Setu Samudram

The selective noise...

Hearing from the horse’s mouth always helps. Therefore I believed it when my professor said: “Judges in the Supreme Court are no fools. They know very well which cases to delay and for how long. For example, the Ayodhya's Babri dispute will never be solved; because a verdict on either side will result in riots.” Being a practicing lawyer in the HC, he would know…  

Now, take the stark contrast in the case of Ram Setu. Here, the government doesn’t think twice before saying that Ram didn’t exist, or that Ram himself destroyed the Setu, and goes on passing the verdict that it can’t be a national monument. Why? Because there won’t be communal riots against these statements?

When I read civics in school days, I wondered how the democratic setup of ‘rule by majority’ would be able to safeguard the interests of the minorities. Now I know. Big doesn’t mean strong.

It is much easier to mobilize the minority votes either in favor or against one political party. But to woo the majority is very difficult. Therefore, parties take shortcuts. One of my close friends who is a Christian, avoided any conflict and argument at any cost; he would just run away. It took me much time to understand his psychology. It may not be politically right to connect this to the fact that he hates the BJP and respects Sonia Gandhi, but this is what I could understand. Every minority group has a 'fear psychology'; it is in our basic nature. No government, however just can ever erase that fear by 100%. But to exploit it or not remains an ethical question that the parties have to face.

I was in Chhattisgarh for 2 years and saw one very good example of good administration. Very near to Raipur bus stand, stood an old Hanuman temple right in the middle of a big Chowk. They had widened the roads and the area had become very spacious and beautiful: but the temple was causing traffic jams. The government quickly built a beautiful temple at nearest safe distance, picked up the idol by a crane, established it with all the rituals and funfair: with all its humble respect. Troublemakers would still have cried and made that an issue: how could you touch my idol? But they didn’t. Why? Because the government treated their faith and feelings with respect and sincerity.

In the case of Ram Setu, the government doesn't have to worry about anything when it opens its mouth about Ram. On Ayodhya’s Babri dispute, the same government won’t open its mouth. Irony? No. Politics.

In the short run, keeping the silence and not addressing the fundamental problems may sound like a good policy. It does manage to manage the peace. But it gives incentives to those who start believing that to be able to be heard, you have to make a riot. It is a fact that more number of innocent deaths have happened inside India due to terrorism than due to wars. The end line: the choice is not ours. At present, the state of politics in India seems to be going dumps.

Wait for the renaissance.