Anil Nauriya - The Angst of August: Reading The Recent Political History of India // Express editorial: Prashant Bhushan judgement - the Supreme Court has diminished itself
"In fact, whatever the wisdom of the statement, pampering and pauperization in India in the last few decades have little to do with “secularist liberals” or with any specific religion. There are classes that are pampered."...The Temple Construction at Ayodhya at the spot where the
Babri Masjid stood is a product of a pseudo-religious movement which one of its
early proponents, who later served as Deputy Prime Minister, had once admitted
was essentially political in character. The baggage of RSS-Advani ideas is being thrust on the
people with the help of an Enabling Judiciary. The fifth of August that
ruling circles seek to mark, to recall the steps taken with regard to
Jammu and Kashmir on that day in 2019 and the event in Ayodhya in 2020 has an
underlying focus on Hindutva, a doctrine embodying a view of state and nation
that runs counter to the Basic Structure of the Constitution of India and the
principles of the Republic.
Jawaharlal Nehru’s correspondence with President Rajendra
Prasad in 1951 sets out an exemplary and necessary standard that a state
and those who hold public office must observe, making clear the distinction
between attending public religious functions as holders of public office and as
private citizens. However, the present case is one that falls in an infinitely
worse category. Dr Rajendra Prasad was not associated with any movement for
demolition. The question then was only whether while holding public office he
ought to attend an inauguration ceremony of the Somnath Temple as distinct from
making a separate private visit on a later occasion. In the present case
relating to Ayodhya however, the incumbent Prime Minister associated with a
movement that led to the demolition of the Babri Masjid has now gone to Ayodhya
in an exhibition of triumphalism for the inauguration of a temple constructed
at the same spot.
Although internecine issues between the RSS and the ruling
party at the Centre are not my present concern in this article, we cannot
ignore the role of RSS control of the BJP and its implications for the
polity and society. The media needs especially to be careful
not to buy into the psychological warfare being waged across the country or to
contribute to particular outcomes through self-fulfilling prophecies,
suggestive discourse or by auto-suggestion.
L K Advani’s and Narendra Modi’s politics have been and are
a matter of public record. But we must recall how sections of the media had
sought to portray Advani’s politics as “secular”. Hindutva forces also
propagated the idea in purported justification of their vandalism that the
Babri mosque was a “non-praying one” (and therefore no more than a
"structure") but did not emphasise on how far this was the
result of a Court order. The media unthinkingly lapped up the term
"disputed structure".
The allegation and notion of “appeasement” was
introduced even in contexts where there was, in fact, no such
phenomenon. The fact that the energy behind Hindu law reform of the 1950s
did not extend also to Muslims was not an instance of “appeasement” as is
erroneously alleged. It arose out of the assurance, repeatedly given to
religious minorities, that no law directly touching them as minorities would be
made without their general approval and that such laws would be enacted only
when opinion within their respective communities would require it. In a similar
fashion, for a long time Hindu law in Pakistan and Bangladesh remained
unreformed. Were the governments in those countries “appeasing” the
Hindus? It may be right to criticise the Congress on certain issues, as
for example, its pusillanimity over Muslim law reform and other errors on
this front. Yet one must not be overawed by the BJP in this context..... read more:
http://mainstreamweekly.net/article9795.html