Sunday, March 8, 2009

'Divisive' politics

I have been hearing a lot of political parties using the word 'secular' to gang up against a particular one - apparently they always are looking to present an 'anti-communal' front. (nothing new, we have been hearing that for a long time...) . They say B** is a 'divisive' party.

My question is: Is being 'anti-communal' enough? Communalism divides our population into broadly 80:13:2:5 sections. Which is bad, but in my view not as bad as the other kind of division i.e. the caste.

Casteism divides our society hundreds of n1: n2: n3: n4...... sections... but guess what!!: nobody terms these parties based on 'caste ideologies' divisive!! In my view these parties are much much more divisive then the 'commual' one! We should be anti-divisive and not just anti-communal.
One good thing that this 'communal' party has done (in my view) is that it has not divided people into thousands of caste-based sections: Gujjars, Jats, OBCs, Scs, STs, Brahmins, poor brahmins,
rajputs etc... which in my view is great because I think casteism is the worse enemy of country.
If we can't unite the 80% first, how can we dream of uniting 100%?
What we need to understand is that a division is a division. So, if asking votes on grounds of
religion is bad, why do we not consider voting on grounds of caste as bad, if not worse?? So,
media doesn't make a hue and cry when the likes of Mayawati act as a 'messiah' of the so-called
backward castes; on the other hand Advani is criticized hoarsely for talking about 'Hindu
Rashtra'.
Going back 60 years, the country's politics was still dominated by religion, but not so much by castes. Haven't we actually regressed??
The best way to unite people is to erase the divisions, not harp on them day in and day out! But thats what the political forces and the media (alike) have been doing - So, its ok to say that xxx is a Gujjar leader, yyy is an OBC leader, zzz is a Rajput leader... but saying Mr.A is a Hindu leader in - Oh! he is a communal politician!! Agreed, but what about the other leaders being divisive. Religion-based parties should have no place in a secular country; but, you know what, the same should go for caste-based parties.

The British used 'divide and rule' and partitioned our country; these numerous political parties are partitioning our parliament on the basis of caste!!! x% seats for such a such caste. y% jobs for such a such caste... and so on!

A division is a division is a division.

PS: There is a strange way that the word 'communal' is used in the Indian context but shall discuss that later sometime...

No comments: