Former Vice-President Hamid Ansari should have taken utmost care to attend a dubious function to avoid all misconceptions

At face value, the spectacle of a ruling party targeting a former Vice-President appears to be not only inappropriate but also in poor taste. By the same dictum, however, one would expect anyone who has held an exalted position in the country to conform to a model code of conduct; conduct that upholds the dignity and honor of the country as well as the decorum of their erstwhile office. Unfortunately, ex-Vice President Hamid Ansari's words and actions have tested the boundaries of these conventional norms causing justifiable consternation in BJP circles.

The BJP and ex-Vice-President Hamid Ansari have long been at odds. When he was the Vice-President and thus the Ex-Officio Chairman of the RajyaSabha, the BJP found him to be deliberately obstructive to their legislative goals.

Moreover, Hamid Ansari has consistently attempted to needle the current government even when out of office. The antecedents of the present standoff can be traced to January, this year. While speaking in a virtual panel discussion organized by the Indian American Muslim Council (an organization that has repeatedly strived to get India blacklisted by the USCIRF) he made common cause with anti-India US lawmakers like Senator Ed Markey to denigrate India by calling into question its commitment to democracy, secularism and even the rule of the law.

The former vice president remarked that in recent years, the country has experienced the emergence of trends and practices that dispute the well-established principle of civic nationalism…and interposes a new and imaginary practice of cultural nationalism… It wants to distinguish citizens based on their faith, give vent to intolerance, insinuate otherness, and promote disquiet and insecurity.

Elaborating further he remarked: "Some of its recent manifestations are chilling and reflect poorly on our claim to be governed by rule of law. It's a question that has to be answered. These trends need to be contested and contested legally and contested politically."

First, the Vice-President should not have been in a panel discussion sponsored by a dubious anti-India organization. Second, he should have been conscious of the fact that he was speaking on a foreign platform in the presence of Indophobic foreign lawmakers. His words with all due respect, come across as deliberately malignant and a tad irresponsible; they do not behoove a former Vice President.

In this regard, the deportment of BJP leaders AtalBehari Vajpayee and LK Advani comes to my mind. I had the opportunity to meet with them several times as a part of a small like-minded group when they visited New York. Not once did they badmouth the Congress Party despite having been jailed by Indira Gandhi during the Emergency.

LK Advani once explicitly emphasized, "We may have our differences at home but once we leave the shores of India, we are all Indians."

Next, about the assertions of NusratMirza, (the Pakistani journalist who claims that he visited India several times during Hamid Ansari's tenure, attended terrorism-related conferences, and transmitted sensitive information back to the ISI) Hamid Ansari's denials fail to convince.

Calling the allegations, a litany of falsehood', the ex-Vice-President claimed: "It is a known fact that invitations to foreign dignitaries by the Vice President of India are on the advice of the Government generally through the ministry of external affairs. I inaugurated the Conference on Terrorism on December 11, 2010, the 'International Conference of Jurists on International Terrorism and Human Rights. As is normal practice the list of invitees would have been drawn by the organizers. I never invited him or met him [Mr. Mirza]."

It is important to note that this controversy involves two distinct conferences: 1) The International Conference of Jurists on Terrorism and Human Rights held at VigyanBhawan on 11 and 12 December 2010 and 2) the International Conference Against Terrorism organized by Jama Masjid United Forum in New Delhi at Oberoi Hotel on 27 October 2009.

The denials by Hamid Ansari and the Congress Party appear to be a subtle attempt to obfuscate the controversy by referring to the first government-sanctioned meeting and not the conference organized by the Jama Masjid which was not vetted by the government as AdishAggarwala, Chairman, All India Bar Association who organized the first meeting has indicated.

The BJP has also released photos showing Mr. Hamid Ansari and NusratMirza sharing the dais at the Jama Masjid-organized conference.

These are serious national security concerns and must be addressed. In the running battle between the BJP and Hamid Ansari, the BJP cannot be faulted for safeguarding the country's interest as long as it is objective and not vindictive. A false façade of decency and public protocol cannot be invoked to protect erring former dignitaries and compromise national security.

(The author, a US-based academic and political commentator, frequently writes on current affairs in India. The views expressed are personal.)