Government too indulgent of Parivar hardliners

About 15 Bajrang Dal men got together in the wee hours of Monday to keep a watch at Vishala Circle for possible cattle smugglers. Some armed men attacked them, killing an activist Hari Devbhai Solanki on the spot. Later, an autorickshaw driver was stabbed to death in what is commonly regarded as a retaliatory strike.

When Solanki’s body was being taken for cremation, men in the funeral procession attacked a press photographer, ransacked shops and smashed vehicles in the presence of police which was deployed in strength. As tension grew, the government got busy fire-fighting. But its copy-book already carries a big blot: no longer can it claim, as it did after the Dangs violence, that no one has died.

Leader of Opposition Amarsinh Chaudhary says there was no reason why Id and Mahavir Jayanti could not be celebrated together. “But the problem is that the BJP Government does not know how to govern,” he said. Former chief minister and Rashtriya Janata Party president Shankersinh Vaghela said his party was also against cow-slaughter, “but it is for the government to stop it, not the Bajrang Dal”.

He said the Bajrang Dal and Vishwa Hindu Parishad had developed “the habit of meddling in everything” because the government had surrendered to them.However, Minister of State for Home Haren Pandya sees “nothing wrong” in Bajrang Dal men’s action because “they were helping the police”. VHP general secretary Pravin Togadia also says that the Bajrang Dal men were only behaving as “dutiful citizens” at that unearthly hour. “They had informed the police that they wanted to help them, and were waiting for it to arrive”, he said.

In fact, the BJP Government has always been indulgent towards the Sangh Parivar hardliners. Even now, while some persons have been arrested for Solanki’s murder, none has yet been caught for the lawlessness which took place during his funeral procession. But the Sangh Parivar men have targeted bigger men and got away with it in the past.

Only about 10 days ago, they had stoned the car of Tribal Development Minister Mangubhai Patel when he attended a fashion show at Navsari. The show was also disrupted. In December, they had stormed the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation complex, looking for Commissioner B K Sinha after a `temple’, which had illegally come up on municipal land, was demolished. When they could not find Sinha, they ransacked offices, although even the Mayor, who belongs to the BJP, wasn’t sure that the `temple’ was indeed a temple.

Till date, no one has been arrested for these incidents, although the case of attack on AMC was taken up with Chief Minister Keshubhai Patel by the IAS Officers’ Association. Pandya has his stock explanation: “These cases are being investigated”. He also clarifies that the minister whose car was stoned does not regard it as a serious matter.

A police officer pointed out that “the only instance” of firm action in the recent past was when Bajrang Dal men removed decorations which the Muslims had put on their houses in Songadh on Id-ul-Fitr. But the police officer who took the action was shunted out unceremoniously. Unless the government sent out a clear message that it meant business, more Ahmedabad-like incidents cannot be ruled out, he said.