In utter disregard to the principles of natural justice, the Election Commission has in haste and unusually censorious language, passed an opinion without:
a. Providing me a personal hearing (to which I am entitled even as per the principles of natural justice).
b. Providing me a copy of the report dated 17.3.09 and any materials on which that report is based.
c. Showing me or even seeking out for itself the original recording (if at all it exists).
d. Examining the authenticity or source of the tape that was sent to it which on a cursory glance shows that there has been splicing, repetition and interpolation during the so called editing process as evident from the media logo seen in the footage. The short jumpy sequences also establish that the tape has been edited.
e. Independently applying its mind and conducting a thorough examination of the material (for it cannot be called evidence).
(Excerpts from Varun Feroze Gandhi'sletter to election commission.)
Those who opposed Ayodhya, were silence on Kashmiri Hindus, damaged Ramsethu and denied Ram ever existed, denied Godhra and embraced butchers of 1984 are collectively gunning at Varun Gandhi'spolitical life. Column after column by a Padmashri, media created an atmosphere where supporting Varun became a sin. Why? Simple reason is that the farmhouse of Gandhi-Nehru politics has broken and a scion of the family chose to speak out as his conscience directed.
More than what Varun said or didn'tsay, it'sthe hurt and bewilderment of a loss of a Gandhi to the saffron that has made the media and anti-Hindutva politicos shout with such a venom and acid. He was not heard, not given a chance to present his case, neither the forensic experts examined the so-called proof in the form of the CD. Yet the badshah declared his judgement. Some justice in our age is this.
Yet, Varun has suddenly dwarfed the high-media supported Rahul. Phew!
No body has ever heard any dynasty-member to say with an understandable assertion that he or she is a Hindu. Rather they always tried to look differently. They banned Hindu organisations, imposed Emergency, deleted basic human rights, abused and caricatured learned judges, never willingly facilitated Sikh massacre probe, rewarded the hardest ever accused criminals, made alliances with those who were convicted for murder or were facing scandalous charges, had the ?India-divider? Muslim league join the government first time after Partition. Yet they are nice, decent, peace-loving, patriotic democrats who love to suggest others??go and read Gita?.
When Indian soldiers were fighting Pakistani marauders in 1947, they didn'thave enough jeeps. So orders were placed with its British company and supply demanded immediately. Our High Commissioner Krishna Menon, a blue eyed boy of Pt. Nehru messed it up. Jeeps reached a year late and with a taint of hot money exchanging hands. That was the first scandal of the Independent India.
We lost Gilgit, Baltistan and Skardu. We lost Aksai Chin, because government at Delhi didn'tknow the exact boundaries and no patrolling was taking place.
In total we have lost one lakh twenty-five thousand square kms to the Pakistanis and Chinese during Congress rule. And we had a bad dream called 1962.
At that time our ordnance factories were making coffee machines as Pt.. Nehru has openly opined against having well equipped large army for defence. Who is going to attack us? He asked.
And people still remember mysterious ?murder? of Dr. Syama Prasad Mookerjee in Srinagar, who simply wanted Kashmir to be a part of India like Bihar or Bengal and permit system to enter valley be abolished. There were two rulers in Kashmir, the Chief Minister was called Sadre Riyasat or ?head of the state?. Two flags and two laws for the valley. Mookerjee'smartyrdom compelled the Nehru government to remove the permit system and two heads for the state. Then we had Mundhra scandal, Nagarwala case, L.N. Mishra murder. Janasangh'sfast emerging leader Deendayal Upadhyaya was murdered. A Congress leader canvassed openly against the official presidential candidate and supported her own choice as an independent nominee. The original Congress symbol was a pair of oxen. After the official Congress was broke into two, they got hand as a temporary symbol till the case is decided. It would never be.
Opposing Sonia'ssudden rise in the politics only on the grounds of her foreign origin were leaders like Sharad Pawar and Sangma. Old Congressmen still feel sad that they lost dynamic and promising leaders of real substance like Rajesh pilot, Madhav Rao Scindia and Jitendra Prasad, who could have steered the Congress to take an entirely different and strong nationalist course. And a senior Congressmen Sitaram Kesari was humiliated to no end. The only Prime Minister they had running government for full five years successfully was insulted even in his death and his body-in-state was not allowed to enter the Congress headquarters in New Delhi and an airport in his home state was opposed to be named after him by Congress men though the proposal was put forth by an opposition leader. This is how they treat their party leaders not belonging to their family.
They amended, abused and twisted the Constitution, put the entire opposition behind bars for an undisclosed period and revenged harshly on the unyielding masses.
Yet, they are the democrats and secular lighthouses of freedom of expression and liberty to choose.
They kept India backward in such a planned manner that even after sixty-two years of Independence we are yet to have a spacious functional airport in the national capital, seventy thousand farmers committed suicides in one year, brave decorated soldiers returned their medals in protest and a movie on our poverty stricken ?Slum Dog Millionaire? fetches a British Oscar in 2009. And loved the illegal Muslim infiltrators just for the sake of their votes- and still they say they are the inheritors of a freedom struggle that demanded ouster of the aliens.
No electoral reforms, no police reforms and strengthening their morale and weapons, administration is still run the way it functioned during the Sahebs and having won a well applauded war in 1971, we couldn'tsettle Kashmir issue or control an unleashed Jehadi tail wager in the neighborhood.
Minorities (read Muslims) were so well supported in the Congress regimes that in the sixth decade they felt a need to provide special crutches for them. Bring the ?M? card and get a privilege became the new secular psalm further shrinking space and opportunities for the condemned majority.
More than anything else they tried to wreck the morale of the assertive Hindus who have been facing the onslaughts of the invaders for the last twelve centuries with unparalleled brevity showing an invincible spirit to protect their culture and the fragrance of the land. They deserved to be comforted most after a fractured Independence and a massacre that was thrust upon them by a weak Congress leadership. Yet a large section of the Hindus today feel cheated and anguished. They form governments in twelve states, prove they can run the country beautifully with a coalition of twenty-five parties having diametrically opposed ideologies. And one of their swayamsewaks unfurled tricolour six times from the ramparts of the Red Fort, as the Prime Minister of the nation, impressed the world leaders and international media with a record of infrastructure building, communication revolution and women empowerment, chose a Muslim to be the President of the state and had the Pokaran-II failing the CIA ?eyes?, resisted extraordinary world pressure and sanctions. Yet they are called ?anti-development, anti-women, even anti-social. In not a single so-called mainstream media their views are published but every news item is scanned to hurl stones on them editorialising the front-page news items.
Still they are very objective face of independent media.
The choicest abuses, used by ?decent, guaranteers of the freedom of expression? columnists and editorial writers can be collected as bouquet of India'suncivilised lexicon, yet their films against the very spirit of Hindu nature get widely supported by a regime that survives on Hindu money and votes.
Their love for development and secularism is so deep that they can send dredgers to destroy a million years of faith and marine life because that was Ram Sethu but wont ever dare to touch a six feet by six feet fake dargah built in the middle of the road blocking the highway and causing accidents, for fear of annoying a vote bank.
And then they say, they are the future of India.
(The writer is former editor, Panchjanya and presently director of Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee Research Foundation.)
