Dinesh Kamath's Editorial 'Emergence of another secular party is necessary' that was published in Newsband

Emergence of another secular party is necessary

The tragedy of the Muzaffarnagar communal clashes has been politicized. Nothing new! The Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi made a reckless comment that some of the Muzaffarnagar riot victims were being cultivated by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate. He quoted Indian intelligence sources. The question is how a person outside government could have had privileged intelligence briefings.

Gandhi was indirectly questioning the national loyalty of Muslims. Why the Muslims have to be subjected to periodic tests of its loyalty? It is a pity that this community carries the double burden of having to prove its loyalty to this country while being made an issue every time to win elections.

The BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi tried to capitalise on Gandhi’s mistake. He said that such a statement could pose national security risk. Modi seems to be concentrating on weakening the secular forces in the country. His secular credentials remain a challenge. Almost every home grown terrorist caught in the last 10 years has cited Gujarat riots and the unaddressed grievances as the reason why he was motivated to take up arms. To ignore this and hide behind technicalities may be a legitimate defence by Modi.

Both Gandhi and Modi least cared about the dangers of crossing the line on such emotive and potentially explosive issues as national security and Muslim patriotism.

Rahul is neither a minister nor a Government official but only Party Vice President. Why he should be privy to such information. That was the question Modi posed. A case could be filed before appropriate forum to take action against such intelligence agency executive for violating oath of secrecy contrary to conduct rule of the Government.

Present scenario of election campaigning has no place for assurances of welfare governance, development and other democratic objectives. What is seen and heard is race for making issues prestige point for two leading parties in the country. Both the party should focus their strength towards some vision for reaching out to those, irrespective of whether they are party supporters or not, who have remained away from whatever success of democratic rules in last 65 years. Instead they are busy in opening up old social injuries that have kept sections of society divided. This is not welfare politics and democratically of no purpose.

BJP could rarely defeat the Congress in elections owing to it being a communal party. Congress rarely suffered defeat in the elections owing to it being the only strong secular party. What is required is the emergence of another strong and genuinely secular party which will defeat both BJP and Congress.