The Hindu Right Is Scared To Express Its Opinion Openly

TNN Bureau. Updated: 4/18/2018 12:45:06 PM Most Popular

The “Thinking Right” – as opposed to the lumpens who may savage cow smugglers or attack innocents from another community – now needs to go beyond thought and outrage on Twitter and emerge on the streets. Outraging over selective outrage may have its uses, but ultimate legitimacy depends on being visible in the flesh and blood – and getting people to build pressure groups for the change they would like to see. Santosh Desai, writing in The Times of India, makes this point very effectively on April 16. He asks two questions and then answers them for the Hindu Right. To summarise: Why outrage over the Lutyens group’s “selective outrage” when you can do so yourself? Secondly, no one is expected to share anyone else’s sense of outrage. Just in case this looks like an over-simplification, this is what he said in his own words: “It would appear that implicitly, the only outrage that counts, is the one that the so-called Lutyens establishment expresses. Those on the Right seem to acknowledge that their own outrage means nothing, nor does the enormous clout that the channels that represent their views amount too much; only the handful of people who articulate the liberal worldview count.” Touché! The Right is legitimising the Lutyens mafia by seeking its endorsement on its own outrage. Desai added for good measure: “Protesters do not have a moral duty to protest everything unjust with the same passion. As long as everyone agrees on basic benchmarks of humanity, it is natural for different sections to feel strongly about different issues.”
Translated, this can mean two simple things: don’t just outrage, act. And two, selective outrage is fine. Do your own selective outrage rather that railing against someone else who does not feel much for you, or even may be against your cause. Not everything that Desai says is necessarily true, including the claim that there are TV channels actually focusing on the issues raised by the Hindu right. The channels are into their own TRP races, and most of the time what they discuss does more damage to the Hindu Right cause than help it. By focusing on mindless shouting and haranguing, the TV channels are destroying the legitimacy of Right wing causes just as the mobs lynching Muslims do. Another point Desai effectively demolishes is the belief that there is something called unbiased neutrality: by accepting that everyone may not be equally passionate about all causes, he has essentially admitted that different groups may view different things differently, and hence there is no such thing as a universally just cause, barring some things that cause universal revulsion: like harming or violating a child. The takeout: organise and agitate on the street peacefully to make your presence felt beyond Twitter. The Dharmic voice has started gaining strength on Twitter, but its future lies beyond it in the real world. If the Thinking Right does not move into the real world, it is the vigilantes who will take over their narratives and mangle them out of shape.



COUP BY PAK COURT



If anyone thought that the judiciary in Pakistan was independent, he should think again. It is a handmaiden of the deep State, that is, of the Rawalpindi-based cabal of generals who virtually command it to do its bidding. Some years ago, after Pervez Musharrf was virtually forced out of the President’s office by Pakistan’s Supreme Court, people had begun to accord it respect for being bold and free. But it is not. Even at that time, unknown to most people it merely fulfilled the unspoken wishes of the Rawalpindi GHQ, as it has done now by prohibiting former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif from holding public office or contesting elections for life. Judges are behaving like dictators, without any concern either for fairness or justice. Frivolous grounds were cited to first drive out Sharif from the office of prime minister a few months back. Last week, in its final order the Supreme Court outright disenfranchised Sharif, banning him for life from contesting elections and holding any public office.

That the generals nursed a grudge against Sharif, including, among others, for his wanting to take a conciliatory approach towards India, is a public secret. In other ways too, Sharif was not always amenable to do the army’s bidding, being a popular leader who had come to power through the ballot-box. But the judges failed to appreciate that by banning Sharif, they virtually struck at the roots of the democratic system or, rather whatever passes for it in that country. As the most popular leader of the Muslim League, Sharif was the rightful claimant for prime ministership in case ML gained parliamentary majority. Judicial intervention or rather interference disrupted the popular will for reasons which are not rooted in justice or equity. Relying on a vaguely worded clause in Article 62 of the Constitution, a five-judge bench unanimously ruled that it was not for Parliament to decide the length of disqualification of an MP found to be in violation of the stipulation requiring him to be ‘sadiq and ‘ameen’ (honest and righteous).The Constitution did not specify the duration of disqualification, but the court, in its wisdom, made it life-time for the three-time prime minister of Pakistan. It is another matter whether any MP or anyone in the Rawalpindi GHQ or, for that matter, in the higher judiciary can meet the ‘sadiq and ameen’ test himself. But, let us not labour the point any more. By doing the bidding of the generals and disqualifying Sharif for life, the Supreme Court has driven a big nail into the already gasping democratic system. An honest option will be for the generals to tear the mask and take charge of the country up-front and do away with elections and the façade of an independent judiciary.


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