Arun Jaitley whom some consider to be the most level-headed person in Modi’s cabinet has put that reputation at stake by defending the indefensible and that is the PM’s inaction in not laying down the line to the lumpen elements within the BJP and their right-wing cohorts on the acts of intolerance towards eating beef and allowing unfettered freedom of expression in our society. Jaitley’s present reaction is an aggressive position attempting to cower down those that he is targeting. But here unfortunately Jaitley is mistaken and if he continues to refuse to see reality then it will be rather sad. The analogy in all this is that of a classroom where students will play mischief when the teacher is absent.
Thus if Modi had put his foot down after the Dadri incident then one hopes that the other incidents would not have taken place. These incidents that have taken place since and the killings of Kalburgi, Dabholkar and Pansare were needed to be properly condoled and their resolution addressed in the correct way which would have allowed the matters to be treated in the law and order domain. Similarly authors and other eminent personalities who have raised their voices against the creeping intolerance cannot be branded anti-Modi and anti-BJP.
Jaitley while speaking again fails to see the larger picture and continues to see the issue as bipolar, the BJP vs Congress, which it is not since the matters affect our society and the nation. This in fact is the way unfortunately that everyone in the BJP even the PM is looking at the matter because of their obsession to be the ‘opposition’ to the Congress. The BJP needs to realise that the people generally are in support of the BJP-led NDA government as long as it sticks to its tasks of governance but when it fails to address the atmosphere of distrust and intolerance that is being created by their own irregular elements then it will lose public support.
Again, Narendra Modi seems to be perennially in election mode while he is in India and does not seem to realize that after being more than a year in office, his penchant for blaming the previous government and the Congress does not hold water and it is time for him to show us what he can do. As said earlier it is time for the BJP to get its act together and the faster Jaitley & Co. realizes that, it will be better for India.
