By Abdul Hannan
As election temperature increases across India, political parties and their candidates are trying to use new political stunts to catch public’s attention.
Earlier, in Utter Pradesh Mulaym Singh joined hands with Kalyan Singh, in Bihar RJD and LJP came closer, in Jharkhand former Chief Minister Shebu Suren is searching for the allies to strength his hand on power, Ms Mayawati, Chief Minister of Utter Pradesh agrees to support Third Front if it is ready to support her demand to become the Prime Minister of India.
The real political situation will come out after the election but so-called secular and none secular parties are busy in political stunts.
Varun Gandhi’s hate speech against Muslims in an election campaign in Pilibhit, Utter Pradesh, also is the part of the politics. An interesting thing is that BJP, which is famous on its fundamentalist ideologies and Varun Gandhi is the BJP candidate from Pilibhit, initially distanced itself from Varun’s statement.
Election Commission (EC) found that Varun violated the code of conduct during election campaign and asked BJP to not present him as its candidate from Pilibhit, BJP charged EC of biased action, Rajnath Singh, BJP president, has said that Varun Gandhi is the BJP’s candidate from Pilibhit.
Reacting on Varun’s remark, Mrs. Priyanka Gandhi advised Varun to read Gita to avoid passing such comments.
After making hate speech, Varun Gandhi is on the lips of every one, may be that he belongs from Gandhi family, and such ideas is against of Nehru/Gandhi family ideology, but if Varun Gandhi passes such comments, he has a reason behind it. His mother Menaka Gandhi contested polls from Pilibhit and won in 1989, in 2004 she joined BJP, probably Varun Gandhi cannot prevent himself from the Hindutva effects.
Since 2004 Varun Gandhi is in BJP. Though he is graduate and an educated person, it was necessary for Varun to speak something in the favor of BJP, he spoke well in Pilibhit election campaign and tried to bring out his and BJP’s communal hardcore image before the people, now he is a Hero in Hindutva ideological class. Hate speech or communal politics is not new in post independence India. It is very old trend, particularly during the election or nearing the time of election.
Two years ago, at the time of UP assembly elections, a CD was lunched by BJP in which Muslims was targeted, at that time, an FIR was longed against few BJP leaders, after that BJP alleged that it is not involved in such activities and this is work of low rank workers. Kalyan Singh, Bal Thackray, Advani, Uma Bharti, Sadhvi Rethambra, Vinay Katiyar and various other BJP or the leaders of its sisters organizations are famous for their hate speeches.
It is unfortunate that in Indian politics votes not taken on development, on elimination of poverty, on non-violence which was the historical slogan of Mahatma Gandhi or against exploitation. Last time BJP used ‘India Shining’ slogan to get public votes and NDA government not only got defeated but central government gone out of their hands, because India was shining in televisions, in newspapers, in films, in cinema theaters, though in reality, the people of India were suffering for basic necessities. The ground situations were very different than advertisements in which India was shining. Later BJP conceded that India Shining slogan was its mistake.
Communal politics always recharged BJP and boosted it to emerge as national level party. If Varun Gandhi seeks to win the votes on communal ground, it is nothing new.
EC’s decision against Varun my force him to not to contest in election but it is no guaranty that in future such incidents will not take place.
The real power is in the hands of the public, if they decide to reject such communal comments and force BJP to leave such politics, surly a new era will start in which all community in India to take the real juice to enjoy the real freedom of democracy. Question is – those days will come?