are living they don't want to live in harmony…They don't mix with the society [ghul milkar nahin rehte]. They are not interested in living in peace…Talwar ke bal par mat ka prachar nahin karna chahiye…Aag lagayi kisne?..Aag faily kaise?”
Even before he became PM he had aired such views, he wrote in Organiser May1995: “Islam has yet to learn the art of existing and flourishing in a country where Muslims are in a minority. They cannot convert the whole of India to Islam. After all, they have to live here… The Muslims of this country can be treated in three ways.... One is 'tiraskar' which means if they will not themselves change leave them alone, reject them as our compatriots. Second is 'puruskar' which is appeasement, i.e., bribe them to behave, which is being done by the Congress and others of their ilk. The third way is 'parishkar' meaning to change them, that is, restore them to the mainstream by providing them samskaras.”
He was subscribing to the egregious postulate of the clash of civilization that Muslims have difficulties in living with their neighbours, nay, their intestines are also bloody! How could he have overlooked that hardly a month had passed when the Muslims were subjected to the worst state sponsored pogroms in the subcontinent. Gujarat 2002 massacre of Muslims went on despite the President of India KR Narayanan writing letters to his own Prime Minister to act to save lives and Vajpayee not heeding it! Or was Gujarat 2002 a samskaras?
It is difficult to tell the Home Minister from the Prime Minister because of the sharing of the ideology. LK Advani was sustained by what Vajpayee had uttered and had no qualms in telling the audience in Panjim that there was no need to feel apologetic as far as the ideology is concerned. The two versions of Jaswant Singh and Arun Shourie as to what happened in the plane on its way to Goa are the warp and woof of the yarn of that ideology. The man who reminded Narendra Modi what is rajdharm and reminded the world of the shame of Gujarat did not have enough of it to cross the bar. Sending away the secretary to prevent him from taking the dictation of the resignation letter or taking away the paper from the hands of the PM so that he would not write it smacks of orchestrated defense of the in-defensible. Resignation is not resigning to your fate or circumstances.
What Shourie has said must be taken in overall context of what he has been saying in his entire career as a journalist and a politician. While he was taking part in a discussion on Tavleen Singh’s book on her being politically incorrect he had said that if Muslims do not stop demanding implementation of Sachar recommendations then no one can stop Modi from reaching Delhi. Thus he was also voicing rejection of puraskar in favour of parishkar. What else that is if not cutting Muslims to their size and showing them their place, second class citizens of their country. Glued to this kind of ideology, his call for RSS to bombard the headquarters of BJP and take over the party which in the same vein he dubs as kati patang is hardly any introspection. It is this introspection they are not capable of. Had they done it in the humid air of Goa the rarified air of Shimla would not be needed with the monsoon clouds darkening the sky. Did the Ku Klux Klan ever introspect?