Talk about a storm in a teacup. No-body will be deli-ghted more than Ved Pratap Vaidik with the chaos he has created. The journalist, who was with me in a 12-member delegation to Pakistan in June, stayed back for weeks while the rest of us returned in three days. He spent this time meeting people including, for whatever reason, Hafiz Saeed.
Vaidik said on returning to India that Saeed would not oppose a visit to Pakistan by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and that he (Saeed) asked about Mr Modi’s wife. I do not understand why this came up in the course of an interview, but that is a minor point.
Vaidik says he is a journalist and is free to meet whoever he wants. I agree and cannot understand why there was such a commotion over this.
Hungama hai kyon barpa, as Akbar Allahabadi wrote, thodi si jo pee li hai?
The news channels went berserk which, given how noisy they are most of the time, is saying something. I was on one debate where there was shouting from end to end and the scheduled 40 minutes ended without one coherent thing being said by anyone.
Rahul Gandhi, who after the elections looks like a boxer up from the canvas but still dazed from the pummelling, said that Vaidik’s being part of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh was “a known fact”. Actually it is not. Vaidik says he is close to the Hindutva groups and individuals, above all to the Grigori Rasputin-lookalike yoga guru Baba Ramdev, but not a signed-up member of the RSS.
However well he knows him, the Indian Prime Minister will be absolutely furious with Vaidik. This little pantomime has taken the entire focus away from Mr Modi while he met the Chinese and went to Brazil. There has been not a word on the great leader’s latest conquests and if there is one thing Mr Modi dislikes, it is the spotlight away from him.
I’m delighted that the Bharatiya Janata Party is facing heat on this silly issue. They regularly raised similar things while they were in Opposition. For instance, attacking Mani Shankar Aiyar for being on a Pakistani show in which Hafiz Saeed was one of the callers, and howling at then home minister Sushilkumar Shinde for referring to the Pakistani as “Shri Hafiz Saeed” (isn’t that just good manners?) and so on.
It is their turn to squirm now in this latest national tantrum that we have thrown, embarrassing ourselves yet again before an amused world.
Aakar Patel is a writer and columnist
