Irresponsible politics

Recently Sushma Swaraj of the BJP said that the terrorist attacks that happened were part of a conspiracy of the congress to shift the attention of the people from the "cash for vote" scandal. That was an absolutely irresponsible and uncalled for statement from a relatively senior politician. That was a kind of statement that could create communal violence.

Well I am not going to question the validity of her accusation. It may or may not be right, but come on, give me a break. I don’t think any political party in India would put the citizens of the country at harms way for such an insignificant matter. With only a few months left for the parliament to conclude the chances of that scam to be solved/settled were very less. The reason why I felt that the comment was so outrageous was that, the logic behind that was so stupid and ridiculous. If she had said that the congress is behind the attacks because it wants to undermine the BJP lead state governments so that it can win the upcoming elections, it would have looked a bit more viable.

I am pretty sure that she didn’t mean to start any communal riots with the statement of hers. It was just plane old dirty politics to get more votes. People from the BJP have been making similar volatile comments in the past and party had faced a lot of criticism and embarrassment. I remember either Venkayya Naidu or Arun Jaitley saying in a press conference that the population of Muslims have increased a lot and the Hindu population has not increased correspondingly and hence Hindus should try to increase there population so that normalcy can be maintained. Similar outrageous statements were made by L K Advani on the Babri Masjid, and how can one forget Narendra Modi. The one positive that I found among these people were, even though they had done crimes for which they can never be forgiven, they have learned from their mistakes and have refrained from making statements that could lead to riots.(not included Sushma Swaraj). Even if Muslims still face a hard time in Gujrat, Modi is doing all that he can to clear his name and ensure that he is taking a comparatively more secular stand.

The antics of the BJP is nothing compared that to what Raj Thackery and the Shiva Sena do in Maharashtra. They have this obsession with the word "Mumbai" and everything Marata. They take up insignificant issues such as valentines day or westernization of the state and act as its moral police. Right now Raj Thackery is over shadowing the Shiva Sena in terms of violence caused. His aim is simple, to get more and more marata votes and for that he will use any means necessary, including violating the basic human rights and the Indian constitution. To a certain extend I can understand his point about Mumbai getting overcrowded with non Maratis, but Mumbai is what it is now because of such a culture. Not quite sure why he doesn’t have much of a problem with outsiders occupying other parts of Maharastra. Him being adamant over the word "Mumbai", ordering all films not to use the word "Bombay" and asking Bombay dieing to change its name to Mumbai dieing is quite outrageous and unconstitutional. The kind of hate he is spreading misguides his supporters. Even though i agree that the "marata" cause is important, to cause violence in that name is not acceptable. Raj Thackery is trying to eat into the Shiva Sena vote bank and for that he is creating all this havoc.

Getting voters on its side is what all political parties should do, but to adopt any means to do so is not right. Just like business ethics is given a lot of importance these days, lot of emphasis should be given to political ethics. I believe that the Indian voter get more mature and reject all unethical, immoral ways political parties use to come into power. Its quite sad that in the land of the Mahatma people find that only violence is the answer to any problem.