:: Jayanthi Natrajan

War on terror must not be communal

By Jayanthi Natarajan

THE RESULTS of the recently-concluded Assembly elections in five states have a very special resonance for the political class. The voter turnout and the unambiguous message they have sent to the rest of the country is unmistakable. The message is directly addressed to the T-shirts which proclaimed that politicians are terrorists, and to those who ranted that the political class should have been attacked by the terrorists, instead of the Taj and Oberoi hotels. The message was aimed at those who wrote verbal obituaries of the Indian State.

The facts speak for themselves. Most of the voting occurred after the terror attacks on Mumbai. In four states the voter turnout was higher than a 14-year average: Madhya Pradesh recorded its highest-ever turnout of 69.31 per cent, Rajasthan recorded around 65 per cent, higher than the previously-recorded turnout, and in Delhi the average turnout was 56.3 per cent. Mizoram was lower than average but still recorded a high 70 per cent. Thus, the message given by the voter was a calm but firm rejection of the politics of communalisation and rabid chauvinism dressed up as synthetic nationalism. People voted coolly and with level-headed calculation and made it clear that terror and the war against terror should be a non-partisan issue and above politics. In other words, they soundly rejected the cynical attempt by the BJP to capitalise on terror and try to convert this tragedy into votes. Further, in areas where the BJP campaigned aggressively after the terror attacks, even giving full-page advertisements showing the Mumbai terror attacks, people rejected the BJP and voted for the Congress. This is not to undermine other issues in the elections, such as anti-incumbency, but only to point out that the ham-handed attempt to ride to power on the back of a national tragedy failed miserably.

Such tactics are the standard operating procedure of the BJP and have served them well in the past. They exploited the Mumbai serial blasts of 1993 in Maharashtra elections, the Coimbatore blasts in the 1998 Lok Sabha elections and the Kargil War in the 1999 Lok Sabha elections. In Gujarat in 2002, Narendra Modi campaigned extensively on the Godhra plank as did the BJP in the 2008 Karnataka Assembly elections. However, this time around voters rejected communalisation and politicisation of terror and have given this country a national paradigm for the war on terror — that it should be non-partisan and non-communal.

There is another important issue connected to the whole debate: the role and responsibility of the media at times such as this. And the consensus is clear: the media needs to give serious thought to their coverage during an ongoing crisis, particularly from the security angle. However, the aspect more germane to this discussion is the dubious relevance of the electronic media providing a platform to various armchair critics and marginal celebrities to spew venom at the political class and vitiate an already volatile situation.

Our glorious democracy is famous for having more opinions than its actual population, but this endearing trait becomes counter-productive at the time of a national emergency. Those who felt uncomfortable by the hatred being spat out at politicians did not have the comfort level to ask why "enough is enough" only at this particular point of time? But it is absolutely wondrous that our democracy is so mature that the people have conveyed their disgust at this superficial and simplistic criticism. They have gone to the root of the matter and have shown us — the political and the discussing classes — the way forward. The media should now think twice before giving in to the temptation of inviting guests, at sensitive times, and giving them a platform to vent ill-formed and utterly non-productive views. It would have been far more useful if the media had focused on promoting resilience and national pride during those very-difficult 62 hours. I sincerely hope that if ever another emergency like this happens — something we should strain every nerve to prevent — TV channels do not give in to the temptation of promoting destructive criticism and defeatism. There will be enough time to take the government and the political class to pieces after the battle is fought and won.

The voters, and indeed the media, have also dismissed, in no uncertain terms, the colossal errors of bad taste and lack of grace displayed by some politicians. The prize for the most obnoxious and foul comment will, without doubt, go to the chief minister of Kerala, Mr V.S. Achuthanandan, for insulting the father of the martyred hero Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan when he observed that even a dog would not go to his house were it not for the fact that he was Sandeep’s father. This should go down in Indian history as one of the most crude, insensitive, horrible and arrogant remarks ever to have been made. The CPI(M), which often pretends to be the nation’s conscience-keeper, has merely distanced itself from this remark, instead of sacking the chief minister or giving him a public dressing down. They were, of course, quick to suspend the same chief minister from the Politbureau, and the Speaker of the Lok Sabha, for indiscipline.

The behaviour of Narendra Modi, who turned up in Mumbai while the rescue mission was going on, is typical of his shameless brand of politics. But people have demonstrated their disgust for his aggressive posturing, most potently expressed by the widow of Hemant Karkare by refusing the cash award he offered. Muktar Abbas Naqvi, with his "women with lipstick" remark, tried to drag an important issue down to a nonsensical level.

The terror attack and the consequent voice of the people, expressed through their vote in five states, has conveyed a far deeper and meaningful message to the country. It is in our own best interest to wake up and smell the coffee.

Jayanthi Natarajan is a Congress MP in the Rajya Sabha and AICC spokesperson. The views expressed in this column are her own