Inoculate India's Mind

Tainted ministers shouldn’t be in Parliament, parliamentary proceedings shouldn’t be disrupted, textbooks shouldn’t be rewritten with every regime change, scamsters shouldn’t get away scot-free. But it is hypocritical for the BJP to kick and scream, protest and stall over these issues. They are as guilty as the Congress on all these counts, so who are they fooling? Exactly as they misjudged the public mood against India Shining, they are now misjudging public ire against BJP whining. All their carping, bitching, slandering, protesting against the Manmohan Singh government is only reaffirming their image as sore losers. The BJP, which became the bmw Janata Party while in power doesn’t like the rough ride of being out of office.

Two months ago, I had wondered whether a BJP in the Opposition would be "obstructionist and divisive, provoking an unstable, confrontationist and hostile external and domestic environment." Off to a bad start with their shrill campaign against Sonia Gandhi, the BJP has since been on a downhill rollercoaster ride. Given the damage they have wrought to India’s image, democracy, Parliament, the Constitution and judiciary, the BJP and the entire Sangh parivar have no business to proclaim themselves as custodians of patriotism hereafter. All they hanker for are the trappings of power and the web of patronage that enables RSS loyalists to promote their divisive agenda and grab the fishes and loaves of office—be it gas agencies or government jobs.

It is vital for Indian democracy to keep the RSS out of the state apparatus. The RSS may argue they are not untouchable because they are not banned. But Sardar Patel, a presiding deity of their pantheon, was the one who had banned them after Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination describing them as "poison". Their agenda continues to be poisonous and divisive. We saw the havoc unleashed in Gujarat when darlings of the RSS became chief minister and governor. Allowing them to infiltrate the state machinery may not be illegal, but it is unconstitutional. The Indian Constitution is secular, the RSS is not.

Besides, it is unmatched in its blistering whispering campaigns, its vicious hate propaganda within and outside the country. It turns out that the S-6 bogie of the Sabarmati Express may not have been set ablaze the way we were led to believe. And that has been the Hindutva brigade’s justification for the horrific rape and murder of Muslims that followed. The RSS has consistently proven its awesome network and ingenuity at launching worldwide whispering campaigns. Remember, the Ganesha-drinking-milk episode? Or the hate campaign against historian Romila Thapar? Built on an edifice of malicious lies, the campaign was vindictive, slanderous, pervasive and sustained. Leave aside their leanings, in terms of sheer scholarship, merit and intellectual depth, very few historians owing allegiance to the RSS can measure up to this so-called cabal of Marxist historians. That is not to say the work of these historians shouldn’t be subjected to scrutiny. If they are partisan or outdated, they should be discredited through scholarship, not hate and disinformation campaigns. Politically motivated calumny harms not just the target, but the entire system. Till now, people with professional pride, competence and integrity have kept out of politics. If the RSS has a free run, honest and competent professionals will be forced out of every discipline unless they subscribe to their divisive doctrine.

The crying need now is to professionalise education, protect it permanently from partisan political agendas. Analytical studies of several global conflicts prove how sectarian views are injected into school textbooks to intensify and sustain separatism. It invariably fails, but the consequences for the society have always been long-term and disastrous. Education is not a football that can be kicked around by successive regimes. Former HRD minister Murli Manohar Joshi’s campaign to look anew at textbooks was not objectionable in itself. But when he pursued the RSS agenda to saffronise education, he violated a cardinal principle of governance. Instead of concentrating on spreading primary education and creating more institutions of excellence like the IIMs, Joshi frittered valuable resources on pushing a partisan agenda and destabilising our few worthy institutions. People hunger for scientific and technical education because this is what will help them get jobs. For millions of poor and middle-class Indians, it is the only passport to upward mobility, even survival. Joshi’s actions threatened that. Hence, he was voted out. But he remains an RSS darling because saffronisation is more important than public good.

The upa’s task lies not merely in redressing the wrong perpetrated by Joshi. The challenge is to ensure that hereafter education is beyond the clutches of bigotry and divisiveness. Appointing people with merit and integrity to critical positions and institutionalising the views of respected experts by resuscitating advisory boards as has been done by HRD minister Arjun Singh are steps in the right direction. Accusing these luminaries of being coopted by the Congress is unjustified. Given their stature, they won’t rubber-stamp government decisions unless they concur. Hopefully, they will coopt the Congress by providing invaluable inputs that facilitate a more enlightened decision-making process.

(The author can be reached at post@anitapratap.com)