This Article is From Sep 12, 2014

PM Modi, Why Aren't You Reining in Adityanath?

(Brinda Karat is a Politburo member of the CPI(M) and a former Member of the Rajya Sabha.)

The Election Commission has reprimanded and cautioned Adityanath, the five-time BJP M.P. from Gorakhpur, for his hate speeches. The Commission has also asked the UP government to proceed against him legally under the relevant sections of the IPC. The MP has been making statements against Muslims that bring  shame to any democratic country. 

With his known history of communally inflammatory speeches and actions, Adityanath was not chosen as chief campaigner by Amit Shah because he was expected to preach the tenets of universal brotherhood. Amit Shah has no time for such niceties, not even for the sake of appearances. The BJP President himself was banned from addressing rallies in UP during the last Lok Sabha elections after he had made a series of highly provocative speeches which further intensified, as they were designed to, the polarisation that had been created under his guidance in Muzaffarnagar. His own success story is based on the "riots for votes" mantra.

Sadly for Indian democracy, individuals who should be behind bars flaunt their electoral victories as sanction for their toxic brand of politics.

The legal framework is so weak that in spite of so many examples of communally-charged speeches in election after election, there has not been a single case in India where a candidate has been disqualified for making a hate speech. In fact candidates should be held responsible even when their supporters make hate speeches, such as those made by Adityanath. The only time when a leader felt the heat was when the late Bal Thackeray, the Shiv Sena supremo, was debarred from exercising his franchise after the Supreme Court in 1999 upheld the indictment made against him for hate speeches.

During the term of the UPA government, there was a draft legislation before Parliament against communal violence which included an important clause against hate speech. But it was iced because the then government was too arrogant to dialogue on the legitimate objections raised on other clauses by several State governments.

Yet India desperately needs such a law. Since the advent of the Modi government, not a day goes by without some statement or direct action by one or the other organisations or leaders of the Sangh Parivaar which directly challenge the Constitution of India. Take for example the virulent campaign against so-called "love jihad," a campaign that criminalizes and communalises love and friendship when the individuals concerned happen to belong to different religious communities. It is nothing but  an all-out assault on the constitutional and legal rights of adults to choose their own partners.

The Vishwa Hindu Parishad brings out a pamphlet which equates such self-choice with prostitution. Its message is that if you, as a Hindu woman, love a man who is a Muslim, you are selling your body as a prostitute would do. However abhorrent such a pamphlet is and also insulting to women in prostitution, it is an indirect admission that such relationships are consensual not coercive. This is not just the anti-Muslim agenda of the Sangh Parivar, which of course it is, but also a reflection of the totally retrograde approach of the Sangh Parivar towards women and their rights.

The concern expressed for Hindu women has little credibility. Has there been a single example of the RSS or any  of its organizations coming out against the inhuman honour crimes, the lynchings, the torture and often the brutal killings of young caste Hindu women by their own families or community, when they  dared to choose or reciprocate the love of a Dalit boy? Or have any of these gentlemen who run bahu-beti bachao campaigns against Muslims ever spoken out against the so-called God men who have sexually exploited their women bhakts and in some cases, minor girls? Wasn't it members of the Sangh Parivar who vociferously defended Asa Ram when he was arrested for alleged serial sexual assaults on minor girls? Have any of these organizations prevented or fought against the practice of dowry demands or the killings of young brides who have barely completed the Hindu marriage rituals of saath pheras before they were brutally murdered?

Increasing violence against women is a reality that has to be fought.  But to selectively choose this or that case to communalize the issue as the Sangh Parivar does is utter hypocrisy which does great disservice to women.

But going beyond votes harvested through hatred, going beyond the travails and personal tragedies engendered by such politics, what happens to India when those in positions of power deliberately divide her people on the basis of religious belief? Why is the supreme leader of the BJP and the government silent? Does the RSS pracharak in the Prime Minister overshadow his duty to uphold the constitution of India?

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