- All the citizens of a state cannot be equally powerful, but they may equally be free.
- The worst form of inequality is to make inequal things equal.
- Men are equal; it is not birth but virtue that makes the difference.
- The essence of our effort is to ensure that every child has an equal opportunity, not to become equal but to become different -to realize whatever unique potential of body ,mind and spirit he or she possess.
- When the sun rises, it rises for everyone.
- Equal rights for all, special privileges for none.
- Equality is not in regarding different things similarly; equality is in regarding different things differently.
Last week has been one of the turbulent times in the history of BJP, the main opposition party at the centre in Delhi, with the unceremonious expulsion of Mr.Jaswant Singh for writing a book on Jinnah. It’s indeed an important development for the Indian polity too, because this very incident might shape up the nature of our national and state politics played by BJP in coming times.
The question is not about the unjust expulsion of a senior leader who served the party for thirty years, someone who occupied highly important posts in the Vajpayee government, but it goes much beyond that in larger context is that at first, what this event suggests about the BJP’s future core of action in politics; and secondly, how much selective and myopic our political parties like BJP have become in examining history.
Since the defeat in the recent 2009 general elections, it is the time for the party to do introspection on the reasons why their core middle-class voters have deserted them. Though that was the issue on what they had to think after the debacle of 2004 elections, but at that time they lived in denial by saying that they lost elections not because of their ideology but because anti-incumbancy factor worked in favour of Congress. But this time, they seriously needed to think about the reason behind the defeat, which they end up finding going back to their old age slogan of hard-hindutwa under the influence of RSS, its mother organisation.
Singh’s expulsion from the party sends a clear signal of the party going back under the clutches of RSS. We all know that had Mr.Singh been a member of the later, he would not have been ousted in such shocking manner. This is a bare fact that the BJP treats it members pretty nicely if the person has a profile of being sanghi. RSS was in fear that growing pressure from a few intellectual leaders within the party, BJP might shed off its old saffron cloth, and put on new liberal, moderate face to become a centre right party. This very sacking incident suggests that the RSS is tightening its grip on the party. But this is sad for the Indian polity because the more BJP slides towards its mother organization, the less it will become compatible towards fulfilling the aspirations of today’s India. Because India is not Iran or Israel, they’re fully misreading the mood of the people of this country.
If we take a look an introspective look on the brand of politics which RSS is asking BJP to play, then we find that primarily, Sanatan Hindu philosophy has never advocated the idea of division in society. It is based on accepting every other thought, assimilating them into one and moving on with inclusiveness and tolerance. That is the reason why many religions and movements originated, and flourished under the umbrella of Hinduism, because it has never tried to convert others nor has it ever felt or any threat from other ongoing religious school of thoughts.
Today the BJP is exactly trying to play the same politics of divisiveness in the name of Hinduism, which Jinnah played in 1940s. So are they any different from the later? So why is BJP making so much of noise about Jinnah’s politics if they are doing the same thing sixty years later in little softer way. Who has given them the right to anti-semitize the Indian politics in the name of Hindu Dharma? How can we call it a way of playing the politics of cultural nationalism?
