Imprisoned by Left intellectual terrorism

[Guest guest]

>Imprisoned by Left intellectual terrorism

>Tarun Vijay

>Indian Express

>September 17, 2004

>

> It hurts. When you write a positive article on a decent person and get

>into a

>diary item or a sarcastic news item, just because of the so-called colour

>you

>wear. Apparently, someone like me can only be accepted as a venom spewing

>hate-monger, incapable of civil dialogue.

>

>I was recently in London to attend the world Hindi conference as a Hindi

>author

>and mediaperson. The BBC invited me for an interview, with some others. The

>first question the BBC correspondent asked was about the Babri demolition!

>I

>was perplexed. I said, ‘‘but this was supposed to be on Hindi conference?’’

>He

>replied, ‘‘Yes, but you come from a RSS background.’’ This implies that I

>can’t

>be anything else but a rioter. This hate from the Leftists kills and

>imprisons.

>It affects our family, our writings and us.

>

>Such hatred has never been a part of my life. I had Muslim friends in my

>school

>days, we played in the local masjid, no one in the RSS ever opposed such

>friendships. In Lucknow, our immediate neighbour, famous Congress leader

>Ali

>Zaheer’s bungalow on Shahnajaf Road was almost my second home, where I

>played

>with his sons Salim and Rehman.

>

>As a young journalist in the early ’80s, I once went to see Russi Karanjia

>in

>his Fort office in Mumbai. I had no reference, but after just fifteen

>minutes

>he called me in and gave me an important assignment in tribal areas. People

>may

>have different ideas about him, but I have always held him in the highest

>esteem.

>

>So was the doyen of Indian journalism, Chalapathi Rau. I was a regular

>visitor

>in his Shah Jahan Road apartment. He knew I worked for Panchjanya, yet his

>love

>and affection knew no ideological colours. He was a reservoir of wisdom.

>

>In Silvassa, where I worked, a great deal of patronage came from Dr Gopal

>Singh,

>the then Lt Governor of Goa, who nominated me on the Union Home Minister’s

>Advisory Council during Indira Gandhi’s Prime Ministership. I was the

>youngest

>ever member on it and he knew my views.

>

>Things changed when I arrived in Delhi. The city is so politicised, so full

>of

>the prickly, rather snobbish, hatred from so-called ‘liberals’ that you

>feel

>you are living in a cactus farm. If you are a saffronite, you must be the

>devil

>himself. A dowry-seeker, or perhaps a wife-beater, someone who is

>anti-woman,

>anti-minorities, anti-Pakistan, anti-civil dialogue, an obscurantist who

>does

>not think of the next century but revels in the mythical past. All we ever

>read

>are rabid texts written by Godse or Adolf Hitler or at the most we try some

>V S

>Naipaul.

>

>So it becomes the bounden duty of every pro-free dialogue, pro-peace,

>pro-women

>freedom and supporter of everything that defines an objective civilised

>progressive society to make sure we are pushed to their perceptional Gulags

>and

>Siberias forever and not allowed to enter the domains they have so

>painstakingly preserved for nice people like themselves. Their so-called

>ideological battle is simply a fierce desire to preserve their monopolies

>on

>civil society forums or perhaps their seminaring careers in the West. They

>need

>us to be their ‘‘enemy’’ so they can write their passionate tracts for the

>benefit of appreciative audiences overseas.

>

>Thus, news about us is either put in the dustbin or twisted to provide the

>sinister hidden ‘‘message’’. If we say a nice person is a nice person,

>there

>must me some realpolitik behind it, so an ‘‘expose’’ appears in place of a

>report. It is simply impossible for me to praise a CPM leader such as

>Somnath

>Chatterji in our editorial or publish Mani Shankar, D Raja or A B Bardhan’s

>views with due respect. There are always digs at my ‘‘real’’ agenda. If

>invited

>on a TV show, many times questions are framed in a manner to elicit the

>‘‘desired’’ response, which can be used to embarrass us. As a response to

>this

>terrifying diatribe combined with utter social exclusiveness, we too try to

>hit

>back, calling the opposite side ‘‘Pakistanis’’, anti-Hindu, anti-India.

>Where

>do we go from here?

>

>Disappointing? Sometimes yes, but pushed to the wall, it has also helped to

>reinforce our belief in what we believe. Because hate can never drive

>people so

>long, can never become an inspiration for a just cause. Care to see what do

>we

>do and where from we get our workers?

>

>Shri Ram Joshi is a distinguished engineer, an M.Tech. from BHU. He has

>three

>sons, all post-graduates and all became RSS pracharaks. Why? How would a

>mother

>be ready to send all the three sons for work, which would never earn them a

>Padma award or wealth?

>

>Dr Vishwamitra from Delhi completed his residentship and instead of opening

>a

>nursing home in Rajouri Garden, went to Meghalaya, married a Khasi girl and

>started a free village dispensary. Why? Another girl, an MBBS, chose to

>work in

>a remote Naga village, running a free clinic supported by her doctor

>friends

>and family. Are these examples of hate? Can hate ever drive a young person

>to

>do something positive?

>

>There are hundreds of others. If we say, we are against dowry and the

>maximum

>numbers of inter-caste and dowry-less marriages are held in RSS inspired

>families, or we strongly oppose female foeticide, that we ridicule Hindus

>who

>worship Durga during Puja but ‘‘kill’’ her when she arrives in the womb, or

>feel equally happy to visit a nearby church during Christmas, there is

>simply

>no possibility of a patient audience. Unless there is a protest against

>Valentine’s Day. This gets wide media coverage, surely because at that

>moment

>we saffronites fit snugly in our perceptional cage.

>

>Yet we have grown by leaps and bounds. We have found new friends and

>listeners

>in forbidden fortresses. Let there be a hundred ways towards truth, let a

>million flowers bloom, each with a different colour and smell. A good

>person,

>whether in the Congress or CPM or any other stream of faith, must be

>saluted,

>revered and recognised, until he proves us wrong. That is the spirit of

>pluralism we have imbibed.

>

>The writer is the editor of Panchjanya

>

 

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