Tarun Vijay

Barack Obama, us and the US

India will have to fight its own battles. It cannot expect the US to help us fight them.

Two kinds of people are complaining about Barack Obama’s Asia tour. One, those Americans who have been seeing America in the George W Bush mould for too long. They get depressed about a placid president and hence describing his Asia visit as ‘timid’ or too yielding to China.

They would have loved an Obama chiding the Chinese and demanding a human rights commission on Tibet . Obama didn’t oblige them. He needed a facelift for the US and tried his best.

In the second category of people, we stand out brightly. We like others to do our unfinished jobs. It is not amazing to see Indian cry babies complaining too much that Obama didn’t do enough for us. We forget he is the president of the United States and his first and foremost duty is to serve her interest and not ours.

And he did well for the US in his first Asia tour that took him to Japan, Singapore, China and South Korea in nine days — with the maximum time being spent in China, the Asian superpower who spoke to the White House with an erect spine and received a warm hug.

In fact, Obama is the first US president after a long time who presented the image of an amiable, friendly and accessible head of a superpower that had otherwise become synonymous with crude diplomacy laced with military adventurism during the Bush era.

In Japan Obama won a standing ovation when he presented his Pacific connection story — a very personal and a touching one indeed. And in China his descent from Air Force One alone holding an umbrella amidst Shanghai’s first rains won him instant fans.

If Obama has won another friend for Washington, why should we complain if our leaders are on a spree to lose all and bend backwards for an audience with a queen or an alien benefactor?

Americans are a patriotic people who elect leaders with a spine, never compromising national security and always honouring their security forces.

If we don’t do that, should we be complaining about it to the White House? Or should we set our own house right?

Here is a nation that doesn’t honour its soldiers and keeps negotiating with traitors. We are a State that doesn’t care about its farmers till they block Delhi’s roads. We get enmeshed in hot money pursuits stashed in places like Laos and Liberia, and no one believes the culprit will ever get punished.

Who knows if a Koda or a Reddy will get 20 plus MPs in the next election and be inducted as the Cabinet minister in charge of internal security?

We kow-tow disoriented before the most horrendous of jihad sponsors and keep inviting murderers for talks and talks and then again talks for decades without resolving the main issues of contention.

Then, one fine morning, when we see the leader of a strong nation discussing our problems with his counterpart, we feel oh, why has he not helped us solve our problems with China? And with Pakistan? And while we have signed a nuke deal, why should it put pressure on us to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty too?

The US did what it did because that is what it thought was good for it. Obama is not ruling the US to ensure India benefits. Is that clear?

And look how our leaders, the great, patriotic, democratic representatives of this land behave. Here is a ‘certificate, which I quote from a national daily: ‘Vice-chief of the Indian Air Force, Air Marshal P K Barbora, said, “Politicians cutting across party lines are upsetting armed forces modernisation and procurement programmes.” He further added, “The fact remains that the IAF’s fleet of fighter aircraft is getting depleted. The navy’s submarine strength is dwindling and the army has not added a new gun to its heavy artillery in more than 20 years. The weapons, ammunition and systems with the armed forces are getting outdated faster than the government is able to replace them. Irresponsible politics over the years, sometimes when a party is in government or sometimes when it is in the Opposition — it has all along been seen that whenever the government of the day clears something, the Opposition says no. This badly impinges (on the preparedness) of the defence (forces),” he said.’

Do we need more to complain to Obama?

Now that our prime minister is in the US, guess what the ‘biggest’ secret that the wizards of the PM’s media advisors doled out just before Dr Singh left for the US was. Some gems from a news agency report: ‘As the silence fuelled speculation, the White House finally broke the silence to let out the closely guarded secret saying that the dinner would be held under the massive tent instead of the ornate state dining room. The tent option has been picked up as the guest list mushroomed and instead of 120 which the ornate room can accommodate, the Obamas are inviting close to 400 people for their first state dinner on November 24.’

That’s all we need. Khana peena aur ghoomna (food, drink and travel). Be happy that Obama is giving a lavish dinner to not just 120, but to 400 of all the important, leading Indian lights of American life. Is that a mean achievement?

The US and China know what they want. China made the US accept its significant role in Asia, turned India into an area to be watched, controlled and helped to stay calm while remaining friendliest with Pakistan.

Both the US and China do not recognise Kashmir as a part of India. They look at the area as an unsettled matter, help Pakistan with dollars and military help, turn a blind eye towards Pakistan using their arms and grants against us, have done nothing to help India post 26/11, have refrained to tell Islamabad to stop its patronage to anti-India elements.

One of them attacked India in 1962; the other had remained a silent spectator then. Even so our analysts and Washington watchers feel at least now the US should help us. Wow!

When we are left to our own, we do better.

Obama postponed his meeting with the Dalai Lama before his China visit. We stood firm and allowed the Dalai Lama to go to Arunachal Pradesh. We trusted the US, inked a controversial nuke deal and hence invited China’s bitter reaction expressed through its Arunachal raga, almost reminding of a cold war. The US did not even smile as if this doesn’t concern it. And naturally so. Why should our spondylitis make the US lie low?

We have got to deal with the US on our own strength and de-link relations with China from Washington and the Dalai Lama. If we have to save Arunachal, it would be done on the shoulders of leaders in Delhi who have a spine and a will to raise the military strength to a winnable level. Not that we have to increase the numbers of fighter jets and submarines and nuke bombs to what Beijing possess.

Wars are not won by exchanging lists, but by the fierce resolve to destroy the enemy with a first strike mental make-up.

As one American commentator put it succinctly, ‘Overall, Obama’s Asia policy has been largely driven by events and domestic priorities rather than by an over-arching strategic vision. The Obama team had to closely coordinate with China on financial matters in response to the financial crisis.’

Hence, Obama won’t care about India’s case on Kashmir or rescuing Aung San Suu Kyi, leave aside helping the Dalai Lama to get back to Tibet honourably. His priorities are different.

Feeling euphoric seeing Obama hiring a few Americans with Indian faces on his team make no sense. They would be overburdened to ensure nobody blames them emotionally helping India crossing lines of American interest.

After all, Washington didn’t allow Indian intelligence officers to question David Coleman Headley arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation on charges of plotting terror attacks in India though India had allowed the FBI to interrogate Ajmal Kasab, the lone terrorist held in the 26/11 Mumbai attacks.

The US hasn’t yet taken Indian companies, including the Indian Space and Research Organisation, off the blacklist prohibiting US agencies dealing with them. It is pressurising India to sign the CTBT without considering that we are surrounded by two nuke powers hostile to us.

The US didn’t help us in 1962, bullied us in 1971, put hurdles in our way to punish Pakistan post Kargil, thus helping Islamabad’s dictator, didn’t take up our case post 26/11.

Washington — or for that matter any superpower — respects those who have strength and show an unyielding attitude.

Till we have such rulers who choose a date like 26/11 to be in Washington, rather than being in Mumbai comforting the nation, we can’t stop greater powers meddling in our region and affairs.

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Every Indian language is a great one

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Why India needs the BJP?

The ideology that the Bharatiya Janata Party represents and its pan Indian appeal makes it an important cog in our democracy, argues Tarun Vijay

In a nation where most of the political parties are known by the names of their ‘owners’ turning the political process into a kind of family fiefdom, the existence of a party that still runs on democratic norms and represents a completely different ethos, must be valued as a need of the society. That is the Bharatiya Janata Party. It is useless to indulge in the contemporary dichotomies and scuffles that mar its current framework.

These are trivialities and have been a part of every political party, including the Jan Sangh that saw much bitter scenes involving top guns even when that was hardly as strong as its new avatar the BJP has become.

The basic question is — do we have a future for a party that symbolises Hindu aspirations and civilisational rejuvenation through political instruments and acts as a part of a larger saffron brotherhood that has grown stronger by each year since its emergence in 1925?

Suppose if there was no Jan Sangh or the BJP there would have been no Kashmir movement, no demands to scrap two flags and two constitutional provisions for an Indian state and abolishing two Constitutional heads system for it. Who would have taken up the cause of an invincible Indian security and carried out the Pokaran II nuclear tests while preparing for Pokaran III?

The last millennium saw the foreign attacks on Bharat that is India and the target of these barbaric assaults were essentially the Hindu population and their temples. The truncated independence should have given them the highest freedom to flower and come to their own as a free and fearless nation would have honoured the great spirit of resistance that made Allama Iqbal write ‘Kuch baat hai ki hasti mit-ti nahin hamaari (There is something extraordinary that we — the civilisation — survived centuries of assaults)‘.

But after the massacres during Partition/independence in Calcutta, Noakhali, Muzaffarabad and Rawalpindi, Hindus got the secular marginalisation and a State apparatus that looked down at anything representing their age old-bruised ethos. That is why to uphold the dignity of being a Hindu and ensure equal attitude of the State for every citizen without any discrimination on the basis of caste or religion, the Jan Sangh was founded in 1951. The principles were unity in diversity, one nation, one culture and one people and justice to all, appeasement of none.

At the first all India session of the Bharatiya Jan Sangh, its founder president Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee had said, ‘India has been for centuries past the homeland of diverse people pursuing different faiths and religions. The need to preserve and respect the personal laws of such people especially in matters of religion and fundamental social obligations is undoubted. In all matters concerning the rights and duties of citizenship as such, there must be complete equality for all. We must be able to carry all sections of the people with us by creating in their minds a healthy and progressive attitude of co-operation based on true equality of opportunity and mutual tolerance and understanding. Our party’s door remains open to all who believe in our programme and ideology irrespective of considerations of caste and religion.’

‘Our party,’ he added, ‘believes that the future progress of India must be based on a natural synthesis between its full economic advance and the development of mind and character of the people in accordance with the highest traditions of Indian culture and civilization. The political freedom that we have achieved will be meaningless without economic freedom. It is a tragedy that a vast country such as India, with its almost limitless resources and raw materials, should be steeped in poverty, disease, ignorance and degradation. Our party believes that without plunging the country into the vortex of violent chaos and conflict, it should be possible for us to readjust the conditions of our economic life so as to bring to an end a shameful era of exploitation and silent human suffering.’

Without mincing any words he declared, ‘Our party though, ever prepared to extend its hand of equality to all citizens, does not feel ashamed to urge for the consolidation of Hindu society, nor does it suffer from an inferiority complex to acknowledge proudly that the great edifice of Indian culture and civilization, which had stood the test of thousands of years, has been built, most of all by the labour, sacrifice and wisdom of Hindu sages, savants and patriots throughout the chequered history of our motherland. We are not so mean as to forget that in this gigantic process our country came into contact and conflict with many foreign races and ideologies and our great ancestors had the courage to fashion and refashion the country’s structure in accordance with new ideas and with the changed conditions of our society. If India’s freedom is to be purposeful, a correct appreciation of the fundamental features of Indian culture — the discovery of that unity in diversity, which is the keynote of her civilization — is highly essential.’

These lengthy quotations are essential to understand the real purpose behind the BJP, which has accepted Dr Mookerjee and Deen Dayal Upadhyaya as its sources of inspiration showing the ideological path.

In pre-Partition days, the independence movement essentially drew from Hindu nationalist symbols and writings expressed through Mahatma Gandhi’s Ram Rajya, Sri Aurobindo’s Bhawani Bharati concept which saw India as Durga incarnate and declared Sanatan Dharma as the nationality of India, Vivekananda, Lokmanya Tilak, and Subhas Bose. They were all deeply Hindu spiritual personalities who espoused the cause of freedom, liberty, equality and democracy.

There was less ideological apartheid that we see today and newspapers like The Hindu and The Hindustan Times were not looked down just because they bore a word Hindu and parties like the Hindu Mahasabha, Ram Rajya Parishad etc were in the mainstream without experiencing any kind of ‘ideological untouchability’.

It’s only after Independence under the influence of Nehruvian left-to-centre policies that the assertive Hindus segment was sought to be humiliated and segregated.

In the contemporary political scene, the Congress, which once represented the federal liberal character of Hindu nationalist ideas advocating equality to all, has turned into a family oriented party where internal democratic process is completely subjugated to the wishes and whims of a supreme leader who also happens to be a family head. Except for the Communist parties and the BJP there is a hardly a party that is democratically run and controlled from the grassroot levels.

Hence, in spite of internal bickering and trivial issues cropping up, a party that was born post Independence representing a distinct ideology and programmes can only be a strengthening factor for democracy. Its amazing growth and power to rule the nation quite successfully have further added to its credibility. Those who oppose it must look at the fact sheet it has so far built — giving India the best of the highways, an IT and technological revolution, best run states in Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh and above all a credible opposition that has a vast acceptability at an all India level, giving a pan India character to the polity.

The poet who wrote, ‘Gagan mein laharta hai bhagwa hamara (The saffron flies high in the sky)‘ became the most admired prime minister, the first genuinely non-Congress one and his regime saw the best of relations with neighbours. Atal Bihari Vajpayee allowed Pokaran II, yet maintained better ties with the US, China and Pakistan without compromising on national interest.

This party has another distinct feature — it can boast of a galaxy of national leaders who command a mass following unlike others who have none but their ‘eternally elected’ chiefs alone for the posters and platforms diminishing any second or third rank leadership.

And you don’t have to belong to a family or a family’s durbar to aspire for higher goals and posts in the party. Someone who was a village level worker and did his bit to gain acceptance could become party president and was never told, oh you don’t have a particular last name hence can rise this far and no further.

Pardon me if in this context, to clarify a bit more, I recall a Q&A session I had in China where I was asked in a university by students – ‘What’s the use of your democracy if it can’t deliver? See Bihar and Orissa and UP’s rural areas and farmers suicides? We may not be having the democracy you like to ape from the West but our one party system is delivering fine.’

I was not surprised. The value of democracy can be understood only when you lose it after enjoying its fruits. I simply said, even with half filled stomachs and often self defeating noises, we prefer freedom more than a totalitarian regime guaranteeing prosperity to all.

Liberty can have no alternative. And that’s exactly the most powerful factor that makes the BJP indefatigable and invincible. The party’s inner core promises to rise like a Phoenix if the outer shell fails to translate the ideals it was born to achieve.

It may look a bit preposterous to say these high pedestal things when the party is making news not for some happy reasons. It is sad, but it will pass. The party is not built by those who were adherents of a family, but by those small yet strongly committed young hearts who built it on their shoulders because they shared a vision and a dream.

I have seen three generations working together, first for the Jan Sangh and then for its new avatar, the BJP. They never aspired to make it big in Delhi but from Silchar to Shimoga and Doda to Port Blair, they have been working. These workers are the strength of the party and not those who make big speeches and then wash dirty linen in the media. They must be powered and their moral needs to be boosted by a united commitment to principles leaders claim they accept.

Today these workers have emerged taller because they have lived the ideals espoused by Deen Dayal Upadhyaya who had merged his identity with the common cadre and lived by his principles through his own life’s example. He gave the alternative ideology of integral humanism before the two alien ones namely capitalism and communism. That almost supplements and complements Gandhi’s Hind Swarajya whose hundredth year is passing so unceremoniously in the raj of the ‘Gandhis’.

It is this perfectly ideological rock of our civilisation represented by the BJP in politics that India needs fervently.

http://news.rediff.com/column/2009/aug/21/why-india-needs-the-bjp.htm

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Elect those who choose India as life-force

Surrounded by failed States and terror dens, India needs a strong leadership that will not hesitate to take punitive action against the erring State or non-State ‘player’ and organise the strength to withstand a spillover. Wars and inner conflicts are not won with machines. You got to have a heart that’s firm and courageous. The war machine’s role is secondary.

India was never so vulnerable and foolishly spineless as it stands today. Not because we do not have the power to defend our people and land but because of a leadership that’s a delight of the alien invaders and petty boat infiltrators. Our leaders join politics to earn money and sell conscience — they have no credentials except to boast of a family name or caste and muscle power. We have a galaxy of non-political leadership but that too boot polishes the nincompoop rulers in search of reflected glory. These holy men and women are so detached from the realities of their nation’s pains and agonies that they go on a six-month long world tour for establishing peace in Palestine and Iraq and show off their pictures in the galleries of the United Nations as proof of their expanding influence. And surely they get quite a number of gullible people to believe they are great.

And we are increasingly surrounded by a Nepal, once a Hindu nation and now a threat for Hindu survival. We have a Pakistan and Bangladesh that have bled us continuously for the last three decades of intermittent terror wars — Khalistan, Operation Topac, the jihad in Kashmir and the ignominious forced exodus of Kashmiri Hindus.

We have lost more than 60,000 Indians in terror attacks directly sponsored and encouraged by Pakistan — whether its army or Inter Services Intelligence or the sheepish conspiratorial silence of their leaders, only the naive would make a difference and absolve the culprits. The simple arithmetic is that Pakistan, a creation of intense hate against Hindus, has always felt a sadistic pleasure at our discomfiture. It’s the very basic element of Pakistan that has not let us live in peace since August 14, 1947.

But we refuse to see history and continue to lose geography.

Post-1947, we have lost more than 1.25 lakh square kilometres of land to Pakistan and China and Indian Parliament had passed a unanimous resolution to take the lost land back.

But not a single political party would dare to mention in its election manifesto that if voted to power it would strive its hardest possible to implement Parliament’s resolve.

Why?

Cats would remain cats unless they are born as tigers.

The last 100 years has seen India shrinking to half and the Hindu population being overwhelmed by a demographic invasion that hates to see Hindu dominance in any sphere of life. They have vanished from Kabul, Balochistan, Pakhtunistan, Multan and Dhaka, humiliated in Kathmandu, killed, converted and incapacitated in Sri Lanka, turned invisible in Sindh, Rawalpindi, Lahore  and Chittagong, driven out of their last bastion in the saffron valley and increasingly reduced in Nagaland, Arunacahal, Mizoram and Jammu. And we fight over sackfuls of currency notes as we saw during trust vote on the nuke deal and are busy winning votes through dramas like a night’s stay in a Dalit home.

That’s India of today — reduced to an Orwellian play by murderers and bribe-seekers who are again seeking an entry to Parliament by investing huge chunks of money.

There are those who still believe that Pakistan will, or it can, or it may become brotherly to us. Perhaps Uncle Sam, now Chacha Obama, will help.

Even Gods refuse to help such worms.

Elect those who at least know a little bit of India and love her people. A leader that wouldn’t hesitate to serve from South Block even if it means incurring personal monetary loss, but inspiring newcomers to stand and live proudly on their earnings through labour and merit. Living on peoples’ money must come to an end. Forget the temples, mosques and churches for a while and just concentrate on two basic factors, removing illiteracy and bringing every fellow Indian above the poverty line with a one-year period as deadline. It has to be on a real war footing to make up for the losses due to a lethargic, vision less and self-serving leadership.

Trust me, we can do it if we have the will. Have courses in science, mathematics, engineering and technology upgraded, spread out and quality marked. We terribly lack in the manufacturing sector because there is not enough engineering talent available. Even the best of engineering colleges are facing a serious dearth of proper faculty and it results in less than appropriately equipped students. It’s good to see a number of technology and engineering colleges, institutes and private universities that have sprung up in most of the cities and metros that must be the envy of even a developed nation. But are they really providing what they announce and do they have the right kind of facilities and infrastructure to produce credible graduates confident enough to start a swadeshi enterprise of world class standards?

If a post-World War America, Japan and Europe can rebuild their ravaged countries into models of modern development and human endeavour, why can’t we? Why can’t we set our own goals and standards that must make the most developed nation too follow us? Swami Vivekananda said all expansion is life and all contraction is death. Barring politics, we have shown the world the extraordinary capabilities and the astounding acumen to achieve the impossible in recent years. It happened, as is said, in spite of bad politicians. Let a new crop of good politicians take over Parliament and change its fossilised and stinking contours to a vibrant new hope commensurate with the professionalism being exhibited by Indians elsewhere.

And this is not at all age related but only needs a mind and heart that works for the nation.

And they must have the sinews to expand militarily unabashedly. India must show a will and the power to control her region. We are bled because of a meaningless large-heartedness that makes jihad factories on both sides of our territory send mercenary self-destructionist lunatics who kill and maim and destroy our people and city life. Bangladesh and Pakistan have got to be brought to their senses through instilling fear in them, a genuine and serious one. They have to be made to think twice before being silent or encouraging an anti-India terror policy. State policy makers must be clear in their mind that sometimes revenge is the only word the enemy understands and why must we not avenge the brutal killings of our patriotic citizens?

Hence choose those who choose India as their life-force and not just a platform for money making and dying like dirt. The choice is yours to practice in the coming elections.

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Is being Indian not enough?

Source Link: http://www.rediff.com/news/2008/feb/15guest.htm

February 15, 2008
I thought being an Indian is enough till I saw people being killed and ousted for not being Maharashtrian and contributing ‘appropriately’ for the cause of Maratha culture.

But how do I convert to their version of a good citizenship so that my existence in Mumbai and Nashik is not under threat?

First it’s difficult to explain to which state I really belong. My father hailed from Punjab and my mother came from Rajasthan. They settled down in a city, which was, then under UP, but has now become the capital of a newly created hill state. (more…)

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Tarun Vijay interview on rediff.com

‘If you sow the seed of poison you will reap hate’ -Tarun Vijay

‘Onkar Singh in New Delhi March 03, 2008 14:18 IST

Two decades ago Tarun Vijay was asked by then Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh sarsanghchalak Professor Rajendra Singh to edit Panchjanya, the RSS Hindi weekly. It was a job Vijay accepted gleefully as it coincided with his views of strengthening Hinduism.
On February 25, Vijay relinquished the editorship of Panchjanya to take over the directorship of the Bharatiya Janata Party think-tank, the Dr Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Research Foundation.
In an interview with Senior Associate Editor Onkar Singh in New Delhi, Vijay says the India of his dreams is one where everyone gets an opportunity to flower just like the Jews who found solace in India while they were being persecuted elsewhere in the world.
A journalist since 1976, he began his career with Russi Karanjia at the Mumbai-based tabloid Blitz and then as a freelance journalist for major dailies and magazines before spending five years as an RSS activist in the country’s tribal areas. He was the youngest member of the then home minister’s advisory committee during Indira Gandhi’s government before joining Panchjanya.
Former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee once said about him: ‘Tarunji looks small in physique, but his brilliance and sharp intellect, his logical writings make a deep, very deep impression on the readers.’
An avid photographer he has covered the Himalayan region extensively and his pictorial book An Odyssey in Tibet has been well received. His photographs on the river Indus had been exhibited in Bangalore, Chennai, New Delhi, Kolkata and Mumbai. He also led the first Indus expedition from Demchok to Batalik.Why is Indian society becoming so intolerant?
I must admit that intolerance is everywhere. This kind of apartheid is due to the Leftist influence in politics and the intellectual arena. Though Charvak spoke against the Vedas he was given a high pedestal of a Rishi by Indian society. He was called one of the six most exalted Rishis. So intolerance against other religions is an un-Indian attitude.
The Indian ethos believes in a million flowers and a million fragrances. The growing intolerance is because of jihadi assaults and the wrong policies of the government which thinks that anything that is linked to Hinduism has to be ignored. It pays to be a non-Hindu in India. There are endless examples like special universities for non-Hindus, special loans for a particular community. If non-Hindus are in trouble the government and the media gets perturbed.
Has the establishment ever thought of including Hindus in Kashmir in this list?
Do you think Hinduism is under attack?
Hinduism allowed all the religions of the world to flower in India. But now the very core of Hinduism is under attack. It is our responsibility to make society awaken to such dangers.
Are you saying that Hinduism must be strengthened?
Certainly so. We must have free and fair society which believes in coexistence, in Vasudeva Kutumbam (The world is one family).
Do you believe that the BJP has a chance to win the next general election?
The present atmosphere gives us hope that the BJP will come to power in the next Lok Sabha election provided the party continues to stick to its ideological moorings. I feel that people have trust in the party. It is a party which believes and propagates the nationalist ideology.
Did the BJP commit a mistake by giving up the Ram Mandir issue?
The construction of a Ram temple is a one hundred per cent certainty. Whether the BJP does it or someone else does it is hidden in the future. The Hindu is the first enemy of Hindu issues. The Ganga is polluted by Hindus. The majority of cow slaughter houses are run by Hindus. Many exporters who export meat including beef are Hindus. Those who give reservation to non-Hindus are Hindus. They find it politically beneficial to assault Hindu issues. This situation has to be reversed.
And this can be done only through Hindu reforms. We must show Hindu solidarity which is the key to most of the problems that we face today. Those who visit temples do not keep them clean. People do not ensure that the priests recite the right shlokas and that the pronunciation is correct. We have to ensure that the priests do not loot pilgrims. This is a kind of reform that has to come from within.
The youth of today must take the initiative and we cannot blame others.
Hindu solidarity is not against any minority and it would be beneficial to all minorities including Christians and Muslims. It is for the national good.
Are you turning into a hardliner once again?
To be a Hindu one is essentially liberal. My liberalism is inherent in being a Hindu. It is part and parcel of my Hindu religion. I would like everyone to share this thought including Muslims and Christians. According to me, if water and education is not provided to everyone and if the women are not empowered there is no Hindutva — it means that every citizen of India, whichever religion he may belong, achieves progress.
What was the RSS’s reaction when Mr Vajpayee announced that he was going to Lahore in 1999?
We were the first to welcome it and I was invited to join the party. Nawaz Sharif, then the prime minister of Pakistan, was there to receive the Indian prime minister. Pakistan has been created on the basis of hate and this must go. Pakistan should not be Arab-centric. This is civilisational disorientation in Pakistan. India and Pakistan have the same roots and just because we worship God or Allah should not make us enemies.
What is your solution to the problems faced by the BJP?
Any organisation needs water to bind it and the answer lies is Bhagwakaran (saffronisation). India’s greatness would lie in Vidya (knowledge) and Charitra (character) , Rajju Bhaiya (Professor Rajendra Singh) once told me. I believe he had a point.
My job is to have a manthan (discussion) where both friends and those who do not subscribe to our theory can come together.
Can you emerge from the shadow of leaders like Mr Vajpayee and Mr Advani?
I don’t have to. In fact, I do not even think in such terms. I am fortunate that these stalwarts are there to guide me. My post may be director but I will be a student seeking their advice, guidance. I will be providing inputs on ideology and governance. All policies would have to be looked at from our point of view and interpreted accordingly so that they can apply in the areas of their influence. We will be setting up chairs in the name of Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya in areas where our nationalism is being challenged and assaulted. This is a very critical period.
What about the nationalism of the kind that Raj Thackeray propagates?
If you sow the seed of poison you would reap the hardest of hate. The fragmented polity of the country provides this kind of space that further divides society and fragments it. It is beneficial to those who are looking for such opportunities to get votes.
In Jammu and Kashmir and the north eastern states you cannot buy land despite the fact that you are a citizen of India. Things like Article 370 create problems.

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