When President Pranab Mukherjee spoke with anguish on the need to preserve the Indian civilisational ethos of pluralism and tolerance he was responding to the loud voices in civil society over the “rising intolerance” which began with writers and artists returning coveted awards protesting the government’s silence over a string of highly regrettable incidents involving members of the Hindutva groups, including BJP ministers and MPs.
The Congress march to Rashtrapati Bhavan led by Sonia Gandhi and former PM Manmohan Singh on Tuesday to highlight the same issues can also be said to be a follow-up on the lead provided by civil society which, as the present conjuncture has highlighted, is thankfully alive in India. The Congress memorandum to the President speaks of “fear, intolerance and intimidation” provoked by elements of the ruling establishment in a bid to disturb communal equanimity for political reasons, and the non-responsiveness of Prime Minister Modi to the recent unfortunate events.
It was hardly to be expected that the country’s main Opposition party at the national level, which was in the saddle until not so long ago, would not express itself in demonstrative terms at a time such as this. That is why finance and I&B minister Arun Jaitley’s vehement rejection of the Opposition’s stance on the “rising intolerance” phenomenon on Tuesday is somewhat surprising (not least since he has returned to it on a regular basis), although it is obvious that a key minister of the government and a leading light of the establishment, the most high profile current dignitary after the PM himself, can hardly accept the prognosis of his party’s opponents — even if they are people like BJP member and former Union minister Arun Shourie.
Mr Jaitley is quite right when he asserts that India has never been an intolerant society and never will be. Currently it is not India’s intolerance that is on display but that of elements of the Sangh Parivar, including senior BJP and other establishment figures. The I&B minister has called the “beef” issue and incidents relating to the “intolerance” debate an “aberration”. Are they?
Someone from the Karnataka BJP has just threatened to behead Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, if he ate beef (which in India generally means buffalo meat). The Vishwa Hindu Parishad in Delhi threatens to play the cop and check if eateries serve beef. RSS’ Hindi paper, Panchjanya, has called JNU students “anti-national”. This is not India at war with itself but a particular set of people trying to abridge others’ constitutional rights and liberties, and causing disquiet — domestically and internationally.
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