Image Credit: Joel

The recent arrest of Sadhvi Pragya Singh in connection to the Malegaon blasts in which 6 people were killed and many injured has sparked off a fresh round of controversy. While the Sangh Parivar has called her arrest a political conspiracy to malign Hindus, it also distanced itself from Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, one of the three charged with murder by the Maharashtra Police for her alleged role in the Malegaon and Modasa blasts on September 29. Pragya was a former member of the national executive of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the students’ wing of the RSS.

Pictures of the Sadhvi with BJP President Rajnath Singh and Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan are in circulation in the media. The event: a condolence meeting after the death of state Education Minister Laxman Gaur in February 2006. This has led to charges that Sangh and BJP were behind the terror conspiracy.

Terrorism all over the world is a law and order and police issue. Only in India terrorism is about competitive identity politics. Now, as we enter election season, bombs are being wrapped in party manifestos. The BJP which had positioned itself to be in the fore front of anti-terror campaign suddenly finds itself in the backfoot as “secular” parties have used the arrest to undermine BJP’s anti-terror plank. Also Congress and its allies would like to take this opportunity to deflect some of the criticism coming their way after the string of bomb blats and the charge that it’s soft on terror.

However in my view both the “secular” and “communal” parties are gaining nothing in this war of words on the issue of terrorism. Instead of condemning acts of terror irrespective of the religious identity of the terrorist

Amar Singh has been the first to go off the mark. First he demanded a judicial probe into the Jamianagar encounter, and then called for a ban on the Bajrang Dal, all with his eyes on the party’s traditional Muslim vote in Uttar Pradesh. Forget the Indo-US nuclear deal, Amar Singh knows that the real battle is for the Muslim vote on the street, which in 2007 showed signs of drifting away to Mayawati. Instead of standing forth as someone who demands an impartial police investigation, Amar Singh believes this is the time to show he is the protector of Muslims. If Amar Singh was a true friend of the community, he would assert that a criminal deserves no religious identity.

On the other side, the BJP too which was sounding confident of using the terror plank in the coming elections and tapping into the age old subterranean suspicion of the “mussalman” that exists and is growing in sections of the Hindu electorate.

However now with the arrests of Sangh affiliated members in a terror case it would find difficult to sound hawkish on the issue of terrorism. People are bound to ask that the BJP and its associate groups rave and rant against Islamic terror. But what is their view on Hindu terror?

No matter who wins the nation does stand to loose in this debate. The common man on the street is confused. On one hand he needs to identify with his clan and his political identity without having to justify or support illegal activities. In this poll season one thing is for certain that the last word on this issue is still to be heard. The only thing one can be sure of is that politicians would like always try and gain maximizes their gains by harping on the insecurities of the common man, both Hindu and Muslim. One can only pray that this doesn’t cost more lives on the streets of India.

The politicians need to answer the call to the noblest urges of your chosen profession. The nation needs to be accorded higher priority than votes and vote-bank politics. Let them realize that every vote garnered from the ashes of blast victims or from the sufferings of nuns raped would not be doing justice to the great democracy that is India.

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