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8 July 2002 |
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The election of A.P.J. Abdul Kalam as the president is, of course, extremely likely. What is certain, however, is the profounder political victory already scored
by those who have produced him out of their collective pugree.
The victory consists in the responses from a wobbly opposition that could not have campaigned better for the ruling camp. Particularly from the Left. It opposes him but has opted not to say why really it does so. The BJP, its friends in the NDA and its relatives in the Sangh parivar, did not have to state the reason for their nomination for the country's highest constitutional office. The Congress, no stickler ever for uncompromising consistency, does not have to spell out reason for the shift in its stand. The Left, however, does not have the luxury of freedom to leave unstated its real reasons for opposing Kalam. The BJP put up Kalam not just as an "eminent scientist", but as a symbol of nuclear militarism. Whether he is the Bomb Man or the Missile Man may be a subject of some sophistry. The point is that, as a larger-than- life scientist, he is the product of Pokhran II. It is media-political hype following the nuclear weapon tests of 1998 that has made a Mahatma of a military scientist. His is not the image of a professional scientist who has merely carried out his masters' orders. As millions have been made to see it, the Bhagvad Gita had inspired his Bomb, and his missiles embodied a mission. Innumerable Rotary Club meetings around the country since Pokhran II have heard his own kind of rhetoric hailing the explosions as assertions of national self-esteem. He was not being a mere science bureaucrat when he told anti-nuclear weapon activists to go agitate in London or Washington, as though they were not opposed to nukes anywhere and everywhere. Nor has he been just any Bomb Man, but one very much of the BJP variety. With his nuclear militarism goes a brand of nationalism that has secured him the bounteous blessings of Nagpur. He has repeatedly gone on record that India has "never invaded... (or) conquered any one", that it has "never grabbed their land, their culture." Exactly the kind of history that Murli Manohar Joshi would like to be taught in our schools. Not the unpatriotic history that may tell the kids about the times when there was no single Indian State or nation, about the many kings who coveted and conquered each other's land and even invaded Sri Lanka and countries of South-East Asia. The Bomb Man quotes the Bhagvad Gita and other Hindu scriptures on all and sundry occasions. This makes him even more of a model Muslim, worthy of emulation by others of our largest minority community. A delightful example was his speech on a visit to Bhuj in Gujarat in the wake of the devastating earthquake last year. Here, he compared the power of compassion behind the relief efforts to "the energy of thousands of nuclear bombs in the virat swarup (cosmic form) of god" as revealed in the Gita. What is more notable is that Kalam has not deemed it necessary to visit the same Gujarat during or after the recent carnage that could have done no true patriot proud. The man-made calamity, the ruthlessly State-aided massacre and mayhem, have not moved him to make any statement, cite any scripture. No wonder, immediately after his nomination by the NDA, the RSS rhapsodised over him as "a true Bharatiya". Praveen Togadiya of the VHP hastened to add that the BJP has shown that it does not discriminate "on communal lines against anyone who is a diehard nationalist" (implying that it may do so against a less staunchly patriotic Muslim). Editor of the RSS mouthpiece, Panchjanya, Tarun Vijay, once wrote: "Indianism is. Hindutva. This does not mean that Muslims should convert to Hinduism. What it does mean is that you can be what you like but must share the vision of Dr Abdul Kalam." Those who oppose Kalam as a presidential candidate must oppose this vision. The BJP is being disingenuous when it projects its nominee as purely a scientist. But the Left is only promoting this line of propaganda by arguing repeatedly that a scientist is not the right choice for a political-constitutional office. The argument is not only absurd, but can appear anti-democratic as well. It can also be seen as anti-science, and has elicited criticism as such from scientists like Indian Space Research Organisation Chairman K. Kasturirangan. It is not just a wrong argument, but a self-defeating one which strengthens Kalam's political camp. It puts the Sangh parivar, ironically, on the side of science. And it makes the Left, which has a lesser share of corrupt and otherwise contemptible politicians, the main target of the media and middle-class campaign against a power-hungry, power-hogging political class. The point is so obvious that the Left can only be presumed to be deliberately refraining from stating the real reason for opposing Kalam. And to be doing so for fear of the 'anti-national' tag. But how can it make a 'political battle' of the presidential contest, as it wants to, without telling the people that it is not anti-national to be anti-Bomb, anti-jingoist? "Communists disdain to conceal their aims," declares The Communist Manifesto. Must they, in today's context, camouflage their opposition to Kalam-like nuclear militarism in a scientist's clothing? The writer is a Chennai-based journalist and peace activist.
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