Shooting Themselves in the Foot

The Sangh Parivar has latched on to the latest Vande Mataram controversy which arose after Arjun Singh backtracked - after Mullahs raised objection to its singing because of its so-called controversial nature - on his directive to sing Vande Mataram compulsorily on Sept 7 at all educational institutions to commemorate the centenary of its adoption as the National Song at the 1905 Varanasi session of the Indian National Congress. BJP has decided to make it a poll issue in the next 2007 UP state elections. This is in confirmation with its hallowed tradition of taking up divisive issues so it can yield maximum political dividends.

Unlike in 1998 today Sangh Parivar has made singing of Vande Mataram a test case of one’s loyalty to his/her motherland, India. BJP has made it compulsory for all schools including madrassas to sing Vande Mataram on Sept 7 in the states ruled by them.

On August 22nd the BJP raised this issue in the parliament with BJP’s most prominent Muslim face Muktar Abbas Naqvi leading the charge. He kept on shouting “Vande Mataram” at top of his voice with other BJP members joining him in chorus. One was really heartened seeing the deshbhakti of this patriotic Indian Muslim. What a great role model for our desh-drohi minorities to follow and emulate.

According to the Sangh Parivar “if you have to live in India you will have to sing Vande Mataram”. Some of them feel the present two stanzas that is customarily sung are not enough to make us 100% Indian and want the full song to be sung.

And to teach the minorities and Hindus (those who are not Indian enough) what desh-bhakti is all about, BJP even planned singing Vande Mataram inside the parliament complex on Sept 5 (since rejected by the LS Speaker) by 200 of its Muslim members.

All this is fine but there is a small problem – the very people who insist on singing Vande Mataram by all Indians irrespective of their faith, themselves don’t know the song! These include BJP stalwarts like former Union Minister Ravishankar Prasad former Delhi chief minister Sahib Singh Verma, BJP’s Muslim face MA Naqvi, BJP’s Chattisgarh Government Ministers including the Health Minister who thinks Rabindranath Tagore wrote it, etc. These deshbhakts were utterly exposed on CNN-IBN and NDTV. When they were asked to sing the song some refused, some mumbled and some fumbled. Some deshbhakti this!

The Sangh Parivar as we know is also the self-appointed guardian of Hinduism, India’s culture, etc. When that is so, naturally they should know the Hindu scriptures too. But then here too they were caught with their pants down. So much so that their lack of knowledge of the Hindu scriptures were thoroughly exposed by none other than Pranab Mukherjee of the minority appeasing, deshdrohi Congress Party in a recent parliamentary discussion.

…. On the last day of a stormy Monsoon Session, Mukherjee floored the House with his lesser-known mastery over Hindu scriptures — leaving the BJP benches spluttering with incoherent rage. In the process, he also subtly brought out the central difference between Hindutva and Hinduism, between a narrow, semitic approach to religious deities as opposed to a celebration of the multiple versions and forms of worship that is the hallmark of the Hindu faith. The matter came up in course of a calling attention motion moved by a number of BJP MPs led by deputy leader of opposition V.K. Malhotra on “the use of derogatory and insulting language about Hindu deities’’ in MA History textbooks of the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU). […..] Attacking the textbooks, Malhotra said they contained derogatory references such as claims that Hindu goddesses like Durga consumed alcohol. At this point, Pranab Mukherjee rose to point out that the information itself was not incorrect. He then proceeded to read out Sanskrit stanzas from the third chapter (adhyaya) of the Sri Durga Saptashati — famous in Bengal as the Chandi Path — on the battle between Goddess Durga and the demon Mahishasura. The shlokas describe how the goddess drank once, and then again and again, in the midst of battle, her eyes bloodshot — as red as the rays of the rising sun. His intervention did not go down well with the BJP benches although no saffron MP could counter the scripture or question its authenticity. They continued shouting about the UPA government’s disregard for religious sentiments and the House was adjourned. The BJP’s charge cut little ice with Mukherjee who comes from a family of priests. “If these people do not know their religious scriptures, it is not my fault,’’ Mukherjee told this reporter later. There was no need, he agreed, to incorporate these facts in college textbooks but to question the authenticity of the scriptures smacked of ignorance. “When Ma Durga was offered all the equipment for battle by different gods, the last was a drinking vessel given to her by Kubera. In our part of the world, even a schoolchild knows this. I don’t know why these people are making such a fuss,’’ he added. But couldn’t the knowledge that Durga drank wine affect the sentiment of her devotees? Mukherjee cannot conceive such a thought. “How can it diminish her in any way? She is the preserver of good and destroyer of all evil,’’ the Defence Minister replied with disarming bhakti.[IE]

BJP’s student wing the ABVP just showed us how - in our hallowed Indian (Hindu) tradition - to respect our teachers in a brand new way. The “guru shishya parampara” of yore is passé - ABVP just completely overhauled the meaning of “respecting your teacher”. In the new trendy tradition set by the ABPV, the students should gently advice their teachers - who want to uphold the law of the land – not to interfere with the students’ right to indulge in harmless college politics. If the teachers don’t relent, then just do an ABVP to the adamant teachers. Then everything should be fine. Do make sure the state government is yours, the fourth estate is muzzled, and the teachers don’t have angry sons like Himanshu Sabharwal. Otherwise you will be against the combined might of the Leftist pseudo-secular Indian media and will be in real trouble.

On Volcker issue BJP first demands the dismissal of Natwar Singh from the cabinet and when he is found guilty in the oil-for-food scam, they dine with him and later drop him. Some new moral value this!

No political party is more concerned about India’s security than BJP. So what is the big deal if Jaswant Singh dillydallied in reporting to the PM about the so-called mole in the PMO’s office after Singh came to know about it a long time back? So what if after six long years of being in power at the center and BJP didn’t do anything about illegal Bangladeshi infiltration and raise a hue and cry about them now? So what if BJP let their Chota Sardar run riot in Gujarat and gifted the Islamists with more foot soldiers from states that were never their traditional recruiting base? So what if the Parliament was attacked by trigger-happy Pakistani jihadis? So what if we were caught napping at Kargil? So what if BJP pardoned people convicted by Indian courts for waging war against the nation? No one should question these great accomplishments of desh bhakts BJP. After all BJP was acting in the best interest of the Sangh Parivar Country.

Now you know why this post is titled so.