What compelled leaders like Rahul Gandhi, Arvind Kejriwal, Sitaram Yechury and D Raja to adopt a supportive and sympathetic stance in favour of the anti-India sloganeering on the premises of JNU, Hyderabad and Jadhavpur Universities?
Karan Kharb
Times are changing fast. There are perceptible trends all around in the post-demonetisation phase that the masses are no longer willing to rally around the vote harvesting leaders and parties. Despite facing difficulties in day to day small cash transactions, people ignored the Opposition Parties’ united call for ‘Bharat Bandh’ against the demonetisation of currency notes of higher denominations (500 and 1000). Ignoring persistent incitement through derisive speeches, social media posts, TV debates, hectic parleys and propaganda hysteria, people of India have braved problems like cash crunch and endured queueing up before banks and ATMs. What a historic testimony of unprecedented restraint, patience and faith in the Government that not a single case of vandalising banks or ATMs was reported. What’s more, the proxy war soldiers and their handlers are left stunned. There are reports of escalating desertions in the rank and file of these mercenaries both in the Kashmir Valley as well as in the areas under Maoist influence in the East and Central India.
The pointer is in the right direction: people are ready to break free from the traditional vote hunting regime of appeasement that has divided and exploited the nation along caste, communal and regional lines perpetuating a culture of ‘dependence’ rather than ‘independence through
empowerment’. Most of India’s political parties other than the BJP and the Leftists have almost shrunk into family strong-holds or fiefdoms of individual leaders. These are also the only political establishments in India today that remain wedded to their respective ideologies – both
diametrically divergent though! While the former is rooted in ‘Nationalism’, often called progressive Hindu Dharma, the latter is still desperately trying to resuscitate the obsolescent concept of ‘Communism’. Bereft of any ideology, the rest of modern India’s political entities today seem to be on a mission of hoarding maximum power and pelf – a handy tool to scare or lure! In their desperation to keep the forces of ‘Nationalism’ at bay, the Leftist parties have traditionally supported or acquiesced to the formation of anti-BJP coalitions. Lately, their desperation has become more acute because demonetisation seems to have hurt them more seriously that they would ever confess. Were they the conduits or recipients of black money?
There are some very intriguing questions that could endanger India’s national security unless suitably answered and addressed. Why are the Leftist parties never critical of China’s border violations or its anti-India stance like stymieing India’s claim to permanent membership of the UN Security Council, NSG and even vetoing the UN Security resolution blacklisting Jaish-e-Mohammad and its infamous boss Masood Azhar? What compelled leaders like Rahul Gandhi, Arvind Kejriwal, Sitaram Yechury and D Raja to adopt a supportive and sympathetic stance in favour of the anti-India sloganeering on the premises of JNU, Hyderabad and Jadhavpur Universities? What was forcing the then Home Minister P Chidambaram and Foreign Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid to pay tearful sympathies for Afzal Guru’s hanging, the Batla House encounter and the Ishrat Khan encounter in Ahmedabad? As if all this was not enough, the bogie of ‘Saffron/Hindu terror’ has been often traded vociferously by many of them time and again. In 2009, Rahul Gandhi had reportedly told the then US Ambassador to India, Timothy Roemer, that “the bigger threat (than Islamic terrorism) may be the growth of radicalised Hindu groups, which create religious tensions and political confrontations with the Muslim community.”
In no other sovereign democracy, would such anti-national stand be tolerated from any corner, much less from politicians. Most would be tried in camera for treason and punished severely. Even in visiting foreign countries, some of these leaders have either preferred to keep their itinerary a secret or were spotted at locations that were not part of their given itinerary. The mutual warmth in their inter-action with the separatists in J&K and the Maoists in Chhattisgarh-Odisha-Jharkhand regions has been manifestly evident all through. Activities and funding of some of the NGOs run by many politicians and social activists also raises similarly disturbing questions. Whereas it may never be possible to conclusively prove their being in league and on the payroll of the enemy, there is enough to logically surmise that there is certainly something far more sinister bubbling beneath the surface than meets the eye.
The new brand of political criticism — hurling foul language and misrepresentation of facts heralds a degenerative trend in the Indian politics. Political opposition is becoming
synonymous with ‘political enmity’. The capacity of accepting and supporting policies and actions of the government on vital issues like defence and security, foreign policy, holistic development schemes and so on has shrunk if not wholly disappeared. Two examples show this fall in our political character very clearly. Soon after the epoch-making victory of the Indian Army in the 1971 Indo-Pak War, the then Opposition leader Atal Bihari Vajpayee eulogised the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi equating her with goddess Durga for crowing the country with a historic victory. That was one set of value systems guiding our political Opposition. Last year when the Indian Army launched ‘surgical strikes’, Kejriwal barked alongside LeT and ISI bulldogs from across the border asking for ‘proof’. The Congress party, though not doubting the military strikes, dared to question the government for claiming the military victory its own! As if the military were an autonomous body pursuing its own operations without approval and direction from the government. Every time this brand of political satire and anti-government utterances draws more accolade from the anti-India forces within and out of the country. Is it unreasonable to speculate that the hinterland support for anti-India elements of proxy war is already existing? Today, a new facet of proxy war is easy to discern from the lobbyists’ role in mustering support, mobilising and manoeuvring huge funds including forex for the sleeper cells of terror under the umbrella of anti-national NGOs.
Sections of our polity and media are clearly working overtime to impair and destroy moral fibre of the Nation by deriding on our core values of nationhood and extending tacit support to the anti-national forces. There is an urgent need for the intellectuals, media and authorities concerned to probe, expose and deal effectively with the agencies working against national interests.
(The writer is a well-known author. he has also served in the NSG)
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