Who is communal?

Elections ’09 are heating up in India. A shrill noise is reverberating across everywhere, as leaders and politicans adopt every single trick in the crook-book to get elected. And sadly instead of issues of development or growth the parties across the lines are just debating and discussing inane issues like ‘secularism’ or ‘communalism’.

Every single party belonging to the UPA (or rather former UPA) or the newly formed opportunist 3rd Front, swears by the word secularism and takes a solemn oath to do every thing to keep them out of power. Dubbing the right wing saffron party as a communal one, portrayed as danger to the very existence of this nation.

To be fair, BJP party has not helped its case either, by not coming out strongly on a lot of issues, like the latest controversy on Varun Gandhi. It has at times shown a rather lackadiscal approach when it comes to reacting to issues. For instance, when the Mangalore Pub attacks happen, the central leadership of the party took their own sweet time to condemn such violence in an outright manner. The result, the party is seen to be abettting such issues. Now, whether that is true or not, I know not but that is what a perception that is formed about the party.

Now, BJP or rather NDA’s 5 year term was not all that bad when you compare it with the current government’s, there were scores of infrastructure projects that were undertaken like the Golden Quadilateral one, etc.  Thus, when the party is simply dubbed as ‘Communal’ by the rest, it seems a bit odd.

Gujarat is the one whip that BJP is constantly flogged with by all, and I just wonder one thing, that the electorate that has given such a mandate to rule to the BJP, is it communal as well. Then by the same definition, so many states in India become communal ones. Continue reading