Arise, awake, array behind Kanchi Mutt

Author: V. Devarajan
Publication: Organiser
Date: December 26, 2004

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa has hit out at her political opponent Karunanidhi for the twin somersaults made by him through his inconsistent successive reactions to her order to arrest Kanchi Shankaracharya Swami Jayandera Saraswati. She laments that he is resorting to all these with the only intention of besmirching the fair name of her government. One will readily agree to the first part of her comment, but in the process of exposing his hypocrisy, she is fraudulently trying to arrogate for her government a non-existent fair name. She will disgracefully go down in history as the most sinful and iniquitous ruler this holy country has ever seen owing to her ghastly resort to a barbaric act in brutal misuse of governmental power just for the demonstration of her false virtue of impartiality and whose intention was to outsmart her political opponent.

Karunanidhi, the unprincipled and power-crazy politician that he is, can rightly be expected to play any dirty trick to tarnish the image of his political enemy. But, by this over-enthusiastic reaction in self-righteousness, this criminal misuse of governmental power in a devilish violence on a revered Acharya, she has demonstrated that she has absolutely no respect for the cherished values of this land at all. She has thus revealed more than her culpability for the nasty game played on her.

Karunanidhi deserves to be congratulated for appearing as what he is, having frankly expressed his undisguised glee over the arrest of the Acharya, true to the demonic hero that he is. His questioning of the delay in arresting the Acharya goes well with the insincerity that he alleges in Jayalalithaa's action, which is true if and as she shares the criminality attributed to the Acharya. He, a self-centred and crafty politician that he is, did not want the credit of this arrest to go to her, and hence has picked holes in her self-eulogising vanity and pride in this action. It is her duplicity that puts her in inconvenience. Also, there is absolutely no ground for her to bemoan his wild allegation on the indecent treatment meted out to the Acharya, as he is a proclaimed defamer of hers. He outsmarted her in her game of outwitting him, establishing his superiority over her in witchcraft. Karunanidhi is consistent in his dirty politics whereas Jayalalithaa, with the false mask of principled politician on her face, failed to truly perform the art. Thus one good result that has immediately fallen out of this atrocity is the clash between the mutually hostile co-perpetrators for the spoils thereof.

A still worse category of “public opinion”, who would praise both the gangsters, the competitive bidders in undignified politics, is the secular elite who are delighted that the enlightened public of this country is unconcerned about the big hue and cry being made by the Hindutva forces over the issue, as is demonstrated by the cold response to the VHP's call for a Bharat bandh. They are people capable of taking only the demonic and monstrous expressions, which they call demonstrations, as the public opinion. They have become so benumbed to finer feelings of noble human existence that they cannot feel the bruised heart of a Hindu nation that is now under the tyrannical repression by the so-called secular anti-nation forces.

The Hindu loves peace, and true to its tradition, expects the rulers to honour the sustaining values. Their hopes are belied. Forces of adharma are reigning over the country. It is time for the forces of Dharma to rise up to protect Dharma. This awareness is the valuable outcome of this happening. Our tradition is that Dharma is above everything —above State power and above the law. We have to regain this tarnished glory of Dharma by making sure that the mutts and other Hindu religious institutions are abodes of Dharma for whose protection the whole nation will rise up in one voice. It is time that these institutions should dictate the rule in the country.

Anticipating such a resurgence, the forces of darkness have started crying wolf that the BJP is going back to the politics of hard core Hindutva. If the BJP really does it they will become dear to the nation. It is not that BJP is going back to hard core Hindutva. Hindutva, out of necessity, is expanding into politics also. It is an expansion of the dharmic Hindus space in the nation and the shrinking of the adharmic.

(The writer can be contacted at IV/90, GCDA Road, Thottakkatukara, Aluva 683 108, Kerala.)