Congress uses NIC to ridicule Opposition
That the UPA regime sought to convert Monday's National Integration Council meet into an occasion for ridiculing the Opposition, is disheartening. The meeting was held in the shadows of the Muzaffarnagar riots and the preceding violence in Kishtwar; yet, instead of discussing the pressing issues of caste and communal polarisation, the Congress-led coalition at the Centre and its allies busied themselves with scoring quick political brownie points. And so it was that Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav thought nothing before warning the BJP for “trying to convert Uttar Pradesh into Gujarat”, even though it was on his party's watch that about 50 people died earlier this month in one of the State's worst communal clashes in recent memory. Mr Yadav's comment was primarily an underhand reference to the BJP's in-charge in Uttar Pradesh but it was also a sly attempt to resurrect the pseudo-secularists’ favourite communal bogey — the 2002 violence in Gujarat that happened under Mr Narendra Modi, now the principal opposition party's prime ministerial candidate.
In fact, the Gujarat Chief Minister, as expected, also came under scathing attack for missing the NIC meeting. While one Congress leader took an under-the-belt shot at his prime ministerial ambitions and wondered if he was already considering himself too “supreme” to participate in such meetings, others sought to draw insidious conclusions on how his absence was a comment on his ‘communal' credentials. Yet, it was not just Mr Modi who had given the NIC meet a miss. Thirteen other Chief Ministers had also stayed away — they were mostly from outside the ruling party, such as West Bengal's Mamata Banerjee, Tamil Nadu's J Jayalalithaa, Chhattisgarh's Raman Singh and Odisha's Naveen Patnaik, but also included the odd Congressman such as Rajasthan's Ashok Gehlot. Instead of pointing fingers at them, the UPA should ask itself why so many leaders, from across the political spectrum, didn’t consider it worth their time to attend the NIC meeting.
The Council was envisaged as a pan-national body to combat the menace of communalism, casteism and regionalism. The 147-member Council includes not just political leaders but also eminent members from media, civil society and business. It has the potential to help significantly strengthen India's social fabric that routinely faces the onslaught of disruptive forces such as the politics of minority appeasement. Unfortunately, under the Congress-led UPA regime, the forum has been reduced to yet another excuse for releasing empty statements and memorandums. Even Jammu & Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, who attended Monday's event, said the meeting should not be about bolting the stable doors after the horses have fled. He pointed out that there were no updates on the progress that may have been made since the last meeting was held in 2011. Similarly, there was also no mention of the communal violence Bill — a once contentious issue that now seems to be forgotten. Given how communal divides are expected to deepen in the run-up to the 2014 election with minority-appeasers all active, the NIC meet has been a lost opportunity for political parties that are keen to contain the damage.