11-30-2005, 01:33 AM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Penalty for Muslim fixation </b>
Pioneer.com
It was the electorates' backlash against minority appeasement of the so-called secular parties that saw Nitish Kumar through, says Prafull Goradia
A substantive explanation of Mr Nitish Kumar's victory in the recent Bihar elections needs an analysis. Bihar's situation in February, when the last election took place, was about the same; yet, the results were so different. The question, therefore, is what was the glaring difference between February and November?
LJP president Ram Vilas Paswan had not promised a Muslim Chief Minister prior to the February elections; he did this only after the results were out. Whereas in the run up to the November election, a Muslim Chief Minister sounded like his one-point manifesto.
Never before had such a communalist promise been made. Another outstanding feature of the recent campaign was that RJD president Lalu Prasad Yadav hardly addressed an election meeting without a look-alike of Osama bin Laden sitting on his right-hand side. He did not have such a man last time. That Mr Yadav had banked on the Muslim-Yadav combine for the last two decades was well-known. The pseudo-Osama proclaimed that Mr Yadav felt that all Muslims were extremists and followers of Al Qaeda. To many a Muslim this was an insult. I was a part of the audience in a few of the meetings and can vouch for this reaction.
Another impression I got was that the look-alike Osama outraged Hindus across the board, including a number of Valmikis and others who were sitting not far from me. This might also explain the debacle of Mr Paswan's party. I am not sufficiently familiar with Bihar; <b>but in Gujarat, the community that dreads communal riots most are the Dalits. They cannot forget the bitter experience of the Ahmedabad riots in 1969 and again in 1985</b>. The primary reason of their vulnerability is their poverty and lack of influence; the police do not respond well enough to protect them.
Mr Paswan's promise of a Muslim Chief Minister and Mr Yadav's demonstration of a pseudo-Osama consolidated the backlash that gave the laurel to Mr Nitish Kumar. No one credits either Mr Paswan or Mr Yadav with any great vision. But certainly the Congress has within its ranks the cream of India's political talent. What then is the reason for the grand old party to ignoring the obvious lessons of repeated electoral behaviour. Is it a mindset? Remember, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel had called Jawaharlal Nehru the only nationalist Muslim he had come across. Or, is it a Hindu-phobia that makes the Muslim appeasement an equivalent of secularism. Incidentally,<span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'> Nehru openly talked of minority communalism as harmless; whereas majoritarianism, he felt, was gravely dangerous.</span>
The Muslim voter, as a genre, was shaken by the breaking up of Pakistan in 1971 by, of all people, Nehru's daughter. He, however, did not decide to boycott the Congress as a result. If he did help to defeat Mrs Indira Gandhi in 1977, it was because of Sanjay Gandhi's nasbandi (and not due to the birth of Bangladesh). He rejected the Congress after the Ayodhya agitation and Rajiv Gandhi's dithering response to it.
What little faith was left in the party was wiped out when the needle of suspicion for the demolition of the Babri edifice pointed to then Prime Minister Narasimha Rao. <b>The Congress has not had a Chief Minister in Lucknow since Mr ND Tiwari in 1988. Bihar has not had one since Mr Jagannath Mishra in 1989. West Bengal, with a quarter of Muslim voters, has not had a Congress Chief Minister for the past 28 years. UP, Bihar and West Bengal make up the heartland of India's Muslims. Why then does the party chase and appease Muslims - whether in Bihar, Andhra Pradesh or elsewhere?</b>
Uncannily, the Congress had a socialist mindset sowed by Nehru at the Avadi session in 1955. As early as 1985, Rajiv Gandhi had doubts about the efficacy of Leftism; yet, no official policy change took place. It was only after India had been compelled to deposit gold in London as girvi that there was little choice before Narasimha Rao but to invite Mr Manmohan Singh as Finance Minister and resort to liberalisation. <b>Will the Congress wait for a debacle in order to change its mindset over Muslim appeasement?</b>
The grand old party can console itself in the knowledge that a political veteran like Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee is also siding with them in the ways of Muslim appeasement. He not only wore green pugrees in the campaign for the last general election, but also spoke with sincerity when he promise that, if returned to power, <b>he would employ two lakh Urdu teachers. But the Congress should remember that Mr Vajpayee lost the 2004 Lok Sabha election due to that very reason. He paid the price for his borrowing from Nehruvianism.</b>
The flip side of the consolation for the Congress are the series of terrorist attacks - whether on Akshardham in Gandhinagar, or the Parliament house, not to speak of 29/10 in Delhi. The world environment also appears to have bypassed Congressmen.
<b>Do they not realise that the most widespread war in human history is being fought between Islamic terrorists and. the rest of civilisations</b> - be it Chinese in Xinjiang, or Buddhists in Thailand, or Jews in Palestine and now Christians in several European countries, not to speak of 9/11 in the US and 7/7 in London. Five out of the world's six continents, including Australia, are fighting in this widespread war. <b>Is any more data required for the pundits of 24, Akbar Road to do an about turn and play to the Hindu gallery?</b>
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Pioneer.com
It was the electorates' backlash against minority appeasement of the so-called secular parties that saw Nitish Kumar through, says Prafull Goradia
A substantive explanation of Mr Nitish Kumar's victory in the recent Bihar elections needs an analysis. Bihar's situation in February, when the last election took place, was about the same; yet, the results were so different. The question, therefore, is what was the glaring difference between February and November?
LJP president Ram Vilas Paswan had not promised a Muslim Chief Minister prior to the February elections; he did this only after the results were out. Whereas in the run up to the November election, a Muslim Chief Minister sounded like his one-point manifesto.
Never before had such a communalist promise been made. Another outstanding feature of the recent campaign was that RJD president Lalu Prasad Yadav hardly addressed an election meeting without a look-alike of Osama bin Laden sitting on his right-hand side. He did not have such a man last time. That Mr Yadav had banked on the Muslim-Yadav combine for the last two decades was well-known. The pseudo-Osama proclaimed that Mr Yadav felt that all Muslims were extremists and followers of Al Qaeda. To many a Muslim this was an insult. I was a part of the audience in a few of the meetings and can vouch for this reaction.
Another impression I got was that the look-alike Osama outraged Hindus across the board, including a number of Valmikis and others who were sitting not far from me. This might also explain the debacle of Mr Paswan's party. I am not sufficiently familiar with Bihar; <b>but in Gujarat, the community that dreads communal riots most are the Dalits. They cannot forget the bitter experience of the Ahmedabad riots in 1969 and again in 1985</b>. The primary reason of their vulnerability is their poverty and lack of influence; the police do not respond well enough to protect them.
Mr Paswan's promise of a Muslim Chief Minister and Mr Yadav's demonstration of a pseudo-Osama consolidated the backlash that gave the laurel to Mr Nitish Kumar. No one credits either Mr Paswan or Mr Yadav with any great vision. But certainly the Congress has within its ranks the cream of India's political talent. What then is the reason for the grand old party to ignoring the obvious lessons of repeated electoral behaviour. Is it a mindset? Remember, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel had called Jawaharlal Nehru the only nationalist Muslim he had come across. Or, is it a Hindu-phobia that makes the Muslim appeasement an equivalent of secularism. Incidentally,<span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'> Nehru openly talked of minority communalism as harmless; whereas majoritarianism, he felt, was gravely dangerous.</span>
The Muslim voter, as a genre, was shaken by the breaking up of Pakistan in 1971 by, of all people, Nehru's daughter. He, however, did not decide to boycott the Congress as a result. If he did help to defeat Mrs Indira Gandhi in 1977, it was because of Sanjay Gandhi's nasbandi (and not due to the birth of Bangladesh). He rejected the Congress after the Ayodhya agitation and Rajiv Gandhi's dithering response to it.
What little faith was left in the party was wiped out when the needle of suspicion for the demolition of the Babri edifice pointed to then Prime Minister Narasimha Rao. <b>The Congress has not had a Chief Minister in Lucknow since Mr ND Tiwari in 1988. Bihar has not had one since Mr Jagannath Mishra in 1989. West Bengal, with a quarter of Muslim voters, has not had a Congress Chief Minister for the past 28 years. UP, Bihar and West Bengal make up the heartland of India's Muslims. Why then does the party chase and appease Muslims - whether in Bihar, Andhra Pradesh or elsewhere?</b>
Uncannily, the Congress had a socialist mindset sowed by Nehru at the Avadi session in 1955. As early as 1985, Rajiv Gandhi had doubts about the efficacy of Leftism; yet, no official policy change took place. It was only after India had been compelled to deposit gold in London as girvi that there was little choice before Narasimha Rao but to invite Mr Manmohan Singh as Finance Minister and resort to liberalisation. <b>Will the Congress wait for a debacle in order to change its mindset over Muslim appeasement?</b>
The grand old party can console itself in the knowledge that a political veteran like Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee is also siding with them in the ways of Muslim appeasement. He not only wore green pugrees in the campaign for the last general election, but also spoke with sincerity when he promise that, if returned to power, <b>he would employ two lakh Urdu teachers. But the Congress should remember that Mr Vajpayee lost the 2004 Lok Sabha election due to that very reason. He paid the price for his borrowing from Nehruvianism.</b>
The flip side of the consolation for the Congress are the series of terrorist attacks - whether on Akshardham in Gandhinagar, or the Parliament house, not to speak of 29/10 in Delhi. The world environment also appears to have bypassed Congressmen.
<b>Do they not realise that the most widespread war in human history is being fought between Islamic terrorists and. the rest of civilisations</b> - be it Chinese in Xinjiang, or Buddhists in Thailand, or Jews in Palestine and now Christians in several European countries, not to speak of 9/11 in the US and 7/7 in London. Five out of the world's six continents, including Australia, are fighting in this widespread war. <b>Is any more data required for the pundits of 24, Akbar Road to do an about turn and play to the Hindu gallery?</b>
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