Siddharth
Varadarajan, the Founding Editor of The Wire - a presumably declared
joint venture in the public sphere between journalists, readers and a
concerned citizenry - has attributed me as well as the 90 crore people of this country adhering to the common wealth of the tents & tradition of Hinduism a 'bigot',
if his latest commentary is to be accepted without dissecting its
utterly irrational, inconsistent and out of place arguments.
He
brings to his credit stints from the reputed New York University and
University of California, Berkeley. whose academic
credentials, at least in the field of engineering & technology
are beyond scrutiny. The discipline of Humanities, is after all a
different ball-game altogether which still remains heavily
prejudiced.
It's imperative on the
part of public spirited citizens and well acclaimed commentators like
him to scrutinize any public happening of significance. However, it
ought to be done within the reasonable confines of facts, duly
accepted & successful developmental doctrines and responsible consideration of
global happenings. Selective omissions and inadvertent commissions
are the tools of propagandists and not of respectable journalists.
--- Mr. Varadarajan cites a bizarre political spectacle which took place in Delhi on September 3-4 which he asserts that no amount of sophistry can square with the principles of a modern democratic republic.
Accreditating an unvalidated epithet to an happening can be accorded as a journalistic prerogative, however the sheer assumption that the Indian readers would be one with the origins of the Greek Sophists, their machinations and their subsequent degeneration seems unfair. He probably would have been forced to use a western motif as he could not have found something even remotely close to it in the Indian tradition which has seen the antithesis of sophists in the institution of sanyasins which guides and inspires this nation till today.
---
The
learned commentator makes a passing
comment that the
axis between the government and the RSS is
problematic
due
to its
extra-constitutionality
and its
sheer
incompatibility
with the sangh
and its ideology with a democratic, inclusive polity and society.
The Constitution of
India has made the due provision of a democratically elected government
which is expected to be in a democratic huddle every now and then
with representative sections of Indian Society. An interaction of the
duly elected official heads of the Government of India with the representatives of an organization which represents the interests of the widespread
of Hindu Community, which as per the last census constitutes a little less than 80% of country's population is extra-constitutional. Really? This seemingly 'condemned' organization has a declared membership of 5-6 million
connected through 51,355
shakhas. What can be a better representative and responsible way of taking social feedback bottoms-up from the entire country? If observed from a pure objective reasoning, there could not have been a more constitutional act than paying constant heed to the voice of the people beyond the ritual of vote.
The reason and rationale of accordingly this relationship axis as incompatible, somewhere accrues from a figment of imagination & intellectual insinuations whereby a healthy discourse between official governmental organizations and societal representations is subdued and thwarted.
---
The learned thinker goes onto to label this axis between the government and
the RSS is unhealthy for the obvious reason that it represents a
classic case of what con artists call ‘bait and switch’ as millions of men and women,
especially the young, voted in 2014 for Modi and his promises of
development and not for a
shadowy, all-male, all-Hindu organisation that
has never presented itself for election in the 90-odd years it has
been in existence. Mr. Varadarajan might have a personal problem with a all-male, all-Hindu organization. What's wrong in having personal preferences and biases. What astonishes me is that what's wrong with an organization dedicated to the cause of Hindus, to be all-Hindu? My simple innocuous mind, just cannot gulp this reasoning of this astoundingly well reasoned and acclaimed journalist. Also, why should any voluntary organization be forced to retort to a unitary style of representation? Isn't it an infringement on the liberal human right of associating and furthering a chosen cause?
---
Mr. Varadarajan reminds the voters of the country that Modi asked for votes in the name of vikas and not in the name of Hindutva, but the RSS clearly has a lot more on its mind.
Anyone can understand the etymological and epistemological problem faced by Siddharth ji in furthering his grand narrative to label the axis between Mr. Modi and Sangh Parivar as evil as there is very little divergence in the precept & practice of vikas and foundational principles of Hindutva which have been interpreted and established time and again by extremely neutral and credible platforms par excellence. Even the most regressive definition of Hindutva has not stood in way to vikas at any point or place in the country. However, there can be no end to sheer political rhetoric & intellectual skulduggery of alien worldviews.
If the cerebral journalist is somewhere trying to connote Hindutva as some variant of the now reemerging evil of Islamic State, Mr. Varadarajan would have been on an intellectual vacation around 21st of June when then entire world united to undergo yoga, one of the exalted harmonics of the doctrine of Hindutva. Defying or deifying just can't be passed as objective journalism or independent commentary.
---
Voters are entitled to ask who these secretive little men are who appear to be wielding so much clout from behind the scenes.
Voters would get their chance in 2019 and have been constantly getting their due chances since 2014 on various forums. As far as the skeptics and cynics like Mr. Varadarajan are concerned, these secretive little men congregate in open ground across the length and breadth of the country, not at tens, hundreds but thousands of locations, some 51,355 of them. A seeker in Mr. Varadarajan would have taken him to one such congregations and he would have settled his quest, rather than harboring the same in perpetuity and speculating about the same relentlessly like a teenager who has not undergone the 's' experience. Though these secretive little men have lived by the virtue of continence & commitment to that nation, which a proponent of critical theory would take real time to internalize and appreciate.
Unfortunately, these secretive little men have yet to get initiated into the craft of secret parleys, behind the scene play and a whole lot of clandestine plots, something which is much warranted for global suzerainty in the modern era. Either they don't feel the need of it, or they don't aspire at all for exercising dominion over one and all.
---
What is the extent of their hold over the government?
And Mr. Varadarajan claims that he has taught to the students of New York University and University of California, Berkeley where I have seen some of the best minds going from my own institution which has given Sundar Pichai. The current Prime Minister of Government of India by his own admission has claimed on open forums that he is a proud member of Rashtriya Swayam Sewak Sangh, like me and hordes of others, who don't bear any external insignia to represent the same, but simply empathize with the ethos and vision espoused. Does it disqualifies Mr. Narendra Modi to be the Prime Minister of Government of India? Is exposing open secrets a new branch of celebrity journalism?
---
What is the nature of the remote control they clasp so firmly in their hands?
By Mr. Varadarajan's admission, a bizarre political spectacle unfurled in the national capital. He should have at least taught his journalist students to make sound reasoning on inferences. Isn't this enough to answer his query?
---
What is the agenda they want the government to pursue?With the entire national media covering and reporting on the aforesaid political spectacle, isn't it a question in redundancy?
---
The author, like his other professional compatriots sharing the similar style and leanings go on to balance the narrative by drawing out a parallel story rationalizing the case of their benefactors.
He thereby submits that During the Manmohan Singh period, the Bharatiya Janata Party went to town over the “extra-constitutional” authority Congress president Sonia Gandhi wielded in the United Progressive Alliance government. They attacked her hand-picked team of associates – the National Advisory Council – for involving itself in matters of policy. The NAC was at least established through an executive order.
A coterie of motley mix of varied professionals and personalities from different walks of life creating a parallel governing structure led by the Chairperson of the ruling coalition competing and contradicting with the decision making capability of Government of India, is a real constitutional crisis. By the way going to town over one or the other issue is a valid political tactic. Has the Congress Party commissioned this write-up to Mr. Varadarajan, who claims to lead an independent voice of reason in public sphere?
---
Where does the RSS draw its sanction from?
Do we still need to delve deeper into the sanction of RSS after so much of informed commentary? RSS is the resplendent societal voice of the 90 Crore Plus Hindu Community of India.
---
The September 3-4 forum is arguably the most visible association between the government and the sangh parivar we have seen to date but we know from the functioning of various ministers and ministries that RSS functionaries are “consulted” on an almost continuous basis.
What's new and nocturnal in this association? What's making Siddharth ji crying wolf over and over again? Has he given away his fundamental lessons in primary representative polity? The ruling NDA alliance is led by Bharatiya Janata Party which is supported and sympathized by the larger societal cadre of Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh which in turn leads a consortium of an innumerable number of social organizational across the 7 lakh hamlets of the country. It's an impeccable organizational structure which only countries like India can boast of with a vast tradition of society as a dominant constituent of national life not subdued by the sheer power of state or that of corporations. Can there be a better way of a representative and rounded decision making which would affect the future destiny of this grand old civilization? Should this nation be led through secretive parleys of some well endowed individuals with dubious allegiances & alienated leanings, just because the magic of vote has turned in their favor?
--- What unfurls next is the well known trick in deflection and deviation. Referring to Organiser, making it the dominant RSS Organ, quoting Dr. Pravin Togadia, the working president of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, an independent organization with an independent leadership and labeling his article vicious and poisonous on the face of it creating a comparative with the the toxic standards of the Organiser. Heralding labels to create a psychological dominance; orchestrating the remotest of the relationships when found convenient and clubbing of the opposing worldviews to create a linear contest are all rusted tactics in sheer sophistry which have come out in the open and duly exposed.
Dr. Togadia's concern of the rising Muslim Population in the wake of the global crisis presented by the likes of ISIS and the growing cross-border Islamic terrorism is seen as an exercise in usual fear-mongering. Should India import Sheiks and Imams from the Islamic Kingdom to get concerned about the Hindu Society which constitutes a whopping 80% of this vast country, which is so rightfully termed as Hindustan?
How can a liberal democrat in Mr. Varadarajan, oppose the developmental doctrine of family planning which is so openly flouted by a significant section of Indian mosaic putting an inordinate affect on the developmental indices of the country, just because a Dr. Togadia - a Hindu leader is espousing for the same. Should the Government of India give away its well reasoned initiative for advocating small and prosperous families? Liberal democracy is all about responsibility, isn't it Mr. Varadarajan? And what better than a communal leader resonating with the underlying objectives of a welfare state? You can't impose a gag order on a communal leader just because he is seeing or interpreting things from a particular tactical lens? You can't snatch away his democratic right to counsel the Government of the day over his genuine concerns which the government might interpret from an different lens suited to its constitutional obligations? Just because an idea sounds absurd, just cannot mean that its expression would be curbed in a liberal democratic set-up like India.
The selective scholarship comes into play when he arduously quotes from Dr. Togadia's article while mischievously mis-construes the Article 2(c) of the Genocide Convention. Dr. Togadia raises objection to more than 2 kids amongst the socially and economically weaker sections of Muslim Community and Mr. Varadarajan goes on to generalize it by equalizing it with the “measures intended to prevent births within [a national, ethnical, racial or religious] group”.
Being a communal leader Dr. Togadia might be addressing an adrenalin enraged forum and would have gone overboard in his acclamations, something which he would have avoided in closed doors. But what motivates and objective scribe in Siddharth ji to misconstrue and twist a well meaning international convention?
The gimmickry furthers with the flawed reasoning deck, which even the most profound student of scientific logic would take eons to justify, by extending another label to RSS an organisation that publishes articles advocating genocide of a section of the Indian people. And this self heralded admonition gives Mr. Varadarajan the legitimacy to question the political wisdom and moral compass of the Indian premiere.
---
Can one think of a single example from a modern democracy in which elected leaders will allow themselves to be seen in the company of a ‘cultural’ organisation that publishes and promotes such incendiary filth?
Mr. Varadarajan exposes his allegiance to that dichotomous tribe of scribes & commentators who would rejoice over elongated parleys with terrorist and separatist organizations, which unfurled during a real bizarre political spectacle, whereby a fringe segment of his compatriots took to ransom India's sovereign foreign policy.
What Mr. Varadarajan has inadvertently been propounding is an incendiary filth himself, in the garb of objective rationale political commentary.
---
What's wrong with a demographic scaremongering, if the author is hellbound to call it? His studies in developmental economics would have initiated him into the co-relation between demography and development? If certain sections of a nation state have created a political and intellectual blockade in touching their pain points, it should be the self-ordained academic & intellectual responsibility of economist turned journalists like Mr. Varadarajan to bring to light, rather than colluding in their very degeneration.
Mr. Modi, a sound politician and emerging statesman has had his past and would have his future. Let him be kept out of the Biblical duality of being a saint or a sinner. Let's accept him as a human who with his sheer commitment trying to fulfill his implicit social contract – give us economic growth and jobs, by all means.
Let commissioned commentaries like this one which Mr. Varadarajan has presented himself to in the ‘bait and switch’ mode not let India be dragged back to the divisiveness and violence of the previous decade.
It's not the RSS agenda and mentality but the doctrine of selective omissions and inadvertent commissions which has been a sound recipe of denigrating and deriding India and convolution her, otherwise peaceful co-habitation with the second largest Muslim population in the world.
Mr. Varadarajan's extremely filtered intellect might have removed the dastardly case studies of Boko Harams, Islamic States and the likes. There might be a different term used for the concepts of love jihad, conversions, ghar wapsi, population jihad, et al in his expert dictionary, but these and many more dastardly acts are haunting the destiny of millions just because the perpetrators of the same find intellectual refuge from giants and geniuses like Mr. Varadarajan, howsoever misplaced they might be.
The quicksand of bigotry, division and strife is there, but in a different direction. Siddharth ji might like to take a break to meditate under the Bodhi Tree for a while to detoxify his conscience from the burden of the imposed & aberrated scholarship, whose refuge his namesake took as well and devoted his life to human emancipation towards peace and prosperity devoid of conflicts and contradictions which life presents at times. This surely can pave the path for an authentic liberal democracy of all our dreams.
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