THACKERAY HOIST WITH HIS OWN PETARD

The ugly scenes in the Maharashtra Assembly on Tuesday when it met for the winter session in Nagpur underline the lingering bitterness and hostility stemming from the recent events leading to the Shiv Sena’s break with the BJP and its alliance with the old foes, Congress and NCP. It must still rankle former chief minister Devendra Fadnavis who despite winning nearly twice as many seats as its pre-poll ally has had to sit in the Opposition while the Sena boss, Uddhav Thackeray dons the chief minister’s crown. It was, therefore, not surprising that the Sena was hoist with its own petard. The BJP members embarrassed its former ally in the Assembly, demanding that it fulfill its own demand for adequate compensation to farmers who had incurred losses due to unseasonal rains. The BJP members trooped into the well of the Assembly, brandishing flex boards which carried a report from the Sena’s official organ, ~Saamana~, seeking a payment of Rs 25,000 per hectare to farmers hit by untimely rains. The roles seem to have reversed. The BJP was now out to needle the Sena, which probably is not without justification given that it is the main Opposition party in the State. It was however, the Sena which as a junior partner in the Fadnavis-led coalition government had constantly embarrassed the very Government of which it was a member by making critical comments about it and generally striking a discordant note. From the conduct of the Opposition in the House today it was clear that it will not miss an opportunity to spotlight the failures of the Sena-NCPCongress Government. Not unlike a jilted lover, the BJP has a right to feel furious the way it was betrayed by the Sena, but it is hoped that it will play its role as the main Opposition responsibly and always within the bounds of parliamentary etiquette. Meanwhile, it is rather amusing that the Maharashtra Chief Minister should seek to intervene in the on-going controversy over the Citizenship Amendment Act on the side of those who indulged in violent and riotous behavior while protesting the new law. It is good news that Thackeray’s heart now bleeds for the victims of the alleged police excesses against the students of the Jamia Millia Islamia, but even he ought not to abandon a sense of proportion while criticising his newly-found foes. However, to compare the unfortunate events in the minority-dominated and minority-run institution in South Delhi on Sunday evening with Jallianwala Bagh is to insult the memory of the hundreds who fell to the indiscriminate bullets of the barbaric imperial power on that blackest of black days in 1919.

Nothing even remotely near that inhuman atrocity which defined the British raj in this country and helped hasten its end seemed to have occurred last Sunday in Jamia Millia Islamia. Yes, the police were wrong in entering the university campus without prior authorisation, but in mitigation it cannot be ignored that they did so in hot pursuit of protesters who had indulged in arson and rioting, set fire to vehicles, threw stones and other projectiles at them, stopped traffic on a busy thoroughfare. The police went into the campus chasing trouble-makers who took shelter in the university campus. A day later the arrest of ten outsiders in connection with the violence and acts of vandalism would suggest that they had joined the students in violent protests. Whether the police used excessive force after they had come under attack is a matter for probe but to suggest that it was like the Jallianwalla Bagh massacre of the innocents is to betray one’s own lack of understanding and a historical perspective. Also, it is ironic that the Sena chief now chooses to be counted among those who oppose the Citizenship Act because it seeks to fast-track relief for the persecuted Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, etc, from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. But, then, the Sena owed its origins to the Congress Party in the late 60s. It is just as well the founder’s son is back where it had all begun.