AK Antony has rightly asked his party not to treat Hindu clerics as communalists
The Indian National Congress got an ideal panacea on Wednesday for all the ills plaguing the party for the last three decades. A K Antony, former defense minister and one of the oldest surviving members of the party had told the leadership to take the Hindus into confidence and not to consider persons with sandal paste or vibhuti on their foreheads as communalists. In a message to the party on the occasion of its 138th anniversary, Antony, who is leading a retired life at Thiruvananthapuram, has asked that the party should speak for the Hindus too who feel let out by over enthusiasm of some Congress leaders towards the minority communities. This is the second or third time Antony is offering this well thought out advice to the Congress leadership. In 1993, while delivering the Mathai Manjooran Memorial Lecture at Press Academy in Ernakulam (a Kerala Government funded institute for media studies), Antony had reminded the minority communities in the country that they should be grateful to the majority community for their safe survival and existence in India. Love them and respect them. Your security and safety lie with the Hindus and hence do not create an impression that you treat them as a threat,” Antony had told the august gathering. His words were the fall out of the anti-Hindu feeling generated in the aftermath of the demolition of mosque at Ayodhya.
Kerala witnessed a series of public meetings addressed by the non-BJP political parties condemning the Hindus and eulogizing the minorities for the faux pas at Ayodhya. Some of the Congress leaders and the CPI(M)-led LDF had alleged that Antony was playing the Hindu card as he was eyeing the highest political position in the country as a compromise candidate. Later events proved that Antony was right as a veteran leader like K Karunakaran too bade farewell to the party to form a short-lived regional outfit. “This is not the Congress in which I was born and grew. It has lost its secular credentials,” a heart-broken Karunakaran had told while leaving the party. It is another thing that he returned to the parent party within months. Over the years, the Congress in Kerala has ended up playing second fiddle to communal outfits like Muslim League and the Church-patronized Kerala Congresses. In neighboring Tamil Nadu, where the party was in power till 1967, the Congress is being used as a doormat by the DMK. Why? No prize for guessing the answer!
