BJP is apprehended of Gandhi family’s central position for Congress as well as secular forces of the country. While Gandhi family represents the true face of the secular India, BJP represents the communal face. BJP is aware of the fact that Congress, headed by Gandhis, is a threat to its communal politics and survival.
Mir Iqbal Ahmad
Congress has always been accused of being involved in dynastic politics by opposition parties, particularly by BJP. However, such opposition against dynastic politics by BJP is not even remotely associated with the democratic principles because of its intentions to shield its communal warfare.
Indian democracy is largely backed by its secular fabric. In such an environment, politics based on communalism is more threatening than that of so-called dynastic politics. Formed on religious lines, BJP has emerged powerful, cashing votes and support by highlighting issues like love jihad , Ram Mandir, Beef etc.
First attempt of BJP to communalize Indian democratic political system was at the time when BJP along with RSS and all allied Hindu religious organizations planned Rathyatra headed by L K Advani on 23rdSeptember 1990 across the country. It was to create opinion and collect money for demolition of Babri Masjid, which has emerged as a black spot on Indian democracy. Since then BJP’s campaigns have necessarily included promises to build Ram Mandir in place of the Babri Masjid.
Inspite of BJP’s vociferous communal agenda, its attack on Congress’ so-called dynastic politics is not justified, for communal politics is worst than so called dynastic-led. In a secular set-up, communal politics pollutes clean democratic and secular fabric of any country. In India, BJP is working as a pollutant of democratic and secular fabric. It is the communal politics of BJP, which has divided secular India on religious lines. Its polluted politics has fled far enough to trigger terrorism and anarchy across the country. For instance, demolition of Babri Masjid and Gujarat riots alienated a large section of Indian Muslims.
Presently, BJP is threatened at the hands of popularity and acceptance of Congress nation-wide, particularly Guajrat where it has governed for 22 long years. As a countering strategy, BJP has started targeting Rahul Gandhi and so called dynastic-led politics of Congress.
Interestingly, most of the dynasties are in BJP itself such as the Home Minister Raj Nath Singh, External affairs Minister Shushma Swaraj, Vasundra Raje, Dr Raman Singh, Prem Kumar Dumal and so on. Moreover, kiths and kins of most of the BJP leaders have been given election tickets and prime postings in the government. So evidently, BJP is a mixture of both dynasts and communal, which is fatally lethal for Indian democratic setup.
On the other side, if we go through the list of presidents of the Congress since independence, there have been fourteen presidents of INC, out of which eleven were not members of Gandhi or Nehru family. In contrast, BJP has always chosen its presidents from RSS family, thus constricting scope of merit within the party cadre.
BJP is apprehended of Gandhi family’s central position for Congress as well as secular forces of the country. While Gandhi family represents the true face of the secular India, BJP represents the communal face. BJP is aware of the fact that Congress, headed by Gandhis, is a threat to its communal politics and survival. Taking Gandhi family out of Congress would mean disintegrating Congress. It is evident that it is the Gandhi family, which integrates and unites all the secular forces under one banner. So cooking stories to defame Congress and Gandhi family is a sloganeering tool of BJP for various political gains.
Under the BJP governance, people have well tasted ill effects of communalism-led politics. In such an atmosphere, the so-called dynastic politics of Congress headed by Gandhi family in India is need of the hour to check and balance the miss governance of BJP and its divisive politics. It is only the secular forces, headed by Congress that can strengthen Indian democracy.
The writer is a Social and Political activist and the views expressed in this article are his own and doesn’t reflect the editorial policy of newspaper.
He can be reached at [email protected]
