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Vajpayee's musings draw flak

By Our New Delhi Bureau

NEW DELHI JAN. 1. The Congress and the Left parties today criticised the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee's ``musings'' from Goa. The Congress took exception to the Prime Minister equating Hindutva with Indianness. ``We don't accept his equating the Hindutva of the bigoted mindsets with Indianness,'' said the party spokesperson, Anand Sharma.

He described ``Bhartiyata'' as ``all-inclusive, assimilative and full of compassion'' and contrasted it with the Hindutva which was a ``political manoeuvre used to distort a great culture for political ends''.

The Congress said that it would have been better if Mr. Vajpayee had used the ``Goa pulpit to warn of the presence of sinister-minded and foreign-funded forces. It would have been appropriate had the Prime Minister reassured the nation about using the powers of his Government to bring the VHP to book''.

The Left parties also criticised the musings, with the CPI saying that Mr. Vajpayee had ``tried hard to hoodwink the people'' and sell Hindutva as a legitimate and acceptable concept.

In a statement, the CPI central secretariat said the musings clearly reflected Mr. Vajpayee's `tradition of double-talk'. ``His invocations of the names of Tagore and Vivekananda are intended to deceive the people. By doing so, he has defended Hindutva as a Swayamsevak, which he claims he will remain ever''.

The party said Mr. Vajpayee had no mind to condemn the Gujarat `pogrom'. As part of his ``routine trick'', he had created a new debate on secularism. ``Secularism always means separation of religion, be it Hinduism or Islam, from State politics and education. Any other interpretation of secularism is deceptive and is a justification of the hate campaign against the minorities,'' the statement said.

In a subtle way, the Prime Minister, had presented his musings on the basis of his understandings of Golwalkar and Veer Savarkar.

Not naming the RSS and the VHP itself shows where his sympathy lies, the CPI said.

``The musings of the Prime Minister are part of a calculated strategy to mislead the people and to bring Hindutva, be it hard or soft, in the focus of debate. The Prime Minister wants to avoid debate on real socio-economic issues,'' the party said.

Echoing similar views, the CPI(M) politburo member, S. Ramachandran Pillai, said the musings contained nothing new and charged the Prime Minister with ``trying to confuse the people''.

There had always been a division of work between the BJP, the RSS/Sangh Parivar affiliates such as the VHP, with one speaking a harsh language and the other taking a softer line. ``They speak in different voices,'' he said.

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