SHUN DIVISIVE POLITICS
of any sort – of caste, community, religion, region or of bigoted laws – or else, this country will certainly go to the dogs. Already such politics in the name of religion have resulted in the vivisection of the country and gory, tragic partition holocaust. Now the canny vote bank politics under the garb of ‘good intentions’ being pursued by the governments at the helm, and pressurized by well-meaning but misguided civil society groups, also indicate the danger of more devastating consequences for the country which is already in an anarchic state due to sundry socio-politico-economic circumstances. The intended ‘Prevention of Communal and Targeted Violence’ Bill with the ostensive good end of helping victimized minorities and distressed communities is in effect a grossly discriminatory piece of law in which the very essence of democracy is being subverted. Apart from the threat to existing quasi-federal setup it poses, the rule, or the say, of the majority will be so perverted to ensue in the harassment and persecution of the majority in the name of protection of minorities if this bill is to be by any chance accepted and passed by a gullible parliament. To quote Lenin: ‘good intentions could pave the way to hell even’. That aggressive minority communalism in collusion with crafty foreign imperialism was the chief cause for our country’s partition is widely accepted. And the history of the various communal riots in these sixty and more years of independence also does not rule out the possibility, at least at times, of the aggressiveness of a minority/deprived community, being the main cause for the mischief. As such, to further arbitrarily divide the society into majority and minority groups and thus cause irreversible damage to the fabric of secularism and socialist-oriented development patterns in the country is not at all warranted. ‘Too many laws mean too little justice’ is a wise, weighty axiom and the existing laws, if enforced in all sincerity and honesty, are quite capable of tackling the menace of any communal calamities. There is absolutely no rhyme or reason to make any special law, especially the sort of such discriminatory legislation, in this regard §§§
