Opinion Wrath Yatra

But even more than that,the Yatra will evoke all the dreadful memories of the original Rath Yatra which eventually climaxed in an illegal act—the destruction of the Babri Masjid. Advaniji himself has said he was surprised and embarrassed by what happened on that day in December 1992. Muslims of India recall that day and their memories will be reawakened again. It may have been a triumph for RSS/VHP/Bajrang Dal,but for a political party aspiring to rule the country,it was dreadful.

The BJP has a core vote which frankly hates the Muslims. Let us not beat about the bush on this. It is convenient to fall back on the core vote if you have just lost not one but two elections in a row. I know the feeling. My party—the Labour Party lost four elections in a row. For the first two,we sunk back into our core vote and kept losing. Then the light dawned on us that maybe the people were trying to tell us something which our core vote did not share. We changed the party by resetting the ideology in ways a modern voter would grasp. ‘Modern values in traditional setting’,as we called it. Then we began winning.

The bulk of the voting population in India was born after 1984 and they do not care about the issues which hark back to Partition. The RSS may be obsessed about the old Maratha Peshwai dream of Hindu Pad Padshahi but for the present young generation,even Nehru is ancient history. Anna Hazare touched their imagination because he kept his message simple and his own example was striking. Old political hands tried to sow discord over Hazare by saying that Muslims,Dalits and OBCs were worried. But that is old tired politics. Across the country,Indians responded,qua Indians,and not in the way the political party system classifies them by religion and region and caste etc.

The BJP has to make up its mind whether it is a genuinely national party representing all Indians. I was struck how Narendra Modi,the other poster boy of the BJP,tweeted ‘God is Great’ when the case before the Supreme Court was referred back to Gujarat level judiciary. If by that he meant that he was more likely to get off in a Gujarat court than in any other court,he is insulting the judiciary. Indian justice is slow,terribly slow when it comes to pogroms against minorities sanctioned by the executive. We have seen this in Delhi in 1984 and in Mumbai in 1993 when Muslims were massacred under a Congress government and even now no one has been punished. But the people have learnt persistence and as in the Sikh massacre,there are still people seeking redress after 27 years. An apology by the PM is welcome but it is no compensation for lack of justice. Let us hope even in Modi’s case—fasting or not—the delay in justice would be redressed soon. For all I know,he may not be convicted but the process has to be seen to be done. For his sake as much as for the sake of the victims and Indian democracy.