By Sushil Kutty
Not every Prime Minister is so candid and free on issues that roil the nation than Prime Minister Narendra Modi who has said that the disparaging remarks against the Sanatana Dharma by Tamil Nadu Sports Minister Udhayanidhi Stalin calls for a “proper response”. Udhayanidhi, who is Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin’s son, has called for the annihilation of the caste-ridden Sanatana Dharma.
Quite naturally, the uproar engulfed “north India”, where assembly elections are due in the states of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan before the year is out. Telangana also goes to polls in a matter of months and the Bharatiya Janata Party hopes to galvanize the Hindu electorate in all these states using Udhayanidhi Stalin’s incendiary remarks to their fullest potential.
Which is precisely what Prime Minister Narendra Modi stooped to imply when he asked his ministers to go slow on Bharat/India and concentrate on giving a “proper response” to Udhayanidhi’s disparaging remarks on Sanatana Dharma. What does the Prime Minister imply by “proper response”? The jury is still out on what Prime Minister Narendra Modi means by “proper response”.
The connotations could be different. The one which comes to mind immediately is “tit for tat”. Departures could be “hit the streets”, and “brick-batting”. Yet another could be to “consolidate Sanatani Dharma votes” citing Udhayanidhi’s anti-Sanatani remarks. The important thing is, was Modi speaking in his capacity as Prime Minister, or was he holding forth as a BJP leader?
A Prime Minister should have been cautious and should have held himself back, not come out plainly and openly with “needs a proper response” kind of retort, which has the potential to set citizen against citizen – pro-Sanatani versus anti-Sanatani. Of course, Udhayanidhi Stalin was asking for trouble and he has neither shown regret nor remorse.
Instead, he says he’ll keep at it till the curtains come down. Did MK Stalin spare the rod and spoil the child? But more than Stalin, it is Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s strategy, which should be questioned. For Modi and the BJP everything is reduced to electoral politics. The party of Modi and Shah is constantly shifting its stance depending what its electoral needs are, and where?
So, as long as Udhayanidhi Stalin wasn’t spewing venom on Sanatana Dharma, the BJP was all praise for Dravidian icon EV Ramaswamy Naicker, Udhayanidhi Stalin’s ideological “tanthai”, which is Tamil for “father”. For the BJP, hailing Periyar as a great human being and a reformer is purely for Dalit outreach.
The same BJP is now full of hate for ”Periyar” whom Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru had wanted sent to a “lunatic asylum”. Nehru couldn’t stomach Periyar’s violent antics but the Modi government had – before Udhayanidhi Stalin broke the trance – placed Periyar high in the lineup of “great Indians”.
The DMK is not confused. For the DMK, Periyar is “father” and role model. Udhayanidhi in particular is completely in Periyar’s thrall. And Periyar’s “bunch of thoughts” on Hinduism is the pits. Udhayanidhi Stalin’s anti-Sanatana Dharma remarks are straight out of Periyar’s playbook. And now the Prime Minister says Udhayanidhi Stalin’s remarks “need proper response”.
The only thing holding back the Prime Minister must be the G20 Summit. That said, Modi’s flock has already reacted. The calibrated response is on air. Getting amplified in TV studios. Media that are friendly to the Modi government are going all out against Udhayanidhi Stalin with the BJP IT Cell holding out violence-laden threats — an FIR for an FIR. Has it fallen on Tamil Nadu and the DMK to deny Modi a third term? The godless DMK versus the god-fearing BJP – war of the north and the south.
DMK spokesman Constantine Ravindran says it is a battle of the “educated south” and the “uneducated north”. For him, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar are home to the uneducated followers of Sanatana Dharma, people who are neither educated nor are they intelligent. The rest of India, especially residents of the southern states, are “civilized” people who escaped the religion of pagan beliefs.
Reforming Sanatana Dharma has become the duty of the propagators of Abrahamic religions thriving in India. Gentlemen like Constantine Ravindran are proof that “secularism” is nothing but a word in the Constitution. It makes far more sense for secular Sanatani Hindus to give up the pretense and convert to one or the other Abrahamic religion. Secularism does not serve.
But for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Udhayanidhi Stalin’s final solution for Sanatana Dharma is also the solution to win him a third term. By “proper response” he could be meaning to use Stalin’s remarks as an election plank in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan and depending on whether the tactic succeeds or fails, carry it forward to general elections 2024. Prime Minister Narendra Modi spelled out his election winning formula. And with that he is also admitting that his Pasmanda Muslim appeasement policy is dead in the water. (IPA Service)