© 2006-2017 Kasturi & Sons Ltd. -vijay kumar [email protected] - EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE CHENNAI THE HINDU 10 EDITORIAL WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 6, 2017 EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE India’s plural soul An assassination, a demolition and a portrait’s unveiling together spelt the polarisation of India for India insisted, through its Con­ For polarisers, better than a stitution, its laws and public policy temple built is a temple that is pronouncements, that it was secu­ waiting to be built. It keeps spirits New India formula? lar. Asoka’s Lion Capital was, after up, tensions high. It keeps terro­ The 15th Finance Commission’s job will all, the Republic of India’s new rists on the other side activated. emblem. And it keeps cadres on this side gopalkrishna gandhi be especially tricky in the time of GST Savarkar’ dream remained un­ motivated. he Centre has moved swiftly to notify the presi­ realised until the unveiling of the December 6, 1992 is not a fading he partitioning of India portrait. That completed the trip­ date in history; it is marked ochre dential order setting up the Fifteenth Finance broke us, shamed us. It is es­ tych. red in the future calendars of the TCommission, within ve days of the Cabinet’s ap­ Ttimated that nearly two mil­ The unveiling in Parliament Hindu Rashtra. For those who proval. The constitutional body is tasked with recom­ lion were slaughtered during the House did three things. First, it hailed it, the 25th “anniversary” of mending a scal road map and a sharing of resources weeks around Partition, almost no placed against the Indian Republic the demolition promises future between the Centre and the States. On Monday, former Muslim surviving in East Punjab GETTY IMAGES/ISTOCKPHOTO a conceptual alternative — Hindu sport. For those who were aghast Revenue Secretary N.K. Singh, who has been appointed and no Hindu or Sikh in West Pun­ owed allegiance to the concept of ra. And on that day, Hindu muscle Rashtra. Second, it made demoli­ by it, it promises future struggle. chairman of the Commission, held preliminary discus­ jab. About 7.5 million Muslims left a Hindu Rashtra. Its aim was three­ power asserted itself. Watched by tion the exact co­relative of con­ The struggle to keep polarisa­ India for the newly formed state of fold: punish, by murder, one who unwitting, unsure or captive se­ struction. Third, it made Veer Sa­ tion at bay will be unrelenting for sions on its “wide­ranging” terms of reference and d e­ Pakistan and about 7.5 million Hin­ believed India to be the home of niors of the Bharatiya Janata Party varkar, the precise opposite the memories of Partition and the cided to hold expeditious consultations with stakeho l­ dus trekked to the new India from all the faith traditions in it, reverse (BJP), and with a police force un­ number of Mahatma Gandhi. And mayhem of terror will keep churn­ ders at all administrative levels as well as with political Pakistan. Both sets of displaced Gandhi’s idea of “Ishvar Allah Tere able or unwilling to intervene, thereby, his peer, alternative and ing up hate, fear. Bigots face each parties. Think tanks and academics will be consulted. persons were seeking the security Naam”, pronounce the primacy 1,50,000 delirious Hindu kar se­ equal. It juxtaposed the Two Na­ other, unblinkingly. Their bigotry The Commission has less than two years to complete its of a religious majority, their and power of Hinduism in India. It vaks brought the mosque down. tions theorist against the One Na­ feeds each other, untiringly. The deliberations and submit its report by October 2019, majority. was meant to tell the Muslims of In the rubble lay all hope for tion preceptor. higher the Hindu bigotry in India, giving the government a little over a quarter to consider Gandhi’s scorching presence, India that they were here by leave Hindu­Muslim concord. In it lay the happier the Islamic zealotry in the new government’s unwavering of the Hindus and that all talk of shattered Muslim trust in India’s An agenda at work Pakistan. Polarisation is their com­ and implement its recommendations for the period commitment to pluralism and the Hindu­Muslim unity and equality secular future. And in it lay tat­ The assassination, the demolition mon nourishment. from April 2020 to March 2025. Accepting the 14th Fi ­ humanity of millions of ordinary was sentimental and meaningless. tered, the Constitution’s guaran­ and the portrait’s unveiling, to­ But hate and fear are not a nor­ nance Commission’s recommendation to raise the people saved the tragedy from be­ Gandhi’s killing traumatised the tees about the freedom of religious gether, go to spell a long word with mal condition; fanaticism not a States’ share in the divisible pool of taxes to 42% from coming a cataclysm. country. It devastated Muslims in belief. a short agenda: polarisation. natural emotion. Plain common the previous 32% level, Prime Minister Narendra Modi India. Who would, hereafter, be its The broken stones said more: The ghastly terrorist attacks in sense and Gandhi’s miraculously had told Chief Ministers that although this meant less The triptych of an agenda rakhvala (protector)? Nehru said Here rises, at long last, they pro­ Mumbai of 1993, in Parliament still­alive spirit have staved o money at the Centre’s disposal, his government had de­ After that traumatic year, three that evening: “ The light has gone claimed, Veer Savarkar’s dream of House of 2001 and again in Mum­ communal frenzy. Never more ef­ dates, three events, shook Indian out of our lives and there is dark­ a Hindu Rashtra. bai in 2008 may or may not have fectively than when blood thirsty cided to strengthen the States’ capacity to move awa y pluralism again. Gandhi’s assassi­ ness everywhere. ” For India’s India partitioned was now India been retaliatory for Ayodhya. I be­ terrorists sought to mutilate life in from a ‘one­size­ts­all’ approach. While Mr. Modi’s dis­ nation — January 30, 1948; the Ba­ Muslims who had said “ no” to Pa­ polarised. lieve the attacks would have hap­ Mumbai in 1993 and then to maim dain for Central planning is well­known, the terms of re­ bri Masjid demolition — December kistan and stayed back in India be­ Savarkar’s spirit must have felt pened, Ayodhya or no Ayodhya. the House of India’s Parliament in ference for this Commission seem to suggest that the re­ 6, 1992, and the unveiling of V.D. cause they had faith in Gandhi’s more than fullled. For such is the blind blood lust of 2001. All of India could have erupt­ cord hike in the tax transfer rate to States is pinching. Savarkar’s portrait in Parliament India, that darkness was real. terror, such the radicalisation of ed then into communal frenzy, but The Centre has urged the Commission to nalise its House — February 26, 2003 Along with the light, the oxygen of Moving over to Parliament unemployed, callow youth in Pa­ it did not. Likewise, when Gujarat tax­devolution formula after factoring in the impact on The rst of these three saw a be­ condence in the air ed, too. A decade later, the BJP in power at kistan. And such the mutually 2002 could have spread, but did the Union’s scal situation, keeping in mind “the conti­ liever in the criticality of India’s Several years and countless Hin­ the Centre, decided that for Savar­ nourishing agenda of polarisation. not. pluralism being put to death. The du­Muslim riots later, the un­ kar’s fullment to be complete, That agenda, as I said, remains The India of Asoka, Akbar, nuing imperative of the national development pro­ second witnessed a pre­eminent healed wound on India’s plural due ceremony was in order. It de­ at work. The Ayodhya dateline Gandhi, Nehru, Ambedkar is gramme including New India – 2022”. Taken together Islamic monument reduced to ethos was violently cut open once cided to place in Parliament Hous­ etched hate, stretched fate — the strong but pinioned under the with its need for resources for essential spending in rubble. The third valorised a man again. e’s Central Hall, along with por­ fate of secularism — to its limits. It blades of the Two Nations theory. areas such as defence, security, infrastructure and cli­ who believed India was meant to traits of the Greats of India’s continues to do so. It is for the inheritors of their India mate change, the Centre seems to be seeking a rollback be a Hindu Rashtra. The rst was Another dateline freedom struggle, a portrait of this The demolition in Ayodhya was to match the date­lines of hate and of the 42% share for States. The government’s top brass murder, the second vandalism, Ayodhya, December 6, 1992 is a freedom ghter as well. Savarkar the rst step. Like a bhumi­puja. the fate­lines of death with the life­ has repeatedly asserted the need for revenue to main ­ the third a celebration. dateline, a hate­line, a fate­line. was, of course, a ghter for India’s The second step is the building of line that Gandhi made from the es­ Those three form a triptych. Babri Masjid, the 16th century freedom. On his terms, in his own the temple. The third, its conse­ sences, the intangible susman of tain public spending in the face of ak for high petro ­ All three occurrences singed In­ mosque was built spitefully, it is light. With Mohammed Ali Jinnah, cration. And there will be as many his belief that India is One Nation leum taxes.