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Journalism of Courage
The B.S. Yeddyurappa government in Karnataka is not doing itself any good by persisting in its state of denial. What8217;s more, the continuance of violent attacks on churches across the state is posing the danger of spill-over effects elsewhere. India cannot afford a cycle of retaliatory and counter-retaliatory violence and the explosion of mutual distrust or even hatred between communities. As this newspaper has argued earlier, the Karnataka government8217;s singular failure and a mark of its double standards is its inability to treat the problem as one of law and order. All right, so the government has made a few arrests, but it continues to give the impression that it had better be doing something else. A democratically elected government cannot use the 8220;us and them8221; rhetoric even without intending to. If the law of the land is violated, and innocent people suffer as a result, the government8217;s first priority should be the re-assertion of the rule of law.
Many such innocent civilians 8212; Christians in particular 8212; are being victimised by the targeted attacks in Karnataka. In such circumstances, it is callous and insensitive on the part of the government to float conspiracy theories and blame everyone other than those it is assumed to be ideologically close to. In an interview to The Indian Express, the state home minister, V.S. Acharya, blamed 8220;forces inimical to the present government8221; for the trouble. Asked about Pramod Mutalik8217;s claim of the BJP government8217;s support, Acharya said that Mutalik is against the Yeddyurappa government. Despite the arrest of Bajrang Dal convener Mahendra Kumar and the order of Mutalik8217;s formerly of the same outfit arrest, the government needs to ask itself if it has done enough.
