|
Scenes
from a tragedy
Since
Atal Bihari Vajpayee has cited "national sentiment" as
the reason to endorse the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya, it might be useful
to find some empirical data to give greater credence to this approach.
May
I send the prime minister a video cassette based on the most comprehensive
coverage of events in Ayodhya soon after the Babri Masjid was demolished?
In those days there were no so-called independent channels. The
video Newstrack produced a week after the demolition in Ayodhya
is, to my mind, a collector’s piece for anyone trying to assess
popular sentiment on the Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhoomi controversy.
Soon
after the demolition, a group of a women is shown celebrating the
event. They are seated in a circle, clapping and singing a song:
‘‘Ab yeh jhanda lahrayega saare Pakistan pe.’’Where
in this spontaneous, ecstatic performance is the great sentiment
for the Ram temple? And how does Pakistan get into the bargain?
Clearly these somewhat simple-minded women were involved in a victory
celebration and Muslims and Pakistan become synonymous in their
perception.
The
next sequence in that video magazine shows hysterical young men,
saffron bands tied around their heads, flourishing something resembling
a lance or a spear. They too are saying,"Bomb girega Pakistan
pe". The final word, of course, is Bal Thackeray’s: "If
they wish to go to Pakistan, let them go." His is a blanket
invitation for Indian Muslims, all 140 million of them, to cross
over to Pakistan.
Where
is the sentiment for Ram in all of this? In Akira Kurosawa’s
masterpiece, Rashomon, the same reality is viewed from five different
angles. It is conceivable that Newstrack offers just one perspective
on Ayodhya but nevertheless a valid one. In none of the four sequences
in the video magazine is there any mention of Ram or his Janambhoomi.
The mood is not religious but hysterical and full of hate.
Moreover,
what does one make of that repeated, continuous reference to Pakistan
by all the dramatis personae in that magazine? Clearly a large section
of the population has internalised a distorted reality which no
political leadership (particularly the Congress) has had the courage
or the imagination to correct since independence. A basic venom
has settled in the psyche of a section of the majority that Muslims
partitioned the country and stayed on. In other words, there is
a linkage in perpetuity between Indian Muslims and Pakistan. Therefore
when the Babri Masjid is demolished the mood is to mock at both
— Indian Muslims as well as Pakistan — the two, in that
moment of hysteria, placed in one, common category.
That
the Congress accepted the Partition with only Maulana Azad and Khan
Abdul Ghaffar Khan protesting against it, is a reality Congressmen
should have declared to cleanse the air of post partition hatred.
But they did not because so many of their own hands were in the
till.
By
making the statement on the Ram temple, Vajpayee has set the terms
on which the party could go to the polls. He has also called the
whispered bluff of the NDA allies. If the NDA allies will not leave
now when the PM has more or less endorsed temple construction in
Ayodhya, what better moment are they waiting for? After the date
for temple construction has been announced at the Kumbh mela in
mid-January? After Mamata Bannerjee has presented the Railway budget
in February?
Or
have some of the allies made the assessment that Vajpayee has invested
too much in his image as a mature statesman worldwide to risk that
image floundering on a platform of questionable benefit to him and
the party. Are they visualising some back tracking on the temple
issue?
You
can send the boy out of the shakha but not the shakha out of the
boy. This is absolutely true of the PM. But equally true is the
fact that he has evolved, travelled a long distance as a parliamentarian,
and a statesman. Remember his statement as foreign minister of the
Janata Government in 1977? "I am on the chair once occupied
by Jawaharlal Nehru," he said with pride.
The
Lahore bus journey, his speech at Minar-e-Pakistan: These are the
images with which Vajpayee was identified in recent years. Are we
to believe that speeches like the one at Staten Island and the Ram
temple statement are only part of the orchestration to keep the
Sangh cadres in line?
Some
imams of local mosques told me: "Muslims defected en masse
from the Congress after they were deceived by P.V. Narasimha Rao;
they have been disappointed by Vajpayee shedding his secular mask."
It would be naive to expect Muslim votes within the space of a year
but the fact that they felt secure in Vajpayee’s image of a
tolerant leader had a considerable potential in harmonising the
country internally and India’s voice being heard with respect
in the counsels of the world. Recent series of diplomatic successes
owed a great deal to his image of being a secular leader.
|
