It is not clear if the UP government was playing political games when it filed a charge sheet against BJP president Amit Shah last Wednesday as per an earlier instruction of the Election Commission. The additional chief judicial magistrate of Meerut found the document tendered by the police deficient and returned it, although the police had claimed the charge sheet had been prepared with extra care. Now the exercise has to be gone through again, but the moment would have passed. With Assembly byelections to 11 Assembly seats and a Lok Sabha seat due in UP on Saturday, the charge-sheeting of the president of a major party on poll eve was not without import. Now this has proved to be a damp squib.
But none of this takes away from the gravity of the charge against Mr Shah, whose elevation as head of the country’s ruling party after the Lok Sabha election had surprised many, considering he is involved in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case which is before the Bombay high court, and an extortion racket case in Gujarat. The EC had asked for the filing of a chargesheet against him following an FIR in April. In the course of the last Parliament election, Mr Shah, who was in charge of his party’s election effort in UP, had been alleged to have made an inflammatory speech in Muzaffarnagar district where he urged his (Hindu community) audience to “avenge themselves” for past humiliations. This was in the context of terrible communal violence.
As an important leader of his party, Mr Shah could have been sober in his appraisal or criticism of political opponents (whom he accused of being communal in that they sought to help Muslims), but he chose to speak in an extremist’s voice. In fact, this is the biggest failing of the present dispensation. Those who make flagrantly communal speeches fear no retribution. This encourages further disregard of established norms and laws. Thus it is that a BJP MP from UP, Yogi Adityanath, who appears to wear his anti-Muslim poisonous approach on his sleeve, defies a government order and makes a vile public speech hours before the end of campaigning deadline in the state byelections. The bogey of “love jihad” is sought to be spread in different states, especially in areas where byelections are due. The “othering” of the minorities cannot possibly bring India any good. Doubts and apprehensions in society can only be quelled when firm action is indicated against perpetrators, else these have the potential to trigger disorder. In a multi-religious milieu, we cannot lose sight of this.
