The effectiveness of democracy depends upon the feeling for the nation in the life of the people, consciousness of responsibility, and discipline. If these Sanskaras are absent in the citizen, democracy degenerates into an instrument of individual, class and party interest.
–Democracy Without Sanskaras, “Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya -A Profile” edited by Sudhakar Raje
The next round of award returning spree has begun. After literary czars, scientists and filmmakers, most of them with known political affiliations have entered the fray through a dramatic attempt of cornering the government on the issue of ‘intolerance’. The people who are opposing ban on cow slaughtering are demanding ban on RSS. Scientist like P M Bhargava went to the extent of saying that Bharat is on the way of becoming Pakistan, demanding ban on the RSS for fanning a sense of fear among minorities. Interestingly a day before, Gen Pervez Musharraf dared to equate RSS and Shiv Sena with a terrorist like Hafeez Saeed. These double standards on ‘ban’ need to be assessed and exposed.
Perception building is a part of electioneering and every political party use various tools to create perception in its favour. Since the 2014 General Elections, we find an interesting behavioural pattern of certain sections of elite which needs to be questioned. Certain sections of elite, in academics, culture, scientific community and even media have joined this perception game. As a democracy they are also have every right to have their political affiliations and opinions but why this hypocrisy of creating divisive hype is the real question.
The pattern is very clear. Much before elections itself many of these ‘eminent’ personalities had made their intolerant intentions clear. They appealed against voting for Modi-led BJP. They also tried to create international opinion against the pro-Bharat ideological position through lobbying and petitioning. When their desperate attempts failed miserably, they are up to new tactics now. Since the Delhi Assembly elections a fabricated phobia is being created to tarnish the image of the government. During Delhi elections, attacks on churches erupted as an issue, about which nobody spoke about after elections. For the Jammu-Kashmir elections, Jammu versus Kashmir and hanging of terrorists like Afzal Guru were subtly played as an issue. With Bihar elections around the corner, attacks on writers and ‘beef-ban’ suddenly became national issues.
When Muzaffarnagar was boiling before the 2014 General Elections, Akhilesh Yadav Government was the target. After the unfortunate incident of murder in Dadri, nobody asked a single question to the State Government. The killings of so-called rationalists like Dabholkar, Pansare and Kalburgi are invoked to target the centre knowing very well that those cases are being investigated by the respective state agencies. If the centre would have intervened, the same lot would have raised the issue of federalism as they did in case of Kerala House incident where Delhi Police took the precautionary action. All these patterns reveal the ideological intolerance of these sections towards all that is Bharateeya values, ethos, culture and practices which describes the Soul of the Nation. Despite all attempts to malign the image of Bharat internationally, global influence of Bharateeya economy and culture is on the rise. The World Bank ranking in ease of doing business has gone up. Domestically, the rising prices of pulses, over 1.20 lakh tonnes of pulses have been seized from hoarders across the country, which is unheard of.
The design of double standards on issues of ‘ban’ and ‘intolerance’ aimed to thwart the process of development with cultural ethos. All these eminent personalities should realise that Bharat is not Pakistan because organisations like RSS exist here. The very essence of Hinduness propounded and propagated by RSS will not allow us to follow the disastrous path of monotheism. At the same time neglecting underlying unity in our cultural diversity can backfire and push us on the path of violent anarchy.
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