PM, Minister of Hate Cannot Keep Her Job

Rana Ayyub is an award-winning investigative journalist and political writer. She is working on a book on Prime Minister Narendra Modi which will be published in 2015.)

Should Swacch Bharat not cleanse communal filth ?

It's cringe-worthy to begin a column with the literal meaning of the word 'haraamzaada' which roughly translates into  'illegitimately born'.  I do not remember the last time I was forced to type expletives in an article (I am not using the b-word), but the Indian polity, which has degraded itself on many occasions, has forced me to consider it after the expletive was exercised by a minister in the present Narendra Modi dispensation.

While campaigning for the Delhi elections, which is yet to recover from the disgrace of the Trilokpuri riots, Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti, Minister of State for Food Processing Industries, sparked off a controversy by claiming that everyone including Muslims and Christians were the sons of Lord Ram. In a statement laced with overtly-divisive language, the Sadhvi remarked "Modiji ka mantra hai na hum khayenge na khane denge. Ab aapko tyah karna hai ki aap kise chunenge, aapko chunna hai ki ramzaadon ki sarkar banegi ya haramzaadono ki sarkar banegi, ye aapko tyah karna hai (Modi has given a mantra that we will neither take bribe nor let others take bribe. Now you have to decide whom to choose. Will you choose the sons of Ram or those who are illegitimate?)."

Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti knew exactly what she was speaking  -her slant was hardly subtle.  Before senior ministers accepted the remarks were "unacceptable", some in the BJP were quick to dismiss the speech as misinterpreted. But senior colleagues from the ruling BJP in the last one year  have developed a convenient slip -of-tongue disease just before  important elections. One might want to remember the speeches made by BJP President Amit Shah in Muzaffarnagar in April in the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections: "This election is about voting out the government that protects and gives compensation to those who killed Jats... It is about badla (revenge) and protecting izzat (honour)."

The following day, Shah at a meeting with the Gujjar and Jat community members said  "A man can live without food or sleep. He can live when he's thirsty and hungry. But when he's insulted, he can't live. Apmaan ka badla toh lena padega (We have to take revenge for the insult)."

Shah does not stop at this, he develops amnesia over the fact that Muzaffarnagar was witness to the worst communal riots around the same time as also of his mentor's plan to usher in a development-oriented, inclusive government when he adds "Jinhone hamare samaj ka apmaan kiya, jinhone hamare samaaj ke logon ki hatya ki... logon ko maut ke ghat uthar diya, un logon ke sath baithkar kabhi hamara samman badh sakta hai kya? (Those who have insulted our community, those who have killed people of our community, brought them to the shores of death... is it possible for our honour to increase if we sit with them?)."

And then there was the famous Giriraj Singh statement that asked all those who opposed Modi to shift to Pakistan , asserting that the country had no space for traitors. 

Yesterday , right after the furore broke in both houses of Parliament, TV channels suggested that the Prime Minister had on Tuesday morning taken up the case with the concerned minister and had made it obvious that such statements would not be tolerated. It's a different matter that Narendra Modi displayed his infamous silence on the issue in public. The media-savvy PM whose twitter handle has in the last few months live-tweeted speech by industrialists and their spouses did not deem it necessary to clarify his minister's brazen communal rhetoric meant to instigate and polarize the two communities on the eve of Delhi elections.

If Modi is displeased with these sort of remarks, the evidence is missing - Giriraj Singh, who had received an indirect reprimand over the Pakistan remark, was  inducted into the cabinet  a month ago.

When his minister invoked Lord Ram in insulting a section of the Indian population, Modi forgot to remind her that Mahatma Gandhi  - who he has been quoting often, particularly in the context of his Clean India mission - swore by 'Ishwar Allah tero naam, sabko sanmati de bhagwan (Both Ishwar and Allah are your names God, we pray that you grant good sense to everyone)'

On television debates, including one on which this writer participated last night, RSS spokespersons took to anthropology to prove that the Bhartiya race and that of the believers in India owed its genesis to Lord Ram and justified the minister's comment. By the logic of the RSS and the BJP spokespersons , atheists could be referred to as "Bast#$%s" as they do not believe in any religion or faith.

Even if one were to leave this deduction aside,  the sheer indifference of the BJP that tried to justify its  leaders comment by comparing it to similar statements by leaders from other parties  in the past suggested that there was a desire to duplicate communal politics played by various political parties in the country . The BJP rode to power partly on the premise of a fresh change in politics, on the premise of a clean, inclusive, development-oriented government .

BJP President Amit Shah  in a recent speech in West Bengal spoke on the need for a  patriotic government to weed out communal elements. Would he want to set an example with his own party ? The PM's silence and his refusal to concede a mistake by his Minister  will only lend credence to the assumption that the PM seeks to embolden the right-wing for political objectives and his respect for the Mahatma is nothing but a PR gimmick .

It's time the PM  sends a strong message that his government is neither manuvaadi nor Ramvaadi, but aimed at being sudhaarvadi (reformist). It's never too late, Mr. PM !