The Great Indian Political Bandwagon!

His name was Deodutt Singh. He was my next door neighbour at Rhea Hostel in Allahabad during my final year of graduation. Deodutt was a keen student of Political Science and though he was one year my junior, I was awed by his political thinking.

The time was latter half of 1990. That was the time of mighty ascendance of BJP. LK Advani was all ready to set off the "Rath Yatra" to Ayodhya to champion the cause of the construction of a Ram temple on the disputed site there.

There was this new found excitement among most Hindus. They believed it was time for them to assert themselves and fight against the opportunistic appeasement of Muslims by Congress, for long.

It was also a time people were looking for some freshness, some change, some new ideology and BJP was able to capitalise on it. It had an array of learned leaders with a relatively cleaner and intellectual image – Vajpayee, Advani, Murali Manohar Joshi and many such.

I was not the only one affected by this Euphoria. I remember, like Hindus all-over in the cow-belt, we (Hindu) Hostelers too rallied behind BJP. In fact, most of us - except one!

Deodutt Singh used to take lots of pains to explain to us that BJP’s ideology is a flawed one. He was such a critic that he would equate it with Fascist philosophies as existed in Europe in the times of Hitler & Mussolini.

He used to explain to us that in this process of identifying "goodness" and "superiority" with "us," there was a tendency to identify "evil" with "them." And if the “us” was a majority – one could imagine the plight of the minority “them”. It was like Aryan vs. Jews!

He would say that it would lead to never-before polarisation of society and would lead only to destruction in both groups. We didn’t believe that. We just thought that BJP is trying to bring back the balance, which had skewed towards the Muslims. He warned us that we would realise this after many years that it was not a done thing.

How right he was! In hindsight, it exactly happened the way he said. Attacks and counter-attacks. Ayodhya, Mumbai, Gujarat and then whole of India. Result – mass destruction and hatred. This hatred was initially exploited by Politicians and then worst, by Terrorists!

I now feel sad that at one time even I supported the harbinger of hatred – The BJP. Today its allies are taking it to a new low where women are being attacked for going to pubs and North Indians are beaten up just for aspiring to live in metropolis like Mumbai.

Enough of BJP. Let’s talk about the players in the so called “Third Front”. Yesterday I watched a so-so movie called “Coffee House” which had its moments and a message. At one point in the movie, the agitated Hero puts up a rhetoric question, “You know who are the minority community in India?” In the same breath he replies, “It’s a small group of people who first call themselves “Indian” before being referred to as Punjabi, Tamil, Bengali etc!”

How true! The Third Front ideology falls too short, here.

That just leaves Congress.

Congress too has its own share of Nepotism, Corruption, and a record of Hatred Mongering (The 1984 riots against Sikhs). I see a difference though. This hatred was not a result of any ideology. This was a handiwork of some opportunistic politicians (which thanks to Jarnail Singh’s shoe throwing episode, have been removed from the poll fray, this time) trying to use mass hatred to get more votes!

Congress is secular, thinks National and is capable of providing stable governance.
But what about Dynastic Rule? I wouldn’t lose too much sleep on it. Would you pick Rahul because he is a Nehru-Gandhi scion or because he is young and comes across as a non-conventional, optimist neta? Think of George Bush, Abhishek Bachchan, Karan Johar, Chris Cowdrey etc etc - where it doesn’t happen that the children get more exposure and a kick-start than others (an undue advantage!) in their parent(s) field. But can we choose our parents? No.

But we can sure choose a Government.
And shouldn’t we?

p.s. :
- Deodutt Singh is now an IPS officer in the Orissa Cadre.
- Thanks to Ajay for asking me blog into the troubled waters of Politics.