Swamy should reflect and understand that what we are witnessing in India today is another form of ‘Emergency’.
By Ghulam Muhammed
Barely 14 years back was he not advising RSS and its affiliates to shun petty politics? He wrote in The Hindu:
“The BJP has set into motion the overhaul of the Constitution not just a mere amendment to it. It has commenced the rewriting of history. Its sister front organizations such as the VHP and the Bajrang Dal are already unleashing eerie and shadowy terror at the micro level of society. How can the BJP then speak of defending democracy?”
A person honed by struggles against Emergency, has now sold his soul to the fascists. He has himself forgotten what sacrifices great leaders like Jay Prakash Narayan and Morarji Desai had made for the sake of democracy. Mere winning majority of votes and coming to power through democratic means and then subverting the very foundations of democracy, are not the choices Swamy should have upheld. He had sworn by composite India.
He wrote: “It was the plurality and heterogeneity of Indian society that made people revolt against the authoritarian order. This is the crux of the Indian democratic paradigm. India is a democratic society in form because of the mutual gravitational pull of disparate sections that make the whole. Therefore, the lesson to be learned from the Emergency is that as long as the composite nature of Indian society survives, Indian democracy will survive. Hence, when attempts at seeking homogeneity of Indian society are carried beyond a point, it is dangerous for democracy, at least till we have reached a level of education when good men and women will dare to struggle for fundamental rights.
Edmund Burke had said: “For evil to triumph, good men must do nothing”. India has to progress considerably before we can confront evil in our society head on. During the Emergency, those who were in a position to fight, with notable exceptions, did not.”
Swamy should reflect and understand that what we are witnessing in India today is another form of ‘Emergency’.
The author is based in Mumbai. He can be contacted at: ghulammuhammed3@gmail.com
