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SUNDAY SENTIMENTS / Karan Thapar [Hindustan Times, www.hindustantimes.com]
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April 28, 2002
No longer Vajpayee By Karan Thapar
I was in Dubai when the Prime Minister made his controversial Campal Maidan
rally speech. But even int he Gulf our phones were buzzing instantly. It was
with shock and disillusionment that I received news of what he said.
In the last few weeks, I have accepted the fact that Vajpayee is no longer
the Colossus I once thought he was. He has shrunk. But even so, it never
occurred to me that he might have become sectarian, prejudiced against Islam
and wary of Muslims.
Now, that seems to be the case.
Of course, the Prime Minister claims he was misrepresented. But he has said
that so often, few believe him. However, last Monday, in the process of
researching for a discussion on his speech, I discovered he was partly
right.
Of course, he is by no means exonerated. For even if he has been misquoted
or misunderstood, he showed supreme lack of judgement in allowing himself to
be. And there's a lot that he is reported to have said which he did. But in
one crucial area, the 'truth' is not what it at first seemed.
'The Asian Age' claimed he said: "Muslims the world over do not want to
mingle with other communities. They simply do not want to live in peace...
Today's Islam preaches violence and militancy."
'The Indian Express' version was: "Once Islam meant tolerance, truth and
compassion -- from what I see now, it has come to meaning forcing their
opinion through terror and fear. Islam is run on Jehad."
But when I read the official transcript of Vajpayee's speech, with the
assistance of my colleague Ashok Upadhyay, it shows what he said was
different in two important aspects. He spoke in Hindi:
Islam keh do rup hai. Ek Islam aise hai joh sabko
sahan karta hai, jo sachaiyee ke raste par chalne
ke seek dete hai... laken aaj-kal jis Islam
ko lekkar 'militancy' apnayee ja rahee hai, isme
sahishnooti ke liye sthan nahi hai. Joh Jihad keh
naam par chalta hai... jahan-jahan aaise Musaalman
hai, veh milkar rahana nahe chahate, auro ke sath
ghulna milna nahi cahate....
Two things are obvious. The Prime Minister was not talking about mainstream
Islam but an extremist variant that is used to justify militancy. Secondly,
he was not referring to all Muslims but "aise musaalman', i.e. those who
subscribe to this extremist view.
Yet some press reports did not make this clear. I don't think they were
deliberately fudged. But they were certainly inaccurate.
That said and done, was the Prime Minister wise to make such comments six
weeks after the Gujarat massacre, when over 800 Muslims had been brutally
killed? Was he not asking to be misunderstood?
After passions have cooled, his point might have been better received. But
today, when emotions are raw, it seems insensitive, even foolish. And the
fact that George Bush and Tony Blair have spoken similarly hardly counts.
They do not rule over 130 million Muslims and their countries have not
witnessed a pogrom.
In a clarification released by his office, Vajpayee claims: "It is indeed
strange that I am praised as a 'secular leader' when I condemn, as I
recently did, intolerance and other negative features exhibited by certain
self-styled champions of Hindutva, but criticised as a 'communal leader'
when I point out the negative aspects of militant Islam."
But that's not really true.
What he said about Hindutva at K.R.Malkani's March book launch was hardly
critical. It was gentle, even tangential. It was oblique. He said: "Soem
people have defined Hindutva in such a manner that it is better to keep a
distance from it." And, he added: "We should keep away from such Hindutva
which is stagnant, which does not move ahead with time."
The difference in expression and content is obvious.
The comment on militant Islam is a full-bodied attack. What he says about
militant Hinduism is a reproach, if that. So, if you see double standards,
you may well be right.
There's another area where Vajpayee was misquoted. 'The Indian Express'
claimed he said: "We have allowed them to do their prayers and follow their
religion." The suggestion was that Hindu large-heartedness, not the law
of the land, permitted Christians and Muslims the right to free worship.
As far as I can tell he said no such thing. His words were different.
Voh apni pooja-praddhati lehkar app uunko bhi
samaan ka sthan mili. Unhe apne iccha keh anusar
aapna dev ki pujan karne ki adhikar tha.
But, sadly, there was more to the Prime Minister's speech and the rest was
not misrepresented. He reversed his position on holding Godhra responsible
for the carnage that followed.
When he visited the Shah Alam Camp, 'The Asian Age' quoted him as saying:
"Gujarat is a shame but now we must forget the past and look ahead."
In Goa he spoke differently:
Gujarat ke trasdi arambh kaise hua yeh hame bhoolna
nahi chahiyeh. Bad ke ghatniye neendniya the, lekhen
aag lagaye kisne? Aag faiile kaise?
If it's important not to forget how the Gujarat tragedy started, you will
never look ahead. More importantly, in asking how the fire started, he's
also asking who was responsible. In this case, responsible is the same as
blame.
And when Vajpayee claims India was secular before Christians and Muslims
came along to this country, he's neither logically correct nor historically
accurate. This is what he said:
Jaab yaha Musalmaan nahi aiyeh the, jab yaha Krischyeenno ki
pradaparn nahi huyee the, tab bhi Bharat 'secular' tha.
Aneek aane ke bad 'secular' huya ho, aaisa nahi hai.
The truth is that India was not secular before Christianity and Islam
reached this land. There was no need to be. Conceptually -- and in practice
-- India could only have become secular after other faiths arrived. But let
us not split logical hairs. In actual fact, our history shows that
secularism was neither practised before nor after.
As Ashok points out, in 185 B.C. Pushyamitra Sungha destroyed monuments and
killed monks in a bid to eradicate Buddhism. In the 6th century AD,
Mihirakula and Sasanka in the next, repeatedly attacked Buddhist monastries,
killing monks even though their religion was by then in deep decline.
Had India been secular, Buddhism would have flourished alongside Hinduism.
But the part of my research that really surprised me was when I read one of
Vajpayee's poems. It's called 'Satta'. This is how it starts:
Masoom bachho
Badi aurato
Jawan mardo
ki lasho keh der par chad kar
joh satta ke seehasan tak pahoonchna cahate hai
oonse meri ek sawal hai
kya marne valo ke saath
oonka koi rishta tha?
Atalji, kya Gujarat keh Moosalmano keh sath aapka koi rishta nahi? (ENDS)
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