The Tehelka Sting Operation

Swapna Das Gupta in his Sunday column in The Pioneer says that both Hindus and Muslims have moved on in Gujarat and the post-Godhra riots should not be raked up again and again; he was writing in the wake of the recent Tehelka sting operation in which some of the VHP and other Hindu organizations’ people (the villainous Babu Bajrangi, for instance) have proudly claimed how they butchered people, burned people, ripped open pregnant women’s bellies and did all sorts of things that only the carnivores do in the wild.

The problem with the right-wing media in India is that it is always trying to sweep things under the carpet. Why can’t they accept that whatever happened in Gujarat was inhumanly terrible and somewhere the blame lies with Narendra Modi and his henchmen? Just because he is improving the economy of the state doesn’t mean that his crimes should be ignored; it doesn’t mean that the country should move on. If we started moving on, then every five or ten-year-old crime will be pardoned. Going with this logic why should Sunjay Dutt then be sent to jail? No, neither Hindus nor Muslims of Gujarat should move on until the perpetrators are punished. We will move on when the guilty are punished.

The response from the BJP has been so predictable: they immediately said that it was an election stunt to malign the party’s image. Why can’t they ever say that whatever is being exposed, provided it is substantiated, is highly deplorable and the guilty should be punished? Are they so desperate that in order to win an election they can even tolerate a psychopath in their party?

The right wing media and the BJP shouldn’t cry foul whenever such things happen and instead, do some introspection. If the guilty politicians, from the BJP and other parties, are punished the parties are not going to lose; you don’t lose elections because you are ridding you party of criminals, you lose elections because you don’t do the things you promise during your election campaign. It is such a simple thing. So by ditching Modi the BJP may lose in Gujarat but it will end up enhancing its national and international image. You can never become a trustable political force if you spread hatred and messages of intolerance towards different communities.

Whether one is a Hindu or a Muslim first of all, he or she is the citizen of the country and hence is entitled to the right to life and protection. Whenever riots take place there is no excuse for them; you simply cannot say that the public anger was so overwhelming against a particular community that the riots could not be contained immediately. OK, I have a bias here because I have gone through the anti-Sikh riots in 1984 and I very well know that how state-sponsored riots take place (at that time it was the Congress that staged the pogrom) and how quickly they can be brought under control if the government wishes to. So this is all bunkum that the Godhra train burning incident caused great anger and that gave rise to an uncontrollable backlash. The right-wing columnists seem so illogical when they give such arguments in favor of the Modi government. And in any case if a government cannot control the law and order situation it should resign on moral grounds no matter who is to blame.

Of course the latest Tehelka expose could be Congress-sponsored (Tehelka never does a sting against the Congress) still whatever is there in the tapes should be scrutinized and analyzed by every right-thinking person of the country. Whether you like or hate Muslims for whatever reason, do we need such demons in a society, leading us and formulating laws for us? Can you in your right mind ever think of Modi becoming the prime minister of the country? It’s not about the string operation; it is about being a right or wrong, and not for someone else, but for you. After all you have to think what sort of ideology you leave to your kids.

As a side note, I don’t remember which one, but a blog suggested that India desperately needs some right-wing TV news channels. I think, yes, we do need them, considering all the Congress and communist pimp channels we have like the NDTV and CNN-IBN, etc.

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