05-02-2006, 10:27 PM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Vadodara violence </b>
The Pioneer Edit Desk
Wages of vote-bank politics ---- Monday's violence in Vadodara over the demolition of a Sufi dargah deserves more than passing attention. The fact that it left four persons dead and 21 injured is certainly one reason for this. More important, however, is the question whether there should have been any violence at all. <b>The dargah, which was that of a Sufi Saint Rashiuddin Chishti, had to be demolished for an important road-widening project. Notice, according to Mr RK Pathak, Commissioner of the Vadodara Municipal Corporation, had been given to the trustees for its removal but no response was received. According to the Mayor, Mr Sunil Solanki, three meetings had been held with representatives of the minority community to persuade them to shift the dargah and land had been offered. There would have been no violence and police firing had the offer been accepted. The question arises whether there could be any justification for the refusal to shift the structure. The demolition was a part of a general drive to widen roads, which, as Mr Solanki said, had been going on for a fortnight and had claimed as many as 1,500 structures. According to Mr Pathak, 20 temples had also been demolished with the cooperation of the Hindus</b>. All this raises two questions. Why should the Muslims have demurred, particularly since they do not generally consider dargahs as places of religious worship, and when Hindus had cooperated with the removal or shifting of temples? Can there be any progress if opposition by a religious or other group to the demolition of a shrine or religious structure can hold up vital infrastructure development projects? And if one community can scuttle the demolition of its shrines even to make way for vital projects, will others not be tempted to do the same?
All this in turn raises the issue of minority appeasement, the principal instrument of vote-bank politics, which the Congress and the Leftist parties have been pursuing relentlessly. <b>The UPA Government's extraordinary response to Monday's violence, is revealing. Mr Sri Prakash Jaiswal, Union Minister of State for Home Affairs, who rushed to Vadodara on Tuesday, made the breathtaking statement that the administration should have considered the feelings and sentiments of the minority community before demolishing the dargah. He completely overlooked the fact that it was the minority community, which had communalised a simple act of demolition to make way for development. That its response was communal is clear from the fact that it attacked not only the VMC staff carrying out the demolition and the police protecting them, but also Hindus, stabbing two of the latter to death and injuring several more.</b> Remarkably, Mr Jaiswal said nothing about this. Nor did he condemn the anti-demolition mob violence, which injured several municipal employees and policemen. If anything, his observation, as well as the Union Ministry's gratuitous advisory on Monday to the Gujarat Government about the need to prevent violence from spreading, is bound to encourage Muslims to be more obdurate on such issues, which in turn is bound to produce a Hindu backlash which is liable to affect Muslims adversely. But then concern for the well being of Muslims has hardly been a part of vote-bank politics.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The Pioneer Edit Desk
Wages of vote-bank politics ---- Monday's violence in Vadodara over the demolition of a Sufi dargah deserves more than passing attention. The fact that it left four persons dead and 21 injured is certainly one reason for this. More important, however, is the question whether there should have been any violence at all. <b>The dargah, which was that of a Sufi Saint Rashiuddin Chishti, had to be demolished for an important road-widening project. Notice, according to Mr RK Pathak, Commissioner of the Vadodara Municipal Corporation, had been given to the trustees for its removal but no response was received. According to the Mayor, Mr Sunil Solanki, three meetings had been held with representatives of the minority community to persuade them to shift the dargah and land had been offered. There would have been no violence and police firing had the offer been accepted. The question arises whether there could be any justification for the refusal to shift the structure. The demolition was a part of a general drive to widen roads, which, as Mr Solanki said, had been going on for a fortnight and had claimed as many as 1,500 structures. According to Mr Pathak, 20 temples had also been demolished with the cooperation of the Hindus</b>. All this raises two questions. Why should the Muslims have demurred, particularly since they do not generally consider dargahs as places of religious worship, and when Hindus had cooperated with the removal or shifting of temples? Can there be any progress if opposition by a religious or other group to the demolition of a shrine or religious structure can hold up vital infrastructure development projects? And if one community can scuttle the demolition of its shrines even to make way for vital projects, will others not be tempted to do the same?
All this in turn raises the issue of minority appeasement, the principal instrument of vote-bank politics, which the Congress and the Leftist parties have been pursuing relentlessly. <b>The UPA Government's extraordinary response to Monday's violence, is revealing. Mr Sri Prakash Jaiswal, Union Minister of State for Home Affairs, who rushed to Vadodara on Tuesday, made the breathtaking statement that the administration should have considered the feelings and sentiments of the minority community before demolishing the dargah. He completely overlooked the fact that it was the minority community, which had communalised a simple act of demolition to make way for development. That its response was communal is clear from the fact that it attacked not only the VMC staff carrying out the demolition and the police protecting them, but also Hindus, stabbing two of the latter to death and injuring several more.</b> Remarkably, Mr Jaiswal said nothing about this. Nor did he condemn the anti-demolition mob violence, which injured several municipal employees and policemen. If anything, his observation, as well as the Union Ministry's gratuitous advisory on Monday to the Gujarat Government about the need to prevent violence from spreading, is bound to encourage Muslims to be more obdurate on such issues, which in turn is bound to produce a Hindu backlash which is liable to affect Muslims adversely. But then concern for the well being of Muslims has hardly been a part of vote-bank politics.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->