Promising citizenship rights to Indian refugees who fled from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir after the 1947 invasion and those who came from West Pakistan as a result of the wars of 1965 and 1971, Narendra Modi lamented that these refugees have been languishing for decades in Srinagar valley without rights or consideration from the State Government. Taking the bull by the horns on this sensitive issue, which has been studiously avoided by national parties (read Congress), the BJP Prime Ministerial contender added that the Pandit community has suffered internal exile in India for over two decades, and assured that the BJP is committed to ensure justice to all.
Calling for an end to divisive politics over these matters, he said the time has come for nationalist politics (rashtra niti). While illegal immigrants from Bangladesh get citizenship and voter identity cards, the refugees from West Pakistan get nothing. They deserve citizenship and justice, he asserted, “We will do it. The nation is fed up of promises, it wants pure intentions”.
Addressing the first of his 185 “Bharat Vijay Rallies” on Wednesday, at the hockey stadium in Hiranagar, Kathua district, a few kilometres from the international border and the site of a terror attack in September 2013 in which a top Army officer along with 10 jawans, policemen and civilians were killed, the BJP leader condemned the continuous sacrifice of the lives of jawans in attacks from across the border. Only a few days ago, he pointed out, some police jawans had sacrificed their lives in the troubled State.
Upping the ante against cross-border terrorism and skillfully scuttling rumours of an accommodation with the unfriendly neighbour in the event of coming to power, Narendra Modi mocked that Pakistan has three great generals (sipah salar) who are given great respect by its media, and “we need to recognise them” (for hurting the nation). Coincidentally, these great resources of Pakistan are all ‘AKs’; the first is the AK-47 rifle that is used to bleed India repeatedly. The second is AK Antony (Union Defence Minister) who insisted in Parliament that the persons who beheaded our jawans came wearing Pakistani uniforms when the Army asserted that the killings were done by Pakistani soldiers. “Whom is he helping?” the Gujarat Chief Minister mused.
The third resource, he said as the crowds roared with appreciation, is one AK-49 who gave birth to a new political party and on its official website displayed the map of India with Kashmir gifted to Pakistan! An important leader of the party had also called for referendum in Jammu and Kashmir, making a mockery of the sacrifices of our jawans. With this riposte, Narendra Modi cut the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) to size and dismissed Arvind Kejriwal’s electoral challenge to him in Varanasi.
Pleased with the massive turnout at the rally, which vastly exceeded his Jammu rally in December 2013 which had impressed even Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, Narendra Modi said that the State has to chose between the path (of complete integration) suggested by Syama Prasad Mookerji or that chosen by Sheikh Abdullah, between the road travelled by the Congress or that mooted by Atal Bihari Vajpayee who had instilled confidence in the youth of better days ahead in the name of humanism (insaniyat).
Raising the pitch of his attack on the Congress-UPA Government, the BJP Prime Ministerial contender said that Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri gave the nation the memorable slogan, “Jai Jawan Jai Kisan”, but the UPA-Congress regime had allowed our jawans to be killed and even beheaded; ordinary policemen armed only with sticks were killed mercilessly and their children orphaned, farmers are committing suicide by the thousands and recently in Vidarbha he had discovered that there is hardly a village free of farmer suicide. The ruling coalition, he charged, has implemented such policies that its slogan appears to be “mar jawan, mar kisan” (die soldier, die farmer).
Calling for an end to the rule of dynasties in Delhi and Srinagar, Narendra Modi said that dynasty politics has no place in a democracy and that the rule by four generations of certain families had brought ruination to the land. The country needs rulers who can toil for 18 hours a day to create policies and programmes that will improve the lot of the people; “Congress does not have the courage to walk on this path”.
Instead, it resorts to the ruse of secularism to avoid debate on any serious issue and duck responsibility for its misdeeds. Narendra Modi claimed that when he says ‘let’s talk about ending terrorism and taking care of farmers’, they (Congress) insist that secularism is in danger. If he says there should be discussion on employment for youth or curbing the price rise, the answer is that secularism must be saved first. Such leaders have no solutions to the problems of the people. Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s vision of development based on Insaniyat, Jamhooriyat and Kashmiriyat was the way ahead, he said.
One Congress leader, the BJP veteran said, softly dropping the word ‘shehzaade’ as the crowds roared with appreciation, said that ‘Congress is an idea’. Instead, he mocked, “I say Congress soch mein pad gayi hai, ek chai wala kahan se aa gaya”. To uproarious chanting of his name, he humorously coined a pun on the Congress candidate in Udhampur, “In Congress, people sometimes become Ghulam and sometimes Azad.” The country, he continued in a more serious vein, has been ruined by the Congress mindset and needs to choose between the thinking of Jawaharlal Nehru and that of Sardar Patel.
The nation needs employment for the youth, respect for women, and freedom from starvation, and it is a shame that these minimum needs have not been realised despite over six decades of independence, he said. A population of 125 crore has a right to freedom from the struggle of its parents’ generation, and to save the next generation from such futile struggles. Neither the Congress nor Governments with the Congress gotra (kinship) can ensure this, he said, and promised to undo the ruination of the past decades if voted to power.
Narendra Modi had courted controversy last time he visited Jammu and called for a dialogue on Article 370 which gives a special status to the State. Continuing that thread on Wednesday, he condemned the lack of uniform application of laws in the State, most notably the Prevention of Corruption Act and the denial of rights to backward communities, and lambasted the Congress silence on the matter. Equating Congress rule with the corruption that bedevils the nation, he said the practice of Rs 1 becoming 15 paise by the time it reaches the villages would come to an end only when the UPA-Congress is booted out of power. He promised to protect the national treasury like a ‘chowkidar’ and said only development could bring progress to the people and the nation.
The Gujarat Chief Minister visited the holy shrine of Mata Vaishno Devi earlier in the day. At the rally, he admitted former DIG Farukh Khan and veteran journalist Khalid Jehangir and youth leader Suresh into the party and said the winds of change were irreversible.
Niticentral.com, 26 March 2014