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This is an archive article published on April 13, 2009

Relighting the fire

The Congress erred in giving Jagdish Tytler and Sajjan Kumar tickets,an error born of hubris and arrogance.

The Congress erred in giving Jagdish Tytler and Sajjan Kumar tickets,an error born of hubris and arrogance. The events of the past week seem to have demonstrated to at least one of India’s major political parties that riots may be past but aren’t always history. Unfortunately,the other seems still unwilling to learn this lesson. The BJP’s behaviour in Kandhamal has been extraordinarily irresponsible,on several levels. The state party’s nominations for the affected constituencies are part of where the trouble begins.

The nominee for the assembly district is one Manoj Kumar Pradhan,an RSS pracharak currently in jail for offences related to last year’s riots,which,while they took place in a context of historical Dalit-tribal tensions,generally targeted the Christian community. The other is Ashok Sahu,leader of the Hindu Jagran Sammukshya,who now has a warrant out for his arrest for “hate speech” in spite of the fact that a Varun-spooked Election Commission had ordered his campaign be “video-tracked”. He still managed to declare that Christian “community enemies” were behind various recent arrests for the riots,an eerie echo of Narendra Modi’s recent references to “traitors” when he was campaigning in the area. Whatever the short-term gain to the party — and it is a sad fact that there might well be local political benefits for the BJP from this sort of polarisation — it nevertheless needs to realise that with every move towards the Varunisation of its agenda in this election the BJP only makes the task of gaining votes in less-polarised areas more difficult.

Not to mention making it even more unlikely that post-election allies will be queuing up outside L.K. Advani’s door. Besides,it’s inhumane. It couldn’t have been a pleasant Easter for the riot refugees. Their relief camps are shutting down and they have to return to houses that are,in large part,still burnt-out. They’re mostly without election ID cards and quite some distance from the towns where they’re registered. Where responsible politics would heal these wounds,the local — and,unfortunately,the national-level BJP as well — has taken on the task of pushing things in the other direction. Yet another step backward for the BJP in this campaign.

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