by BS Murthy
However, after a relatively long lull on the communal front, a bunch of fanatical, thus stupid, Indian Musalman zealots targeted some Ram Sevaks, returning from a rally at Ayodhya, for the cause of the Ram temple, which lost its momentum by then that was before its eventual dissipation. Reminiscent of their Naokhali barbarity, the Musalman mob torched a railway coach at Godhra in which 58 Hindus, 40 of whom were women and children, had perished; it's as if these bigots had for inspiration M ahmud's butchery of the Hindus at Somnath in the same province.
But unlike in the times gone by, led by the Sangh Parivar, the Gujarati Hindu retaliation that followed accounted for 790 M usalmans dead (amplified by the Congress eco system through the idiot boxes to 2000-odd to politically hurt the irrepressible Narendra M odi) in which rioting 254 Hindus too perished, most of them in police firing, which fact was equally glossed over by the pseudo-secular Islamapologic media. Yet in a
weird way, some of the body bags had revealed the changed face of the Hindutva; that the backward dalits, ever averse to the Hindutva cause, and more so, the tribal poor, hitherto lukewarm to the same, too participated in the carnage against the Musalmans had put the Hindu consolidation on display for all to see.
Why, didn't Ashok Singhal of the Vishva Hindu Parishad, echo all this by blowing the Sangh Parivar's pdnchajanya thus:
"It was for the first time in thousand years the Hindus got united and gave a befitting reply to those who attacked them in Godhra."
He further thundered that the Gujarat incident was just the beginning and sounded ominous when he declared,
"the valour showed by the Hindus in Gujarat is unprecedented. If they are attacked again they will stand in self-defence. This will not end here. The VHP will take this message across the country through its Ram Naam Jap and other programs."
History has its own ironies, so it seems, for Gujarat, where Mahmud Ghazni started it all for the Musalmans, became the first retreat of the Indian Musalmans.
However, Ram Lalla (Ram as Child), sheltered under a shdmiana over the Babri debris, was made to wait for the Indian judicial verdict to grant or deny him a bhavya mandir (magnificent temple) in Ayodhya that the Vishva Hindu Parishad was itching to build. What if the Supreme Lordships fail to construe that which all three Allahabad High Court Judges felt was incontrovertible evidence in Ram Lalla's cause; then should not the established Muslim guilt of demolishing many a Hindu mandir make a compelling case for Sri Rama's entitlement to 'the benefit of doubt', so thought Hindus. But then, after a decade-long secular dithering that too in the times of its judicial activism, a five judge constitution bench of India's Supreme Court, which included a Musalman for secular affect, had delivered its unanimous judgment on 9 th November 2019 in Ram Lalla's favour. It goes to the credit of the umma that it accepted the verdict with grace though the same cannot be said about some of its community leaders, religious as well as political. But when Hindus were all set to begin the construction of a bhavya mandir for Ram Lalla, ironically the national lockdown forced by the novel corona virus to put it in the pause mode.
Chapter33 Italian Interregnum
When fate wedded an Italian, Antonia M aino, to Rajiv Gandhi, and ensconced her as Sonia Gandhi in his mother's 1, Safdarjung Road bungalow, Lutyens' Delhi, as badi bahu, it's as if history woke up to the amusing fact that even though it granted the tiny Portugal a 'Goan' foothold in India under the British Raj, when it came to enslaving its ancient people, by oversight, it overlooked the mighty medieval Italy. So, it set things in motion, so it seems.
BY then, however, Indira had her dynastic grip on the democratic India firmly clasped by the Congress party; to achieve which, she castrated the party men into enervation as family eunuchs. So when she anointed Sanjay Gandhi, her second son, as her heir apparent, albeit bypassing Rajiv the elder, for lack of aptitude, it's no wonder that congressmen to one man began prostrating before him. But fate, seemingly at history's behest, dragged the reckless ruffian to death in a plane crash, thereby paving the way for his pilot brother to step into his princely shoes.
It'sthus, when upon her assassination, as the credulous Rajiv, whom her sycophantic party men, was thrust upon the nation, a la Gandhi, as its 'credulous' head, he only tried
to copy from her political text book, which by then became the Congress Bible. So, naivety following the Islamapologic sermons enshrined therein, he allowed himself to be caught between two emotive stools - that of Shah Bano's sharia and Ayodhya's Ram La I la - which heralded his political downfall. That's not all, as if to follow the Italian script of'history' he ventured into the vicious web of the Tamil Elam in the neighbouring Sri Lanka on the 'to its own hurt ant grows wings' line. It was thus his IPKF misadventure, meant to tame the ruthless Velupillai Prabhakaran, the overlord of the Tamil Tigers, which eventually exploded in his face at Sriperumbudur.
Even though 'history' beckoned Sonia to take the reins of the Congress mantle, thereby the prime ministerial handle, her decency as just widowed made her pass on the scepter into the skilful hands of PV Narasimha Rao. So, as 'history' was made to wait, the intellectuality of that veteran polyglot began scripting his own history to be remembered as the 'architect of economic reforms'. Having seen the imperative need for reforming the style and structure of the Indian economy that Nehru thought it fit to mould in the socialistic pattern, he started breaking its Licence-Permit model with his de-licence hammer. But, as the Sangh Parivar's, Ram Janma Bho mi Mandir Andolan with 'saugandh rdm ki khdte hai, mandir wahi bandyenge' (swear by Ram to build it there) chants and the Babri Masjid Action Committee's 'bandne nahi daenge' (won't let that happen) counter were diverting the national political focus and the public attention from his 'reforms agenda', he might have wished that Allah Ta'ala would somehow shift the dilapidated masjid to Pakistan for renovation. However, his wish to see the back of the vexatious issue to fulfill his destiny was fulfilled, not by divine means but by the temporal tools of the Kar Sevaks, who pulled down the contentious structure that 6 th December 1992.
Whatever, he not only removed many a Nehruvian hurdle in India's policy track that put its economy on a galloping course, from which it never looked back, but also managed to run his minority government with finesse for a full five-year term. Equally significantly, having seen the democratic need to free the grand old party of India from its constraining dynastic clutches, once and for all, he, slowly but steadily, began working in that direction to Sonia's chagrin that she eventually vented in an abominable manner that deservedly earned her an eternal infamy. What is more, he sought to usher in a new political culture by not protecting his party men accused of graft in those Jain Hawala Dairies that contained the names of 'who's who' of Indian politics.
However, all that was of no avail as instead of giving him a second term to further fillip the economy and rid the Congress party of its baneful Nehru-Gandhi dynasty, and thereby India, its ignoramus masses, egged on by the antique socialists and caste crusaders, ousted the 'architect of change' from the gaddi, rather unceremoniously. What's worse as his 'cleansing' move earned him enemies across the political spectrum, not excluding within his party, he was embroiled in corruption cases indicating that his end was near the end. Maybe underscoring the Hindu adage satyameva jayate (truth triumphs), he was exonerated of every change by the country's judiciary enabling him to die clean though sad. However, as poetic justice would have it, that catapulted Deve Gowda, somebody, with the backing of the regional satraps like Chandra Babu Naidu of Andhra Pradesh, into the Dilli Kursi.
But then India had soon to contend with Sonia the new player in its political arena. While upon the untimely death of her bother-in-law, the dynastic compulsions of her mother-in-law put the party's reins in her husband's hands, the brutal killing of the old despot by her own bodyguards afforded her man the reign of the land; and that brought her closer to the seat of political power than ever before. As if it is her twisted destiny to get ever closer to power over the dead of her family, tragically, she lost her
husband in the midst of an election that, anyway, was about to undo his Congress. Though the
sentimental turnaround at the hustings put the Congress back into the reckoning, her decency as a widow kept her away from the kursi that was hers for taking, but only till decency demanded.
But, as time is the great healer of grief for the living and as the dead too wouldn't be taking away with them the proclivities of their dears, the 'Italian child of Indian destiny' seemingly found the purpose of her life to usurp, in a palace coup, the reins of the Congress party from the ungrateful hands of Sitaram Kesari, who by then had backstabbed Narasimha Rao his mentor. At the hustings thereafter, though she led her party to defeat, yet, abetted by the anti-BJP elements beguiled by the age-old Indian realpolitik of settling the native scores with alien hands, she staked her claim to become India's Prime Minister after the short-lived AB Vajpayee's mili juli sarkar (coalition government)! However, in the end, it was the principled opposition from a handful of otherwise self-serving Congressmen, led by Sharad Pawar, Purno Sangma and Tariq Anwar not to have a 'foreign' person as India's political head that put paid to her eagerness to ascend the Dilli gaddi.
At long last, vexed with the Congress-created political mess that followed, the nation entrusted its political reins once again to AB Vajpayee's BJP-led NDA, that served it as best as it could in its full term. However, it is worth noting AB's reasoning for letting Sonia off the Bofors' hook in his long second innings, ostensibly as barter for her good behaviour towards his mili juli sarkar - so long as a Roman Catholic heads the Congress, he prophesied, BJP would remain in the seat of power in Dilli. And, for his part, he did make 'India Shine' with brand new highways and made it self-assured with Pokhran-2 nuclear explosion, which eventually opened the vistas for India's nuclear trade through the Indo-US Nuclear Deal. All the same, having taken the Hindus for granted, he sought to buttress his secular image, post-Godhra, with an adharmic advice to Narendra Modi on Raj Dharma, which was rightly retorted by the latter that he was following 'just that'.
So, when Vajpayee the 'infrastructure builder' sought his re-election in 2004, Indian voters were not impressed, as they were indifferent to Narasimha Rao the 'economic reformer' before. Moreover, as the Sangh Parivar too turned its back on him for his omissions and commissions on the Hindu nationalistic front, it turned out to be a near stalemate of an election (Sonia's UPA -145 'n Vajpayee's NDA -138). It's another matter though in the ensuing scramble for power even as the anti-BJP forces ganged up to let Sonia Gandhi usurp Dilli gaddi, the media hailed her for leading her party to historic victory! So, when it seemed Sonia was second time lucky, the public outcry at her impending coronation or the troubled conscience of APJ Abdul Kalam, the country's President, and / or both, made her retreat, albeit, in the artificial halo of 'sacrifice', prompted by her 'inner voice', that is even as the morons in the media and the sycophants of her party vied with each other to picture her as a saint. Thus, going by her twice aborted attempts at taking over the reins of the nation, it would appear that the Hindu EQ at last scored over the media IQ as well as the Congress SQ, i.e. the Sycophancy Quotient.
But, hypothetically approached, would have the Hindu majority, recovering from the humiliation of a thousand years of alien rule like to suffer an Italian taking the capital seat of Hindustan? The Congressmen as hostages to fortune seem not to mind, unmindful of the perils of having a person of foreign origin as India's Prime M inister! Wouldn't every nation be a hostage to its own history that lends itself to colour its citizens' thinking towards the other countries and their peoples? That being the case, if it comes to that, could an Israelite origin Prime M inister be objective in India's ties with the Palestine? What about India's relations with the Western world under the premiership of some naturalized Iranian or an Iraqi? Wouldn't an Indian political head of Bangladeshi origin, nursing a grouse of his sister's molestation by some Punjabi fauzis
during the crisis in his parent country be tempted to settle scores with Pakistan with India's military might? Why, could any such one be what he or she should be as India's mukhiya? Without a native Indian at the helm of affairs, won't its detractors exploit the handicaps of a foreign origin numero uno to jeopardize its national interests?
More ominously, what about war and peace that national leaders may be called upon to decide, especially in India, which had fought many a war in its short independent history? Isn't that a Capital decision with emotive element and tactical content attached to it? Wasn't India at a warlike situation with Pakistan in the wake of the terrorist attack on its parliament on 13th December 2001? Would have a foreign origin Prime M inister served India's interests judiciously? Why, wasn't the overwhelming public opinion to take the plunge; what if Sonia Gandhi on the gaddi went with the popular mood for fear of being perceived as unpatriotic for inaction? If attacking a hostile country seems to serve the long-term Indian national interests, can a foreign origin Premier, unsure about the outcome of the adventure, have the nerve to act? Didn't Lai Bahadur Shastri, even as Pakistan crossed the Line of Control in Kashmir in 1965 war, order the Indian troops to breach the International border near Lahore, which none thought India ever would; and what fuss the Great Britain and other Western powers made of that Indian strategic military move?
Nevertheless, her 'destiny of power' overpowered the will of the nation as she ruled the nation through her proxy, Manmohan Singh, whom many derisively call 'Servile Singh'. Well the caste factor of the Hindu franchise, the communal color of the M usalman vote and the political compulsions of the regional parties played their part in putting the wheels of the democratic omnibus of India into her backseat driving hands. Thus acquiesced by the colluding partners to share the spoils of power, she as if to validate William Congreve's "Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned / Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned" made Bharat Mata pay the price for that 'indigestible' political slight by her Hindu offspring.
Oh, how she had wrecked her vengeance on the motherland of the Hindus by taking its political morality to new lows by corrupting everyone and everything in her sight that is whatever her mother-in-law left uncorrupted in India's systemic vitals, needless to say by looting its wealth in the process, like the invading Musalmans and the colonizing Englishmen did before. Not the one to rest at that, the depraved woman set out to stigmatize the pristine soul of sandtana dharma with a fake saffron terror label, aided by the Hindu hirelings in Servile Singh's cabinet of her underlings, of course, with the connivance of the obliging bureaucrats and others in India's corrupted administrative structure. That some Musalmans were arraigned as suspects in the then ongoing investigation of Samjhauta and M alegaon bomb blasts - Pakistan's LeT cadres in case of the former and SIM I's Indian operatives in case of the latter - seemed as an opportunity to her conspiratorial mind to kill two birds with one shot - free the M usalmans to win the goodwill of the Congress vote-bank and implicate the Sangh Parivar outfits to invent Hindu saffron terror - as an equivocation to the raging Islamic terror that's bugging the umma.
Why Rahul Gandhi, Sonia's below-par brat, even told the American Ambassador in Dilli that he sees the Hindu saffron terror as far more dangerous than the Islamic terror! Well, Some Abrhamic soft corner here for the brat was indeed christened Raul Vinci but assumes the Hindu name of Rahul for political dividend in the Hindu India. But then, the thus far indifferent Hindus have at last woken up to the reality of the anti-Hindu credo of the Italian family that usurped their grand old party, and that's the check 'n mate. It is another matter though that in due course the fabricated cases against the 'fixed' Hindus fell apart in the court halls and with that the bogie of the saffron terror too was buried, seemingly for all time to come.
However, in the next round, it was Manmohan Sing's 'clean image' (the skeletons in his cabinet were yet to tumble out) that fetched the Congress alone 206 seats, enabling her to continue her rdkshas regime for five more years, at the end of which though the Nehru-Gandhis had lost their invincible sheen and the
Congress its pan-Indian winning ways. Besides, what with the coming of age of the educated voters from the forward castes, they began to abhor its dynastic odour, and so the Congress started losing its electoral grip on the Indian political stage.
Nonetheless, nothing exemplifies Sonia's overconfidence in her and her dynasty's infallibility in the Indian political power play than her illegal transfer of the astounding assets of Nehru's defunct National Herald newspaper to self and son 'on record' that eventually became her Achilles' heel to entangle them both in the legal tangle, though enlarged on bail. All the same, given the inexorably slow but unerringly just Indian legal mechanism, the writing on the wall for the ma-beta duo is seemingly clear. As and when the moment of reckoning arrives, it would be interesting to see whether the enervated congressmen would be able to look beyond her daughter Priyanka, whom they liken to her grandmother Indira, for someone to take on the reins on their downhill party.
However, what with Advani's BJP too losing some of its own nationalistic sheen in the Manmohan's economic aura, the 'Hindu Rebound' all but seemed a 'political thud' that was before the coming of age of Narendra M odi, the 'action man' from Gujarat, the land of Sardar Patel the 'iron man' just in time to take up its cudgels in the 2014 parliamentary contest. Unlike Mahatma Gandhi, his fellow Gujarati, whose 'inclusive ideology' degenerated into the Indian political expedient of Muslim appeasement, Modi's redefinition of 'secular ideology' as 'India first' has greatly appealed to the nationalist ethos of the Hindu middle-class. But then, the fate of the Indian politics is but the votes of its masses, and by positioning himself as one of them with his chdiwdla boyhood, he could successfully woo them.
