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(Dr
Mallika Sarabhai, well known human rights activist and
danseuse and daughter of Mrinalini Sarabhai contested
the elections to the Lok Sabha held in Gandhinagar in
May 2009. She was asked about her experience in fighting
against a stalwart like Advani. Here is a letter she had
written to the BJP leader)
Dear
Shri Advani,
I was asked to write about whether it was a daunting
experience for me, an independent, to contest against
you, a mighty prime ministerial candidate. I choose to
write a letter to you instead. By the time you read
this, the election results will be out. You will either
have lost or won. Either way, what I have to say to you
will stand.
I am a post Independence Indian.
I was brought up to value and treasure my unique
Indianness, to value our Constitution, which gives equal
rights to all Indians, irrespective of belief, culture,
practice or language. I learnt to revel in the
differences that made us a rainbow country. We are a
salad-like melange of cultures and not a soup where all
variations get reduced to a homogeneous pulp this, to
me, is our greatest strength.
Instead of the hunger, thirst and soul chilling
deprivations that our people still suffer, you talk of
swords and trishuls.. Instead of the lynching of Dalits
and the rape of thousands of women and girls, you speak
of building temples and destroying mosques. Instead of
propagating the Hindu thought of vasudhaiva kutumbakam
(the world is my family), you split our family into
religions and tell all "others" to get out or live as
minions in their own country.
As a proud Hindu and a proud Indian, I feel vilified by
you. You have reduced the great Sanatana philosophy to a
Taliban style Hindutva. As an Indian, you have tried to
reduce my identity to a single factor Hindu or not. You
let your goons, saffron clad terror units wielding
lathis and worse, terrorise us and live above the laws
of this country. And above all, you claim that the rath
yatra, the starting point of all terrorism in this
country and the fountainhead of blood-spilling in recent
years, is your greatest achievement.
Every Monday, throughout the campaign, I asked you some
questions. Neither you nor your public relations people
nor the hip netizens on your team acknowledged or
answered them. So let me list some of them again:
1 What efforts have you made towards opportunities for
education and livelihood generation in the rural areas
of Gandhinagar constituency?
2 Have you used your funds under the MPLAD scheme to
benefit the deprived and underprivileged in your
constituency?
3 What has the BJP done to make available affordable
housing to the citizens of Gandhinagar constituency in
the last two decades?
4 Several lakh depositors lost their savings in the
cooperative bank scams of 2003. At least three BJP
candidates who contested the election this year were
involved in the scams. What have you done for the
depositors?
5 How would you ensure that particular communities are
not victimised with the anti-terror laws that you are
proposing?
6 Did the money accepted by your party's then president
Bangaru Laxman come from a Swiss bank account, or was it
swadeshi black money?
7 Some 35,000 families live in Ramapir No Tekro, where
there are 10 toilets each for men and women, which open
at 8 am and close at 6 pm. But as they are rag pickers,
they go to work at 4 am. Are they, and some nine lakh
similar citizens in your constituency, who lack drinking
water, roads and social security, partners in your
Vibrant Gujarat?
No, Mr Advani, I am not daunted by you. I may have lost
this election, but I will continue to work for the
disadvantaged and dispossessed, and to ensure that their
voice shall be silenced no more.
Sincerely,
Mallika
(We
have reproduced this letter to show that not all Hindus
are enamoured by the fire spitting divisive politics
followed by the BJP. It is necessary to distinguish
between large sections of the Hindu majority and the
fanatics who spread bitterness and hatred dividing
peoples on the basis of religion and caste)
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