jaswant singh
New Delhi - Two days after main opposition political party Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) expelled its senior member Jaswant Singh for lauding Pakistan's founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah and demonizing Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and Jawahar Lal Nehru, Singh struck back by accusing the party of double standard and nepotism.
In his new book 'Jinnah, India Partition, Independence,' Jaswant Singh has not only praised Jinnah but also demonized India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Home Minister Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, charging them for being responsible for the partition of India.
However, interestingly, Singh's view that Nehru was responsible for the partition of India is not new. In fact, Abul Kalam Azad in his book "India wins freedom" can be seen arguing that partition of India could have been avoided if Jawaharlal Nehru and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel had shown some flexibility over the Cabinet Mission plan.
Immediately after the book was released, BJP distanced itself from the book and its author and the top brass took the decision to expel Singh at the party's Chintan Baithak (brainstorming session) held in Shimla. Senior BJP leader and Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi also banned the book in his state.
According to senior BJP leader Kailash Sarang, Singh's expulsion is justified and the book should not only be banned in Gujarat but the whole country.
The senior BJP leader said the biggest mistake committed by Jaswant Singh was to unnecessarily heap praise on Jinnah.
He said BJP was a responsible political party and no leader from it could be given permission to praise someone who was responsible for the Partition.
According to BJP spokesman Ravi Shankar Prasad, "The views (in the book) were too extreme and hence the step was taken."
"Singh's book impinges on the party's ideology and hence the party has taken a view and a step. The party has a very distinct view of the role of Jinnah in the vivisection of India which led to displacement and dislocation of so many people," he said.
"The important role of Jinnah in the division of India, which led to a lot of dislocation and destabilization of millions of people, is too well-known. We cannot wish away this painful part of our history," he added.
Some BJP leaders, however, claim that the decision to expel Jaswant Singh was because he denigrated Sardar Patel.
According to party leader Sushma Swaraj, Singh's expulsion from the party was "necessary" as he had written against BJP's core ideology.
The BJP believed Jaswant, in a biography of Pakistani statesman M.A. Jinnah, has allegedly criticized Sardar Patel, the country's first Home Minister. "For someone who was with us for 30 years it was a difficult decision. What he wrote was against the party policy. Patel was Home Minister of the country for three-and-half years and brought more than 700 principalities into the Indian union. He was no ordinary man and Jaswant tried to denigrate him," Swaraj said.
BJP spokesman Prakash Javadekar agrees. The party leadership, Javadekar said, was angered not only because Singh lauded Jinnah but also because he demonized Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, the first home minister of India, who is credited with unifying the country.
"This book had mentioned Sardar Patel to be responsible for the country's division. It is against the core ideology of the party and hence the action was taken," Javadekar said.
"The decision meant only one thing: that the party would not compromise with our ideology, and discipline was above all in the party," he said.
Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha and senior party member Arun Jaitley has also justified Jaswant Singh's expulsion, saying what Singh wrote in his book on Jinnah and Sardar Patel was "directly opposed" to the party's core ideology and constituted a grave indiscipline.
"The BJP believes that Sardar Patel forged India together. Sardar Patel's contribution to the unification of India can be undermined by none. Ironically, to blame him for partition is an act someone from our own party did and will not be tolerated. No political party can allow any member, more so a front-line leader, to write and express views against the core ideology of the party," Jaitley said.
"The BJP constitution says that the parliamentary board has powers in all matters of indiscipline and to decide the procedure and the action in such cases," he said.
Agrees BJP President Rajnath Singh. "The political ideology and thought on the basis of which the party was found, we will stick to it now and continue to do so in future. Our ideology is non-negotiable. There will be no compromise on indiscipline," Singh said.
However, Jaswant Singh, who was unceremoniously expelled on Wednesday, feels he deserved better treatment and challenged the BJP to point out his "indiscipline."
"I was amongst the first lot of members of BJPone of its founding members. I think I have served the party to the best of my ability and dedication for the past thirty years. There was a time I was treated as the Hanuman in the party. But I am sorry to say that today I am being treated as RavanaI would have appreciated if Advaniji or Rajnath Singhji had personally informed me about the expulsion but that did not happen."
"It is a very, very sad day of my life. I am saddened that I am being expelled in this mannerthat the party found fit to expel me and what saddens me even more is that I am being expelled for writing a book," the former BJP leader who served as external affairs minister during BJP's reign at the Center, said.
According to Singh, everyone was entitled to his or her own view and it is possible that many people could have disagreed with his views on Jinnah. "What I have written is my account of a chapter of India's historyabout Partitionabout a painful period of India's history. You can dispute what I write but the day in India we start questioning thought, we start questioning reading, writing, publishing, we are entering a very vary dark alley."
Singh also questioned how Sardar Patel could be "core" to BJP's ideology when in fact he had banned BJP's parent body Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in the aftermath of Mahatma Gandhi's assassination.
"I don't know which part of the core belief has been demolished. Patel, what is so core about him? Patel was the first one to ban the RSS and imprison RSS workers (in February 1948). But he did not ban the Muslim League," Singh said.
The former BJP leader also felt aggrieved that senior party leader L.K. Advani did not stand up for him and rather it was he who sealed his senior colleague's fate at the BJP parliamentary board meeting on Wednesday morning by proposing his expulsion after hearing demands for action against the former minister.
Interestingly, party patriarch and former deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani had triggered a controversy in 2005 by describing Jinnah as "secular" during a trip to Pakistan. The senior BJP leader was subsequently forced to step down as BJP president after intense criticism from right-wing party members who see Jinnah as the cause for a bitter division of the country in 1947 that led to loss of many lives in rioting.
"I had stood up against the treatment that was meted out to Advaniji because I believed that he had not said anything that was contrary to facts. I had stood up for the right of Advaniji to say what he had said," Singh said.
However, Advani said he had no choice. "It is painful to expel somebody who has been with you for the past 30 years, but what he wrote was against he basic ideology of the party," Advani said.
It was wrong on Jaswant Singh's part to insult Sardar Patel in his book, Advani said, while lavishing praise on Patel for his "super human action" to unify 700 odd princely states into Indian union.
Advani also pointed out that Singh had spoken "half truth" about Sardar Patel banning the RSS.
According to Advani, Patel had banned RSS on Jawaharlal Nehru's behest. "One month later, Patel wrote a letter to Nehru saying that there is not an iota of evidence against RSS. Jaswant is saying only half of what had happened and not the other half," he said.
Meanwhile, coming to Advani's defense, Jaitley said his statements on Jinnah during a visit to Pakistan in 2005 were made in a different context and the two episodes should not be compared.
"There is a basic difference between what the two leaders have said. What Advani said was a tactical reference to Jinnah's speech in Pakistan's constituent assembly to tell the people of Pakistan what situation they have come to," Jaitley said.
"But to say that Jinnah was demonized in India, that Indian Muslims feel as aliens in the country and to denigrate Sardar Patel goes against the national consensus and party's core beliefs," he said.
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