New Year Greetings

 WE wish our readers a very happy new year!

 Over the years, it has become customary for us to recollect Lord Tennyson’s  evocative invocation --- ring out the old, ring in the new! This has never sounded truer and more necessary than for this transition from 2002 to 2003.

2002 will be long remembered for various reasons. Among other things, the year will continue to haunt the soul and essence of modern India with the inhuman state-sponsored genocide in Gujarat. Some rational Indians would like to dismiss it as a nightmare. This will only be wishful thinking. For, as has been shown by various constitutional bodies and independent investigations, the pogrom was no accident. It was part of a well thought-out plan, executed with fascist precision. More importantly, it has paid handsome political and electoral dividends. For this precise reason, the chances are high that the Gujarat experiment will be repeated elsewhere as the RSS-led saffron brigade’s Modification of India, as we have repeatedly said in these columns.

In contradistinction are those who are celebrating this “Gujarat experiment” --- emboldened to declare that within two years the secular democratic republic of India will be converted into a fascistic “Hindu Rashtra.” Elsewhere in this issue we discuss the implications and challenges of such a vision of India’s future.

It, however, merits notice that such a metamorphosis of India is being undertaken by relying on deceit and doublespeak. No one else has perfected this better than prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee. His annual peroration, titled as musings, has come once again. This swayamsewak and pracharak, as readers will recall, was once sent by M S Golwalkar to establish a political front for the RSS after it was banned following Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination. Alongwith co-pracharaks --- late Deen Dayal Upadhyaya, L K Advani and S S Bhandari (currently the governor of Gujarat) --- he assisted Shyama Prasad Mukherjee in establishing the Jan Sangh. Since then, Mr Vajpayee has perfected the art of doublespeak, which led one of his own, erstwhile colleagues to call him the mukhota (mask) of the RSS!

In pursuance of his RSS-ordained role, he has, in his latest musings from Goa, declared that there is no contradiction between Hindutva and secularism! V D Savarkar who coined the term “Hindutva” would be turning in his grave!  Clearly stating that Hindutva is a political slogan that has nothing to do with Hinduism as a religion, Savarkar had said that only those who accept India as both their matrubhoomi (motherland) and punyabhoomi (holy land) have the right to live here. Obviously, Christians and Muslims fall outside the pale of such a definition. This is the concept of Hindutva that prescribes the exclusion of Muslims and Christians from Indian nationhood. And this, according to prime minister Vajpayee, does not contradict secularism! It is not a bad sense of humour; it is plain fascist perfidy. The tentacles of an octopus may appear to function independently. Yet it is a single heart that pumps blood to all the tentacles. The many faces of Ravana have but a single heart. The Vajpayees, Advanis, Modis, Togadias et al have but a single heart --- the RSS with its fascistic Hindutva. 

In the process of such preoccupying of the country’s agenda, the dismal record of this BJP-led government is sought to be brushed under the carpet.  The singular failure of this government has been its inability to check or contain terrorist attacks. Yet, in a typical fascist fashion, this abject failure is sought to be used to the saffron brigade advantage! This is done by invoking pseudo-nationalistic fascist jingoism. Thus, in the process, both Hindu communalism and Islamic fundamentalism feed on each other, fattening themselves at the expense of the people and the country.

By doing so, the BJP seeks to divert people’s attention away from their pressing problems and its own dismal record on all fronts. Political morality has reached its nadir. The style of governance is dominated by blackmail, allurement and browbeating. The BJP’s NDA allies are getting marginalised and their political existence has been reduced to the pathetic. Under this Vajpayee government, social atrocities have risen alarmingly, as highlighted by the Jhajjar killings.

Indian economy has never been in a worse health than what we see today.  Agriculture is crisis-ridden, with starvation deaths looming large over rural India and farmers committing suicide in distress. Industrial recession does not see any reversal. Even the once much protected middle class is under attack with the new Kelkar-ite tax reforms package.

2002, thus, is a year which many would like to forget. Unfortunately, that cannot be. 2003 inherits this legacy of 2002. The only way 2002 can be forgotten is to reverse its direction in 2003. This means protecting our India and its people from what this year has imposed. That can be done only by rejecting and defeating the forces that are seeking to destroy of India, i e, Bharat as we have known since independence.

May 2003 achieve what 2002 failed to do!

Only a call to strengthen these efforts can be the best wishes for the new year!!

January 1, 2003