The BJP uproar against Jaswant Singh for writing a book portraying Jinnah as the “good guy” seems everything that a democracy shouldn’t advocate. It’s expelled a leader for propagating his views, Mr. Modi has autocratically decided to ban the book in Gujarat and BJP top brass has gone ahead and called it “anti Hindutva”. Given that this reaction comes from one of two of India’s dominant political parties, it is indeed shameful and paints a rather sorry picture about India to people watching from the outside.
My point is that it’s probably all pre-planned and planted….
Some questions that may shed light on my theory –
Given that Jaswant Singh has been writing the book for a little over two years, wouldn’t any of the BJP leaders know about it before its release?
Wouldn’t they have done all in their might to stop the book from coming out if they so desperately wanted to?
Did Jaswant Singh expect the BJP to exercise restraint in their views on the book?
Did the old fogie really believe that Mr. Modi wouldn’t take a lashing at his topic unless held back by the party members?
After being in politics for 30 odd years and also knowing that Advani’s made a huge blunder pandering the Jinnah topic, would Mr. J. Singh still believe it’s a risk worth taking with his political career.
If you can answer all these questions, then you pretty much know what I am getting at.
The reality is that BJP from 2004 onwards, had gradually lost its sense of identity. The one plank that it stood for, Hindutva, was no longer theirs. And BJP had tried to moderate it’s stand on it through the planted Jinnah comments by Advani and the many attempts to woo the minorities. And all had failed.
They’d then and as was apparent in the 2009 elections, decided to return to their original Hindutva ideology. But they needed to do it fast, because a party having lost two elections, couldn’t afford anymore losses. And therein came the idea of Jaswant Singh’s book on Jinnah.
A man, who was in the twilight of his career and a BJP loyalist was asked to pen this “diluted” view of Jinnah being a more secular leader than many of our distinguished politicians of yore. His book and the outrage that followed within BJP ranks that led to his ouster from the party were all a part of a plan, a plan for BJP to, in one stroke, re-affirm it’s Hindutva stand. For Jaswant, there was the monetary benefit of the book becoming a bestseller (the best the party could do for him given that he would probably not be a part of the cabinet in five years).
The question arises – given Mr. Singh started writing the book a good two years back, what was the plan behind releasing it now? Why not before the elections…the answer probably is that they wouldn’t want one of their top leaders tainted just prior to the elections. The thought may well have been that if they did win, this would probably re-affirm their Hindutva stand again. And if they didn’t…well, this would be their “comeback” vehicle…
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