"
Never Judge a Book by it's Cover Picture and Name"
[
I don't know who said it(if no one has,I'll add my name,IPR guys any?!)]
I wonder how many members of the current BJP Parliamentary Board have read Mr.Jaswant Singh's book 'Jinnah- India, Partition, Independence',I will not say that reading it would have altered their stance on this issue, given the fact that BJP,per se is made up of a confused bunch of individuals.Confused about the 'ideologies',confused about the so-called 'core beliefs' of the party,in general confused about anything that is scientific and non conservative.The truth is the BJP has been on the constant hunt for a nationalist ancestor for, they have none.Their attempt to project Savarkar as a national hero during the National democratic Alliance regime, during which it started a yatra from the Andaman and Nicobar Islands where Savarkar was imprisoned and unveiled a potrait in the Parliament, can be quoted as an example.Now it is the first Home Minister of India, Sardar Patel, inspite of the later asking for a ban on RSS after the assasination of Mahatma Gandhi.Though the Kapur commission later aquitted the senior RSS leaders.It held RSS responsible for breeding people like Godse and creating a communal situation in India.It was then that RSS was asked to draft a constitution.It is this futile search for an ancestor that is frustrating the leadership and driving them to take some mindless decisions which would prove to be highly detrimental in the future.
The party 'ideology' that Arun Jaitley was talking about in the press conference during the Chintan Bhaithak in Shimla is skewed conspicuously towards a heavily communal and rigid Hindutva pole.It was pro Sardar Patel not because the RSS looked upto him,but because noone from the party high command could support the founder of Pakistan, RSS would not let that be so.RSS started abiding by what its name is, but then slowly moved towards right wing extremism trying to gain currency in the conservatist's approach to religion in politics.
The other day I was reading an article by Vidya Subrahmaniam comparing Shashi Tharoor's 'India : From Midnight to the Millennium and Beyond' and the Jaswant Singh's latest.'India : From Midnight to the Millennium and Beyond' :the book, which Mr. Tharoor updated in 2007, is sprinkled with critical references to the Gandhi-Nehru dynasty. Yet the Sonia Gandhi-led Congress offered Mr. Tharoor a Lok Sabha ticket in the 2009 general election. The Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government went a further step and invited him to join the External Affairs Ministry as a Minister of State. Consider what Mr. Tharoor had to say about one of the Congress’ greatest icons — Indira Gandhi. “Had Indira’s Parsi husband been a toddywalla (liquor trader) rather than so conveniently a Gandhi, I sometime wonder, might India’s political history have been different?”.
Further, “Mrs. Gandhi was skilled at the acquisition and maintenance of power, but hopeless at the wielding of it for larger purposes. She had no real vision or program beyond the expedient campaign slogans; “remove poverty” was a mantra without a method ?. Declaring a state of Emergency, Indira arrested opponents, censored the press, and postponed elections. As a compliant Supreme Court overturned her conviction, she proclaimed a ‘20-point programme’ for the uplift of the common man (No one found it humorous enough to remark, as Clemenceau had done of Wilson’s Fourteen Points, that “even the good Lord only had ten.”) Its provisions ? remained largely unimplemented. Meanwhile her thuggish younger son, Sanjay (1946-1980) emphasizing two of the 20 points, ordered brutally insensitive campaigns of slum demolitions and forced sterilizations.” Mr. Tharoor had a reference to Rajiv Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Vadra too.
The BJP had the Tharoor example before it. It could have taken Mr. Jaswant Singh’s book in its stride, and appeared large-hearted, as the Congress did with Mr. Tharoor. Instead, it chose to show its illiberal side.
