Indira Gandhi’s Emergency was 37 years ago, but in most parts of North India, is capable of raising dark visions even today. The South had basked in the sense of discipline associated with the Emergency. Today, after being promised Paradise on Earth, the first few weeks of the Narendra Modi Government have conjured up a disquieting scenario. Minorities are scared, educationists anticipate worse days to come, price control is a distant dream and the management of foreign affairs has already betrayed all the values we had cherished in the past. Prime Minister Modi, who had waxed eloquent on some of these issues, is today strangely quiet.
The Modi government must be aware that the Arab-Israeli conflict poses the biggest threat to the world. India should play a key role in West Asia politics, as in the days of Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi, and not be swayed by deviations from accepted historical facts. How can any sensible Indian accept the opinion of External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj holding the Israelis and Palestinians equally responsible for their current crisis, where the Zionist state has bombed, destroyed and killed more than 1,000 unarmed Palestinians, including women and children, in one of the worst modern day massacres?
It is a brave Indian who can raise his voice against this barbarism. Israel’s stand that it has to counter Hamas terrorism cuts no ice. For every Israeli casualty, its deadly weapons have claimed nearly 100 victims. Support for the Palestinians in India comes mainly from the Left, as well as the lower and middle classes, that too Muslims. Most Indians do not know there is no difference between the Palestinians and the oil-rich Arabs, who practise barbaric Sharia laws, squander their oil wealth by tipping hotel staff with gold bars or procure nubile Indian brides from Hyderabad to satisfy their lust. The Palestinians, uprooted from their motherland by European and Arab vested interests, belong to a much more civilised group with an impressive array of talented professionals. But our ‘intellectuals’, for long worshippers of dollar power, would rather believe the local ‘jute’ press or those brought out by the US Zionist tycoons.
Enthusiastic members of Israel-funded University positions and think tanks have been nurtured on the novels of Leon Uris (of ‘Exodus’ fame) which portrayed a one-sided, dreamy view on the creation of Israel. Their heroes were murderous Zionist gang leaders like Moshe Dayan and Menachem Begin, who did not hesitate to shoot and kill Palestinian refugees in their refugee camps. In the process, they became Zionist heroes and Prime Ministers! Extending them full support is the US, where neither the Republicans nor the Democrats can come to power without the Jewish vote or money.
How did modern India come to support this state? Palestinians, the PLO and leaders like Yasser Arafat were true friends of India during the reign of Nehru and Indira Gandhi. But not the conservative Arab states, which tend to support Pakistan even on the sensitive Kashmir issue. The intransigent Israeli attitude in West Asia, coupled with solid support from the US, has helped the rise of Arab terrorism. India has unwittingly become a hunting ground for terrorism which was associated with the Palestinian cause. This is not fair because the Palestinians are busy fighting their own battle against the Zionist state and are in no position to promote international terrorism. The right wing lobbies in India are vocal in their call for India to abandon a pro-Arab stance and back Israel, which was ready to supply us with arms during Kargil. Finally, much to the dismay of liberal Indians, the Congress-led Narasimha Rao government ‘recognised’ the Zionist state, ignoring the fact that it will readily supply arms to any nation ready to subdue Islamic interests.
Closer home, right wing thugs who are members of Parliament think of nothing of insulting our ideals of democracy and secularism. The sight of the Shiv Sena MP from Thane, Rajan Vichare, and his fellow MPs attacking the canteen supervisor at New Delhi’s Maharashtra Sadan and thrusting a stale chappati in his mouth even as he was observing the fast in the holy month of Ramzan shocked the nation. But not the conscience of our honourable MPs from the BJP, many of them from Mumbai’s elitist classes. They hemmed and hawed, scared to talk openly. Some of them were filmstars (Vinod Khanna, Kirron Kher, Shatrugan Sinha) and have essayed convincing portrayals as cowards and hypocrites on screen. Will they ever be able to look Shah Rukh, Salman and Aamir Khan in the eye and apologise? Whoever is going to believe their weak defence that they did not know the identity and religion of the victim?
After a considerable delay, the home minister said that his government was committed to safeguard religious freedom. “Tell it to the Marines,” is our view!
One of the first acts of any authoritarian government would be to thrust ‘new facts’ as ‘gospel truths’ through text books. We, who had hoped for ‘achhe din’, will have to resign ourselves to several such ‘new facts’ introduced in Gujarat school texts. We, not the US, invented stem cell research. Read the section on the birth of the 100 Kauravas to Queen Gandhari. J L Baird had nothing to do with the invention of television. The credit should go to Sanjaya who, sitting far away from the Kurukshetra battlefield, gave a blow-by-blow account to the blind King Dhritarashtra. Forget Henry Ford, inventor of the automobile. The ‘Anashva Rath’ ran without horses, or was a Yantra-rath, according to the ‘Mahabharat.’
We should be happy our children will grow up more intelligent and knowledgeable than the present generation.
V Gangadhar
