Postal stamp row: NDA, RSS and the vindictive politics

You fight with living beings - the animates, ideas and visions and not with the dead. The moment you engage in the shadow fight, the second you open the fronts against those who are not alive to defend themselves, there it is the first sign of nervousness and defeat. It shows that you have already lost half of the battle.

Since the capture of power at the Centre, the RSS brigade has successfully turned the focus from Vikas to Saffronisation of the secular democratic country that is Bharat Varsh or India or Hindustan. Indian-subcontinent is known for its political and ethnic diversity and conflicts as well. It is not surprising that a semblance of a democratic experiment had been prevailing since Independence.

It is not a declared Hindu country but the Congress Party has already done with sophistication what RSS wants to do in a crude and offensive wave. The Congress policies have pushed Muslims, once a dynamic enterprising race, below the poverty line - to Dalit line and even beneath. Hardly any Muslims in government offices, good posts, good localities, smart business.

 

Exceptions prove the rule. Most of the Government Offices, functions and building have the shades of majority faith in action. The ground work was already done by the Congress to turn India Saffron. RSS is just giving the finishing touches. The difference lies in between the delusions, sophistry and speed. India's democratic experiment is in a crucible at the laboratory trial of majority domination.

 

Beneath the exterior of a smooth orderly and peaceful democratic regime, there appears to be fault-lines and undercurrents of ethnic tensions, political vindictiveness, and socio-economic class imbalances. The Congress had applied a temporarily freeze at the crying imbalance between the conditions of majority and minorities with the facade of Secularism. The boiling pot of ethnic tensions was turned to a simmer to a very large extent during the Congress rule.

With the emergence of RSS at the threshold of politics, it is not so clear now if the country would be able to avoid the potential landmines that the politics of vindictiveness may lay on its way. RSS is embarked upon a martial venture that is slow to make peace and reluctant to make a tolerable atmosphere where everyone could feel equal. If it is peace, it is rather a vindictive peace. I am not saying that our simmering ethnic tensions will eventually snowball into a Balkan situation but then who has a crystal ball?

Revenge is based on the fallacious logic that "two wrongs make a right". In politics, revenge more often than not, becomes the vehicle for damaging an opponent (sometimes) out of personal piques, and for clipping the wings of an opposition party. However, like all human emotions, vindictiveness has its own karma.

History of civilizations, and even the Indian history bears witness what happened when the Majority annihilated the Jains and Buddhists a few thousand years ago on the Indian soil. Well, you may say that these are tales brewed in the pots of fantasyland, but in the real world, we see parallel stories in our communities all the time.

In politics, the most important oil that greases the wheel of peaceful governance is the public trust, the unspoken sacred bond between a people and their presumptive representative. Wherever the politics of vindictiveness is practiced, it damages the public trust, and this in turn can lead to unnecessarily heightened levels of social tensions.

In the two political cycles when governments changed hands - from incumbent party to the main opposition party - besides the jangle of politics that has been drowning voices of sanity in our political discourse, vindictive politics has become all too common.

I've always written against the dirty policies of parties including the Congress whenever I felt it was needed. However, the recent act of NDA rather Saffron brigade has destroyed all illusions that I'd entertained despite the heavy odds. I am not advocating that we gloss over acts of fraud and un-scrupulosity against the State by past administrations and their henchmen but I am shocked with the latest government's decision to discontinue two stamps featuring the Statesman Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and Pilot of Modernized India - Rajiv Gandhi.

It simply reflects the hatred of the present central government in seeking personal vendetta against a fallen foe. The low-brow politics has reached its zenith. The NDA regime had earlier changed the names of two awards - Indira Gandhi Rajbhasha Puraskar and Rajiv Gandhi Rashtriya Gyan-Vigyan Maulik Pustak Lekhan Puraskar - by removing the names of the two former prime ministers.

There is dark shadow growing over the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library. In the name of up-date the Cultural Brigade of RSS is going to dilute the essence of Nehru Memorial Museum and Library. It is a sinful attempt to sidestep and expunge a history, a powerful legacy of sacrifice and selfless nation builders.

An RTI query by The Indian Express revealed that two stamps featuring Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi, launched by the Department of Posts in December 2008 as part of its series titled Builders of Modern India, have been discontinued.

A brigade and brigand has a short distance of perception!

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