By Siddhant Mohan, TwoCircles.net,
Varanasi: On Wednesday evening, a group of secular intellectuals met for an ‘unofficial meet’ in the ancient city of Varanasi, which is the Lok Sabha constituency of Prime Minister Narednra Modi, to discuss the way forward. Political Activist and secretary of Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP) also participated in the discussion. Accepting the defeat of secular forces, she said that her struggle will now be nation-wide and will focus in Varanasi now that Mr Modi is representing the holy city.
The air at the premises of Moolgaadi Kabir Math, which has been the living place of famous poet and saint Kabirdas, was quite determined as they tried to dissect the election outcome. The agenda for the discussion, held under the banner Ab hum kya Karen? (What we should do now?), was understandably for “suggesting and implementing the possible ways to fight ‘fascist’ regime in India.” The programme was “unofficial,” as no formal invites were sent and people were invited through SMSes.
Teesta Setalvad
Popular young Hindi poet Vyomesh Shukla opened the session with the sentence, “To live free, it is necessary to uproot current Indian government. And it cannot be done without a political alignment.” As it was a communitarian atmosphere in the talk, some party members from CPI, Congress and BSP were also present along with Businessmen, Scholars and Activists. “If we make a possible hit list of Narendra Modi, this will not be a matter of surprise that Teesta Setalvad will be the first one and we are happy to have her in between us.” Shukla added.
After taking ideas and inputs from other participants of talk, Teesta started with apologies and acceptations of loss, “16th May was an unexpected date with a more unexpected result. The Congress regime was full of corruption and there was no way for them to come back, but as political activists, we should admit that we have faced a failure.”
Adding to the last-minute chaos in Anti-fascist movement, she said, “From the Modi’s lecture in Shri Ram College of Commerce (in Delhi) two years back, it was clear that he will go forward as prime ministerial candidate. But we did not follow the trail and he succeeded well in his planning and registered a massive victory,” adding that even after these strong signals, the whole anti-fascist movement was made active after mid of 2013.
Over her previous attempts for secular governance, she said, “From 2005, I am urging political parties to shout out their secularist point in public. There is nothing to hide in it. But they maintained silence as they thought that giving voice to secular things will add more to BJP vote bank.”
“The mixture of RSS, BJP, Corporate and Media resulted to this massive win of Modi. It’s not a victory of BJP, it’s of Modi only. We have seen Hindutva right-wing in action at many parts of the country, most clear was 2002 in Gujarat. Now the country and especially Varanasi is on the edge to see the developmental right-wing in action. They are very much determined and trained in acquiring lands and giving those at low rates to corporate, which may turn up into a ‘Development’ hoax few days after. These things must be made clear to public, so they may not get fooled anymore.” Setalvad added while elaborating on the continued struggle.
Another queer outcome of the just concluded general election was the way the minority vote was reduced ineffective. Varanasi too has sizeable Muslim votes and yet their division as also larger consolidation of Hindu votes helped Modi win convincingly. Setalvad said, “BJP has neglected minorities very ruthlessly. Muslim votes were nothing to them. They flamed the Hindutva emotions, which ultimately turned up as a huge vote bank. It was done in 2014, and one has to admit it.”
As a matter of discussion, article 370 also came on table. It is to remind the readers that after the very first official meet of the new government; Minister of State Jitendra Singh opened his mouth on article 370, which cleared BJP’s agenda in coming days. Over this issue, Teesta said, “Article 370 is a cream for RSS. I was in Delhi when some journalist friends told me that BJP is ready for appealing new law for Ram Mandir formation in Ayodhya, they might dissolve article 370 also, for which they have created a hoax over social media. They create difference in vision; we have to clear that difference.”
Coming over to the main agenda of the talk, she said, “Now Modi will no more operate from Gujarat, he will go from here, Varanasi. I will expand my fight up to here. We should create a forum or front in every city, irrespective of what number of people is participating at first. After creating, we must insure the involvement of secular political parties in these. No big goal can be achieved with the distance from political parties. The basic motto of such forum will be to clear the vision and it can’t be done with the differences. We have to avoid the differences in between us.”
“Many of us are capable and expert in handling digital tools and social media. We don’t need regular media to support us. We will record our talk, one will publish that on Youtube or alternative media outlets will give us a chance. The time is now; if we delay others will think that we have committed to the new government.” She added.
Saint Vivekdas, the heir of Kabir’s heritage and Mahant of Moolgaadi Kabir Math said, “Varanasi is not a Hindu city and it must be made very clear to extremists. I received three calls from office of Amit Shah after Anti-Fascist convention. They asked me that why I was turning a spiritual place like Kabir Math into a political place. No! I wasn’t. I told them that Kabir had given himself in turning the society into a living place for all, we are just following his trails.”
Following his concluding statement, Vivekdas said, “Major factor that led to this defeat is that regional parties took their vote-bank for granted. Eventually, this resulted into loss of vote-bank and BJP grabbed them all. Indeed, I am not a political person but I am not typical Hindu saint too. As strong opponent of fascism, I do support the involvement of real political partied into these to-be created forums.”
(Siddhant Mohan is a Varanasi based Journalist and runs news-portal FirstFront .)