Senior Congress leader and ‘on bail’ MP Shashi Tharoor has stated recently that if BJP sweeps majority in the next Lok Sabha elections, India will become a ‘Hindu Pakistan’. According to reports, the MP, who is now on bail after charges of allegedly abetting his third wife Sunanda Pushkar’s alleged suicide, stated during an event in Thiruvananthapuram that if the Bharatiya Janata Party manages to repeat 2014 like success in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections and gets a two-thirds majority in Rajya Sabha too, it will change the constitution and convert India into a ‘Hindu Pakistan’.
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Though Congress and its leaders are known for their derogatory remarks and false equivalences, they also have the tendency to stand by defending their statements with impunity. Following the footsteps of their party President Rahul Gandhi, who blames the BJP and RSS for everything under the blue sky, painting the BJP, PM Modi and the RSS as devils is the favourite hobby for Congress leaders. The irony that they so conveniently forget that it was their party which ruled the country for most of its post-independence existence is not lost on anyone.
Congress, however, has a special proclivity towards Pakistan. No, by Congress’ Pakistan affinity, I do not mean Mani Shankar Aiyer’s famous request of ‘unhe hataiye, humein le ayiye’ while he was visiting the country. Congress is inspired from Pakistan at a deeper, stronger level. Their behaviour has been a subtle, slow reflection of Pakistan’s ideologies.
It is not at all surprising that not only Tharoor stood firmly by his remarks, but even his party refused to openly condemn it. They just gave an excuse that the remarks were made in Tharoor’s personal capacity. Deeply hateful, derogatory and shameful remarks towards a democratically elected Prime Minister like PM Modi has become a thing of the past for Congress. Now they have brazenly started to make such remarks against their own country. Most Indians would feel that equating India to the failed state of Pakistan is shameful, but not for Congress. Pakistan is what inspires them, the principles and ideologies that are followed in Pakistan run through the veins of Congress.
Pakistan is a failed state. It was formed purely on the basis of hatred and one man’s hubris. The hatred that manifested its corrupted legacy to the subsequent generations of its people has been consuming the country from within. Nurturing terrorists in its own backyard, directing all its policies and international stand only towards maligning and hurting India, allowing Islamic terrorists to prosper and eventually take reigns of power and letting generations after generations of its own countrymen succumb at the mercy of Islamic terror breeding propagandists has brought the country into a demographic, intellectual, economic and social ruin. If one looks closely, the actions a political direction of Congress, in many of its policies and tendencies has been a shadow of that mentality.
Pakistan is a poor, withered, ruined shadow of the democracy it pretends to be. It is controlled by its power-hungry military and Islamic clerics who have happily thrown its population under tenets of sharia law, depravity and disease for their personal ambitions and political benefits. Let us have a look at what Congress has done or attempted to do with Indians.
Recently, the All India Muslim Personal Law Board demanded that it wants sharia courts in all districts of the country, a notion that has no constitutional validity and poses a grave threat to India’s justice system. Sharia courts will mean a parallel justice system that more than 14.2% (according to 2011 census) of India’s population (Muslims) will be subjected to. A system that allows child marriage, polygamy and has provisions for rapists to go free by paying money, and Nikah-Halala. When individuals and political leaders from all over the country expressed shock over such a notion, guess who came out in support of it, Congress. Hamid Ansari, Congress leader and ex-Vice President of the country stated that Muslims have the right to have sharia courts. A party that brings ‘threats to democracy and constitution’ on every drop of a hat is ok with the idea of a quasi-judicial religious body run its own courts and have its own laws inside a democratic country.
The abhorrent and barbaric practice of Female Genital Mutilation that has subjected 200 million women worldwide to an extremely painful, traumatic and hazardous process was recently challenged in the Supreme Court by a group of women. Practised by the Indian Muslim community of Dawoodi Bohras, this practice traumatises thousands of little girls every year. The person defending the practice claiming it is the religious right of Muslims to cut and bleed the genitals of little girls was Congress leader and lawyer Abhishek Manu Singhvi. Ironically, Shashi Tharoor, who has himself spoken against the practice, never considered to condemn or question his party colleague for defending this practice. Apparently, for Congress, the constitution and human rights are never in danger when their own people pose risks to its very fundamentals.
Democracy is a joke in Pakistan. In years of its existence, political leaders in Pakistan have been shot, hanged, bombed and exiled after military coups. More often than not, the country is run by a puppet placed by its military leadership who is bullied and manoeuvred around by Islamic clerics. Minority Hindus, Sikhs and Christians are persecuted, tortured and sentenced to death by its dubious and partial blasphemy laws. The irony is Congress has left no stone unturned to make a mockery of democracy itself. Mani Shankar Aiyer hailed Pakistan and sought its help to bring down a democratically elected government in India. It is Congress that has persecuted and victimised individuals for exercising their freedom of expression. It has hounded, persecuted and victimised people for criticising its leadership and politics. And how often has Congress rejected the outcome of democracy because they were not the ones elected? How close is that mentality to Pakistan, where democracy is but a tool in the hands of the ISI?
Indian media has a very fleeting memory when it comes to Congress. Though it is very keen to recall every random incident to malign BJP, it has very conveniently forgotten the darkest phase for India’s democracy and constitution, the emergency, which was the gift of Congress. If India has ever come close to becoming like Pakistan, it was the 21 months from June 1975 to March 1977. Indira Gandhi had shredded every democratic value, conscience and ideology into pieces when she forced the nation into the dark era of emergency. Publications were shut down, journalists were gagged and opposition leaders were put behind bars for her own personal ambitions. The fact that a leader from the same party is preaching about the constitution and its sanctity is the only thing more ironic than Indira’s descendants and the direct benefactors of her legacy calling PM Modi a dictator. In its years of power, it is the Congress which has damaged, mocked and changed the constitution to satisfy its aim.
In his haste to blame BJP for trying to create a Hindu Rashtra, Mr Tharoor even forgot how his own party has very recently gone into every possible path to subvert and mock the judiciary. Not only Congress and its leadership have called every decision by the Supreme Court ‘biased and BJP-controlled’ whenever it is unfavourable for one of their own, they had stooped into a new low when the party tried its best to pass an impeachment motion against the Chief Justice of India.
The idea of BJP being harmful to India’s democracy and the constitution is laughable, especially considering the way Congress and its Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi treated Shah Bano, a poor, old women who became a victim of triple talaq and whose democratic rights were blatantly stripped away because Rajiv Gandhi’s government was more keen to appease the sharia abiding AIMPLB than honouring judiciary and constitution. Choosing Muslim appeasement over Indian justice system, going to great lengths to appease sharia supporters, persecuting and harassing dissenters, subverting the democratic process and throwing away the nation’s best interests for narrow political gains, if all of that sounds like something that happens in Pakistan, Congress has done it all in India itself.
Pakistan loves its terrorists. And often, it blames the ‘Yindoo Baniyas’ of fomenting terror while feeding milk to the Kalashnikov wielding snakes. Guess who else thought the Hindus are more dangerous than terrorists of the Lashkar-e-Taiyyaba? Of course, Rahul Gandhi. A WikiLeaks confirmed that Rahul Gandhi thought “Hindu Extremists” are more dangerous than LeT. It was the Congress that worked hard to further the “Hindu Terror” narrative. It was the Congress that exonerated Pakistan and worked hard to implicate Col Purohit and Sadhvi Pragya. It was Congress that wanted Pakistan off the hook, and Hindus be branded terrorists.
Pakistan would love to see India broken into pieces. It is their official policy. Now, do we remember Rahul Gandhi supporting the ‘Tukde Tukde Gang’ in the name of freedom of expression? Do we remember P Chidambaram wanting “autonomy for Kashmir”? Pakistan wants to tear India in the name of caste. Do we remember Rahul fomenting Dalit troubles? Do we recall the letter that surfaced that said Congress was to provide funds, arms and legal help to Maoists? Do we remember the caste trouble during Padmaavat and how Congress was at the helm? Pakistan maligns the Indian Army. Do we remember Congress asking for proof of surgical strike, thereby maligning our forces?
Without even going into the details of massive corruption charges that the Congress leaders have against them, (another similarity to Pakistan), the very tendencies and intentions of the party make it clear that their claims of the sanctity of the constitution and democracy are an empty rhetoric. It is the ‘Hindu’ BJP, which they so love to paint as communal evil, that has first made the injustice called triple talaq a criminal offence. It is the Hindu-BJP that is now pushing to ban the abhorrent practices of nikah halala and polygamy. The Hindu-BJP that has stood up against FGM. The same BJP that Congress has painted as regressive and patriarchal is now helping to bring down section 377 that criminalises gay sex, something Congress failed to do in all its years of power and, in fact, they upheld 377.
Tharoor’s idea of Hinduism and the imaginary dangers he and his party men perceive from a Hindu Rashtra are beyond the scope of this article. But the Congress and their supportive media should realise that repeating a lie in polished English will not make it the truth. A democracy is the will and power of its people. The people of India have decided to throw the Congress out of power and have elected BJP with an overwhelming mandate. No amount of EVM-blaming, conspiracy howling and propaganda peddling will hide the truth that Congress was rejected by the people of India.
Whether the BJP will repeat its 2014 victory or not is again in the hands of the people, but it is high time that Congress and its leaders realise that undermining the popular mandate and passing blatant appeasement as ‘secularism’ will not work anymore. If they begin introspecting their faults and address the real issues that are holding the party from winning elections, maybe they will realise that blaming EVMs and proclamations of threats to the constitutions will no longer fool Indians.
