The vote-bank politics is the most serious flaw in our democratic set-up. It is this flawed policy that the Gujarats, the Nandeds and the Tenkasis, to name a few, do happen and the perpetrators are allowed to go scot-free. It is not that the powers that be do not know who the fascists and killers are, who the rioters and marauders are, who the law-breakers and mosque-demolishers are, who the hate-mongers and history-sheeters are. They know them perfectly well. Yet they look the other way round just for the sake of the power they wield and the pelf they enjoy.
In this bleak backdrop it seemed a sheer mockery of our administrative machinery when a person of the rank and stature of Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil admitted on the floor of Rajya Sabha that “there are people trying to create bad blood among various sections,” that “some people from the Bajrang Dal (were) involved in the Nanded blasts” in April 2006, and the intention behind the bomb blasts outside the RSS office in Tamil Nadu on January 24 this year was that “clashes take place between Hindus and Muslims.” Our Home Minister did not mean to do some service to the nation by making these ‘revelations’. He made them when CPI-M member Brinda Karat raised a question about the Tenkasi bomb blasts and the alleged involvement of Hindu Munnani men in those “terrorist acts” and its implication on national security and whether similar blasts had also taken place in Nanded. The question is why the government did not take any action against the perpetrators of these crimes which our Home Minister is admittedly in know of.
Another disquieting phenomenon of our democratic set-up is that whenever the demand is made to take action against Hindutva fascists, the Government makes a frantic search for a scapegoat to ‘balance’ the action taken. This fact came to light once again when the Home Minister added to his above mentioned ‘revelations’: “But I can say that we cannot blame only one section because several elements are involved.” This he said despite the known fact that the house in which bombs were exploded in Nanded on April 6, 2006, belonged to Laxmanrao Rajkondwar, a retired Executive Engineer and known RSS activist in the city, and on the top of which a Bajrang Dal flag was flying. Would our Home Minister like to tell the nation who the other elements were involved in the Nanded blasts or for that matter in the Tenkasi blasts? This balancing tactics is not a new phenomenon. The Government has practised it on several occasions in the past as well. One fails to comprehend the wisdom behind the balancing policy save and except appeasement of the majority community. Lending support to one’s brother who is guilty of some crime is as fatal as catching hold of the tail of a camel while it is falling into a pit. The simple reason is that when A has committed a crime, only A should be punished and there is no need to drag B along with A to share the punishment. This is the demand of justice, pure and unalloyed.
It is our concerted view that if the Government makes a pledge to do, and actually does, justice in formulating all its policies and taking actions whatsoever, purges the political corridors of the dirt they have accumulated, and our elected representatives have the sincere desire to serve the nation as public servants, they will not have to worry for securing vote-banks of either majority or the minority community. For, people want development and performance, and wrong policies do mar the prospects of development.