Who is afraid of India? Not Bangladesh!

Winter is here. And the Winter Session of Parliament. It got off last Monday (25.11.2024) to a rocky start. Pandemonium prevailed and both Houses were adjourned within minutes of commencement. I had expected this.

Congress being the single largest party among the I.N.D.I. Alliance in both the Houses, the Leader of the Opposition (LoP) in both the Houses are from Congress — Rahul Gandhi in the Lok Sabha and Mallikarjun Kharge in the Rajya Sabha.

I will not be surprised if this Winter Session of the Parliament is washed out without any contribution from the Opposition with some entertainment to the citizens of the country and also disappointment.

Having seen LoPs during Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru’s days and a few during the early years of Indira Gandhi, the present LoPs look and sound like an apology for a good Parliamentary performance and culture.

This was best explained to an audience at a TV programme by our Finance Minister Mrs. Nirmala Sitharaman. Of course, Rahul Gandhi is not taken seriously even by a commoner except by those in Congress.

According to Mrs. Nirmala Sitharaman, he will be a poor LoP, apparently, because she has seen his performance in the Lok Sabha earlier. His dress, demeanour, the way he speaks, his sitting posture with one hand thrown over the back of the seat…! Once, in the past, we remember him walking across to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and hugging him in the Parliament. Speaking about Rahul Gandhi in the Parliament in a casual but careful way, Mrs. Sitharaman bent forward from her seat covering her face with both her palms. It was not difficult for the viewer to make his inference about what she thought of Rahul Gandhi as an MP and the Leader of  the Opposition. Let it be.

As for Mallikarjun Kharge, it is explained in a top-corner space of the editorial page of Deccan Herald (DH) dated Nov. 27, 2024, under the title ‘Speak Out.’ Mallikarjun Kharge was quoted as saying, “The votes cast by SCs, STs and OBCs in our favour are disappearing. We need to get rid of EVMs… We need ballot papers…” He concludes: BJP will then know where they stand. Now the sting is in the tail provided by Samuel Beckett and quoted by DH: “There’s man all over for you, blaming on his boots the fault of his feet.”

If Democracy is to survive and, more importantly, serve the people, it MUST have a strong Opposition. The present I.N.D.I. Alliance has highly qualified, experienced and eloquent speakers like Shashi Tharoor, P. Chidambaram, Gaurav Gogoi and may be some others, but they are not given opportunity to speak in the Parliament. All things considered, for India of today we need two Pan-Indian Political Parties like in America, England, Germany and France, for example. Fortunately, we have them — Congress and BJP. In addition, there will inevitably be local and regional political parties. So be it. They will, when need be, act like the antidote for the Union Government’s discriminatory policy towards the States.

Now let me introspect about what is happening in our neighbouring Bangladesh under its newly-invented President Muhammad Yunus. Present generation of young Indians will have to be educated about its creation, why and how of it, India’s role and sacrifice for its birth and how the successive governments of Bangladesh conducted themselves with their SAVIOUR thereafter. Specially after the Founder of Bangladesh, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, without a sense of gratitude, was mercilessly assassinated.

Since then, violence has become that country’s culture. Specially towards the minorities, particularly Hindus. And it was our Hindu soldiers who fought the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War alongside the Mukti Bahini, the local East Pakistan guerilla resistance forces.

My younger brother Lt. Col. K.B. Uthappa was a Major in the Indian Army then and was sent into the war zone not in uniform but in the dress of the Mukti Bahini, lungi and shirt or banian. We never heard of him for months till the war ended. I was in Pune and was wrongly informed that he was either missing or killed. However, all was well, when he returned. The adventures and horrors he narrated then, I remember now as I hear about what is happening to Hindus in Bangladesh!  What kind of people are they?

Now again Bangladesh is boiling. India has become its enemy. Hindus are hated and harassed. Their population of 28% in 1947 is reduced to 3% now, according to reports. Even that they can’t tolerate.

A prominent Hindu leader, an ISKCON Sanyasi, Chinmoy Krishna Das Brahmachari has been arrested and sent to jail by the Chattogram’s Magistrate of Bangladesh. Disrespecting Bangladesh Flag was one of the charges. Now compare this with disrespecting our Indian National Flag during the farmers’ protest in Delhi. What happened to the perpetrators of this wrong? We do not know.

India was considered a Soft State. It was for this reason Pakistan attacked us a number of times. We have Mumbai serial blasts and the 26.11.2008 terror attack; even our Parliament was attacked. Jammu and Kashmir’s elected rulers did not care a damn for the Union Government when the terrorists took away the life, liberty and property of the Hindu Kashmiri Pandits; drove them away and made them the refugees in their own country. Our Union Government remained like a mute, helpless spectator!

The image of India being a Soft State continues even under Modi as Prime Minister. Dissent, internal disturbances and attempts at destabilising the Constitutional Institutions are of serious concern. This, despite his and his party’s claim to the contrary. One sparrow does not make a summer. One surgical strike, or revenge attack on terrorists is not proof  of a Strong State.

Sanatana Dharma, Upanishad, says Awake and Act. It is an irony that when India under Indira Gandhi could save East Pakistan’s Bengali Muslims from the invading Pakistan army, India under Narendra Modi seems to be doing nothing to save the Bengali Hindus at a time like this.

One Indian Foreign Service envoy, now no more, told me that Indira Gandhi was a strong leader. She dealt with Pakistan and Khalistan Movement decisively and she would not have allowed the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits.

“Hindus and my Countrymen believe me, wherever you are, I will protect you from your persecutors,” should be the assurance of a decisive, daring true leader of India.

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