Mass distraction

If the lakhs marching peacefully to protest George Bush across India showcased variegated Indian democracy, the violence and the murders in Lucknow a day later demonstrated enormously disturbing political opportunism. For, the twin casualties of this mob politics could be social cohesion and national debate, something of no consequence to wannabe leaders like Yakub Qureishi, probably the only elected official in this country to ever publicly advocate murder. Neither is the Samajwadi Party, so far pretty chuffed to host Qureishi, seemingly thinking of what ransacking for Muslim votes might do to Muslims. Indian politics8217; action/reaction pattern in these situations is tragically familiar, so how irresponsible does Mulayam Singh Yadav think his party can become? Qureishi, the SP and others 8212; does the Left remember the Lucknow rally against the Iran vote, that infamous call for 8220;Shia solidarity8221;? 8212; are in effect asking that national interest pass a sectarian litmus test. That is dangerous.

As this newspaper has consistently argued, India is today uniquely placed to deliver a better deal for all its citizens: three years of high growth plus an electoral verdict-led reaffirmation of India8217;s secular principles. To build on this requires responsible and intelligent leadership, two things glaringly absent in the current political mobilisation in the name of Muslim anger. Walk into any of the towns where Qureishi is ranting and see how untouched they are by the India story. If you cannot deliver on bijli, sadak, pani and padhai, Mulayam and his men surely know, Bush, Vienna and Baghdad are effective weapons of mass distraction. Foreign policy, therefore, doesn8217;t get debated, it starts getting communalised. Even by the 8220;votebank standards8221; of Indian political discourse, this is an unprecedented low. But a new high for those waiting on the other side of the fringe.

The VHP is already sniffing the air in UP, the cauldron of this new, dangerous politics. Before Pravin Togadia comes stomping into the foreign policy debate, before Qureishi becomes the lightning rod for Islamophobia 8212; which has been on the decline in India 8212; Mulayam8217;s friends and allies should get him, and themselves, to climb out of the moral low-ground. India8217;s great strength over the decades has been its ability to keep identity politics out of the national strategic calculus. At no time can this be compromised. And no one can be allowed to do that.