Being secular doesn’t mean being antihindu
post-poll friends, we formed the United Progressive Alliance. Maybe 2019 will come out with a fourth experience. Times will dictate strategy.
The Congress is a national party. It cannot take VRS (voluntary retirement scheme) when it is in alliance. This is the dilemma. As a national party, we have an organisation everywhere, but the moment you enter into an alliance, you cede space. There is a trade-off. It may pay us short-term dividends, but is a demotivating factor in the long-term. Chhattisgarh has been a 1-2 percent margin state. In Rajasthan, we have to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. In Madhya Pradesh, too, there is huge antiincumbency. It is more important to maintain party unity, rather than get involved in who will be the chief minister. The party has to win. In Karnataka, yes we have a strong local leader, but we also have a strong party organisation. The party structure, ideology, outreach, communication, is more important. more badly. GST (goods and services tax) was a good idea, implemented arbitrarily. Modi came to power on the grounds he was an effective economic manager — that’s where many people are disappointed. We knew he would be a divisive political figure, and he has not disappointed us on that. He has squeezed MSPS (minimum support prices), rural spending, rural wages. There are issues of land, forest rights. It is not just agriculture. And it is not just rural economy. There is tax terrorism. People are not speaking because of an atmosphere of fear. We launched it; they gave it new names and took it forward. We gave bureaucratic names like Basic Savings Bank Deposit Account. Modi converted it into Jan Dhan. Who remembers BSBDA? He rediscovered rural India last year. Will that help electorally? It didn’t help him much in Gujarat, Rajasthan and UP. Modi is now facing 3 Ds - disappointment, disenchantment and disillusionment. They have only one card — the P card: polarisation. That’s an intellectually lazy argument. Mrs Gandhi always said we have to fight communalism of all kinds; that secularism is not just majority-minority but that the majority of people across religions want to live in peace while a minority section in each religion wants to spread prejudice. On 12 January, 1999, on Swami Vivekananda’s birth anniversary, Mrs Gandhi spoke at the Ramakrishna Mission and said India is secular largely because of the traditions and legacy of Hinduism. What Rahul is doing is not new. You know how the term UPA was coined. It was initially to be called United Secular Alliance, which we ruled out because the acronym would be USA; then we thought of Progressive Secular Alliance. Karunanidhi, the arch-atheist, then said something at a meeting — ‘don’t use the word secular since, in Tamil, it translates into irreligious’. We then thought of UPA. So what we have to convince the people about is that India is multi-religious; there is a place for all religions; but as far as the Indian state is concerned, it should have nothing to do with religion. That is secularism. I am more of a practising Hindu than 90% of the BJP guys. Because we are secular does not mean we are anti-hindu. This was not sudden but preceded by months of deliberation. Weighing the pros and cons carefully, a considered decision to go ahead was taken in order to strengthen the judiciary to which we are irrevocably committed -- vastly more so than Modi and his colleagues. It was an unprecedented step, but the situation was truly extraordinary... it was a very sad moment and I can tell you the step was taken with a very heavy heart. I don’ think anybody wanted to but the five issues left us with no choice. The move has nothing to do with judicial verdicts. All five grounds for impeachment have to do with personal integrity. We believe what SC decides is final, even if at times we may not agree with it. Final, but not infallible, as a legal scholar wrote.