Wednesday, May 26, 2010
An open letter to Jaswant Singh
It may not be in public knowledge but the way you have taken up the matter of India /Pakistan partition and the role of Jinnah, and the way you were mistreated by your erstwhile party, the BJP, for supposedly committing the unpardonable sin of having a soft corner for Jinnah as a secular person, there has been a feeling in Muslims circles, that you could be a suitable candidate, in the same manner as Late V.P. Singh was, to lead all communities other than Brahmins, to chart a new coarse for India, that should try to wipe out the deep misapprehensions of the past and bring a fresh atmosphere in Indian politics, where the old Brahminical agenda appears to have run its coarse.
It is difficult for RSS and its political serfs, to ever get over their existential compulsions and usher India into a new future of unitedIndia, friendly and cooperating with its neighbours, as the core country to unite the subcontinent. Your reception in Pakistan, in Lahore and Karachi, on the occasion of the release your book in both politically aware cities of Pakistan, gives a hint that your bona fide as a genuine votary of a united subcontinent that had been arbitrarily divided by vested interests to cater to their own narrow communal agenda, could become a focus of like minded well-wishers on both sides, to come together and think about the future of India without being bogged down by constraints of the Brahminical Idea of India. India’s attempt to close its borders to outside world has miserably failed and the earlier 40 years of Free India, was at best a defensive exercise that compromised with India’s full potential, in all sphere of its polity, be that political, economic or cultural. In India, where caste is still a reality that is thriving for some and suffocating for others, your own caste seems to find it easy to claim leadership from the Brahmins and prepare to give proper justice and fairplay to those disadvantage in the Age of Brahmins. If you had gathered courage, like V. P. Singh in the past, it could have been possible for a core group of Muslims to ignore your tactical alliance with the Saffronites and extend a hand of support to see you as a possible candidate for the Prime Ministership of India with the hope that India can be blessed with a new beginning that will ensure justice for all and favour to none. The Idea of India, then could have a new and broader, inclusive definition that will better suit its destiny, as under the Brahmins, its tryst with its destiny had been seriously derailed.
Ghulam Muhammed, Mumbai
