It took a shoe to make India's ruling Congress party realize its mistake. But what would it take to remove the teflon off the face of Hindu-chauvinist BJP? BJP leaders joined the Sikh bandwagon to pillory the Congress candidate for the forthcoming parliamentary elections, Jagdish Tytler, for his alleged involvement in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. Tytler, who was raised in Sikh traditions by his Sikh mother Dayal Kaur, rightly decided to withdraw his candidature and save the party the embarrassment. In politics, people's power is always supreme. And in democracy it is the heads, not the minds that count. So Tytler had no option but to bow out. Whether this former union minister was involved in the riots that followed the assassination of the then prime minister Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards is for the court to decide, but the way the BJP took up the issue once again exposed the double face of the rightist party. In this dirty game of the pot calling the kettle black, there's no room left even for the shades of grey. As if from a high moral ground, BJP pointed an accusing finger at the Congress for selecting Tytler and his co-accused Sajjan Kumar as its parliamentary candidates. I am not defending Tytler or the Congress; I'm only trying to make the BJP realize that it should take note of the other three fingers pointed at itself. Let's study the accusations and their authenticity against Tytler. At least eight enquiry commissions set up to probe the anti-Sikh riots did not find his involvement in the violence. However, the official report of the Nanavati Commission of the government of India found “credible evidence” against him. The case against him was closed for want of ample evidence. However, the CBI reopened the file in late 2007 on the complaint of a Sikh residing in California. After a series of questioning sessions in the US, the CBI found that the complaints were not credible. So the case was closed, and Tytler given a clean chit by the CBI. The matter is now in the court. Now look at BJP's credentials in this regard. It will be almost cliched to repeat what has been said and reported umpteen times about Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi's alleged involvement in the genocide of Muslims in 2002. Yet he continues to be in power. The case against Modi appears to be more credible than the one against Tytler. The Nanavati Commission had given a clean chit to Modi, so did the CBI to Tytler. The Nanavati Commission pointed fingers at Tytler, so did the Banerjee Commission at Modi. Eyewitness accounts against Modi exceed the ones against Tytler and are more specific. Reports by Human Rights Watch, the National Human Rights Commission, and the US State Department's human rights dossier, not to mention many sting operations by the media point to Modi's complicity in the riots. Yet the BJP has the audacity to point fingers at Tytler. Now meet Manoj Kumar Pradhan. Does the name ring bells? Well, Pradhan is currently in prison as an accused in Orissa's Kandhamal killings of Christians last year. BJP has given him the ticket to contest from a communally-sensitive assembly seat in the state. Some 40 Christians were killed and hundreds lost their homes after the murder of Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati. Pradhan is accused of leading the Hindu mobs. Another person who has been rewarded with a BJP ticket from Orissa is Ashok Sahu. A retired IPS officer, Sahu has been fanning the communal fire in Orissa by blaming “Christian terrorists” for Saraswati's murder. Let's get away from the-every-action-has-a-reaction theory, and look at a case of homicide. Modasa is a non-descript place in Modi-ruled Gujarat. It has high concentration of Muslims. Early this year, the place leapt into prominence because of a Hepatitis B outbreak resulting from the use of old syringes. One of the main accused in the case Dr. Mahendrasinh Chauhan has been given a BJP ticket to contest polls. The list goes on and on. BJP, however, is not the only party which has fielded tainted candidates. But I have taken this journalistic liberty to chastise this party because it is most vocal when it comes to matters of morality. Parliament, they say, is the representation of the vox populi. But, in practice, people don't have a choice. Caught between Scylla and Charybdis, voters try to choose the lesser evil in many cases. This happens because political parties try to get as much seats as possible in parliament. Again it all boils down to the numbers game. Quantity gets preference over quality. So it is wrong to say that it is the people who choose their representatives; parties impose leaders on the people. It is the constitutional duty of political parties of all hues to give election tickets to leaders of clean background so as to maintain the sanctity and decorum of the seat of power, that is parliament.
