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Having lost power to the Congress
and milked its temple cow dry, the Hindutva clan is now trying to
make
a backdoor entry riding on the anti-corruption bandwagon
Jinke apne ghar shishe ke hon woh
doosron par patthar nahin phenka karte,” says Raj Kumar, one
of the most caricatured Bollywood thespians, in Waqt.
This circus back home with Baba Ramdev launching a corruption
crusade, increasingly reminds me of Raj Kumar's earthly wisdom
that those living in glass houses have no business throwing stones
at others.
I have no issues with Ramdev or his cause. He's a successful yoga
guru, which is why he counts millions amongst his flock. He also
claims to have found a cure for incurables like AIDS, cancer and
even homosexuality. But does that entitle him to declare himself a
national savior and bring the capital and the whole of India to a
grinding halt with his antics? I know, I know. His cause is noble.
Who in his right mind would have any issues with fighting
corruption?
But self-righteous lectures on transparency and honesty by
someone, who went from a humble yoga teacher from Haryana to a
jet-flying business baron with a declared $220 million global
empire of yoga centers, hospitals and 34 companies in no time, are
a bit hard to digest. It doesn't strike as odd to the “babalog” or
millions of their gullible followers though. How could he resist
the temptation to play the messiah of corrupt masses when a nobody
like Anna Hazare could become a national icon overnight with his
fast against corruption?
So even as the Lokpal law to fight graft was being hammered into
shape, Ramdev had to come up with his own little show demanding
the return of black money stashed abroad by Indians, repeal of
high denomination currency notes, and death sentence for those
guilty of corruption. And yes, Baba wanted all this delivered
pronto — instant like his miracle cures.
It's hard to believe that the Congress-led government took these
absurd demands of the yoga guru seriously. Four senior federal
ministers, including Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, No. 2 in
the government, were rushed to Delhi airport to receive Baba when
he arrived from Hardwar in a private jet. They spent four hours
trying to persuade him to call off the fast. A nervous government
continued to woo Baba even as he went on fast and huffed and
puffed surrounded by his flock and an ever-hungry media at Ramlila
Maidan in Delhi.
But then we have been through this before. The Congress always
inflates minor characters with its appeasement eventually turning
them into monsters. This is what Prime Minister Indira Gandhi did
in the case of Sikh separatist Bhindrawale, which eventually took
her life. Again this is the mindset that made her son Rajiv Gandhi
to open the Babri Masjid doors for puja creating another crisis
from which India has yet to recover. The Ayodhya “cause” gifted by
the Congress helped the BJP mutate from a 2-member party into the
party of power.
ONE had thought that the Congress of Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan
Singh had learned from recent history. But that was not to be. So
if the initial genuflection before Ramdev was bizarre, more absurd
has been the midnight swoop on Ramlila Maidan disrupting the
protest and packing Baba off to Haridwar.
And now thanks to that action, the yoga guru has got the
legitimacy and celebrity he was hungering for. No wonder Baba sees
himself as Bhagat Singh and his eviction from Ramlila Maidan as
“second Jalianwala Bagh” tragedy. Jalianwala Bagh? Please!
Buoyed by the new cult status, Baba now calls for an 11,000-strong
armed squad to fight corrupt politicians.
What will we have next? An armed attack on Lutyen's Delhi and
kangaroo courts for swiftly hanging the corrupt? Where are we
headed? Do we even realize the seriousness of the situation? Why
did the government have to break the fast the very next day? Who's
responsible for this mess? Whoever it is, he didn't have the
Congress' — or nation's — interests at heart. As if the numerous
corruption scandals that have surfaced with breathless frequency
over the past few months were not enough to wreck the party's —
and that of the UPA coalition — image, it had to come up with this
suicidal move.I hate to nod in agreement when the BJP calls this
government a “headless chicken.” But nothing else could describe
the confused, clueless and sleepwalking creature called the UPA
government. Its right hand doesn't seem to know what its left is
up to. Like those multiheaded monsters in Hindu mythology, it
speaks in many voices all at the same time with no one being any
wiser. And the one who should really be doing the talking is
missing in action. Where's Manmohan Singh, the icon of new, middle
class India, when we so need him?
At stake is not just the existence of the UPA coalition but the
very future of India. Doubtless, corruption, like cancer, is
eating into the nation's vitals. The overwhelming response to
Hazare's call is a pointer to people's concerns on the issue. No
government can afford to ignore this wave of public revolt —
India's own Arab Spring.
However, what is disturbing about this whole campaign against
corruption is its stridently saffron character.The Congress is
hardly far off the mark when it accuses the Hindutva clan of
hijacking the crusade against corruption. Even as Ramdev was
issuing calls for an armed uprising from his Haridwar ashram, he
was being visited by Hindutva luminaries, including Ashok Singhal
who headed the Ayodhya movement. And it's not just Ramdev, even
Anna Hazare's campaign appears to have been taken over by the same
forces.
While Ramdev's rhetoric is ominously familiar, the presence of RSS
icons including a huge Bharat Mata image (India personified as a
Hindu deity) at Hazare's hunger strike is equally troubling. And
how could you forget the aging activist's paeans to Narendra Modi,
the architect of Gujarat pogrom?
SO having lost power to the Congress and milked its temple cow
dry, is the Hindutva clan now trying to make a backdoor entry, as
some in Congress suggest? Maybe or maybe not. But the strong
saffron tint to this whole campaign is unmistakable. It's no
coincidence that in every second sentence Ramdev attacks the
Gandhis and Sonia's foreign roots.
As Sagarika Ghose argued this week, the Ramdev-Hazare phenomenon
may be part of the new, Hindu nationalist revolution. “Hindu
nationalist consolidation is gathering momentum, much of which
feeds into the anti-corruption campaigns. The Ram temple movement
is back, in a new avatar. There are many in the Sangh who are
eying a similar opportunity to piggyback on an anti-corruption
movement. 'War against corruption' is led by people of many hues,
but it's also the Hindu revolution's catchall device to rally new
support to the cause. A desperate search for a cause and a new
rallying cry has led them to the war on corruption,” writes Ghose
in her brilliant piece in Hindustan Times.
A Hindu consolidation or Hindu revolution is perhaps only natural
in a Hindu-majority country. But should it happen at the cost of
this amazing nation's plural character and fabled tolerance? We
all saw during the madness of the Ayodhya movement and the carnage
of Gujarat what the Hindutva revolution means and entails for the
rest of India. Do we want to go down that road? Such an India is
not just against the interests of its numerous minorities but is
not in anyone's interest. Extremism is as dangerous as corruption,
if not more. We must learn from the nightmare next door in
Pakistan.
Aijaz Zaka Syed
is a widely published commentator. The above article first
appeared in Arab News.
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