Facing fire from the Opposition over incidents of intolerance, the Government on Monday said this phenomenon was there in the past too and the Narendra Modi dispensation alone cannot be held responsible for it.
Airing this opinion in the Rajya Sabha during a discussion on “Commitment to India’s Constitution,” Parliamentary Affairs Minister M Venkaiah Naidu called for refraining from generalising these incidents and said the need of the hour was to honour belief and traditions of all sections of society. He also said respecting the mandate given to a political party is also tolerance as stipulated as an important aspect of the Constitution framed by DR B R Ambedkar.
Without referring to any particular incident, Naidu said people making out of turn statements should be condemned, isolated and disowned. “There is some amount of intolerance in the society, in different areas. That has to be identified, it has to be localised, it has to be dealt with firmly. Instead of that, we are making it generalised,” he said.
The senior BJP leader then went on to say incidents like atrocities against Dalits and other weaker sections of society have not happened overnight after Narendra Modi became Prime Minister. “Some people making out of turn statement, we have to condemn, we have to isolate them... They have to be condemned and disowned,” he said.
Urging the elders to introspect whether they had lived up to the expectations and vision of framers of the Constitution, he listed various contentious issues like reservation, uniform common civil code and regional disparity which were yet be solved even after 68 years since India gained independence.
Calling for evolving consensus on these matters, Naidu said he welcomed former Finance Minister P Chidambaram’s remarks that it was a mistake by the Rajiv Gandhi regime to ban Salman Rushdie’s book ‘Satanic Verses.’
The BJP leader said there should be a policy on banning books or films and writers should not hurt the sentiments of a section of people leading to social tension. However, at the same time expression and freedom of speech has to be upheld, Naidu said adding there has to be broad consensus about “how do we go about it.”
On respecting mandate, he said it is an important aspect of Constitution and biggest example of tolerance. Giving an example, Naidu said ‘x’ has been mandated to rule Tamil Nadu, ‘y’ mandated to rule West Bengal. “We have to respect it.” Similarly, the mandate of people of Bihar to Nitish Kumar with support of lalu Prasad has to be respected and there is “no choice.”
In her speech, BSP supremo Mayawati said the biggest tribute to Ambedkar will be to adhere to the Constitution in its true spirit and claimed that successive governments at the centre only paid lip service. Criticising Modi, she said he did not announce any measure like reservation for scheduled caste and tribe in private sector and reservation in promotion during his speech on the Constitution in the lok Sabha last week.
Taking a dig at the Prime Minister, she said the BSP was willing to back the Goods and Services Tax(GST) bill if it was in national interest and “you need not offer a glass of water let alone tea to me.” This remark was in an apparent reference to Modi inviting Sonia Gandhi for tea last week to seek support for the GST Bill.
Without naming Aamir Khan,whose remarks on intolerance led to a controversy, the BSP chief said she holds the Government more responsible for the row than the actor. She advised Aamir Khan not to think of leaving the country but to counter such things by following Ambedkar’s teachings.
Referring to the statement of RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat about a “review” of the reservation policy, Mayawati threatened to take to streets. She also dismissed pro-reservation statements of the BJP as an afterthought in the wake of debacle in Bihar assembly polls.
While Congress member Ashwani Kumar said the Muslim community is ready to die for the country and they should be respected and urged the government to protect the right of freedom of speech of every citizen, nominated member KTS Tulsi said liberal and secular values of this country has made it a great nation and expressed surprise that the Home Minister was not outraged by intolerance but by secularism.
Praful Patel (NCP) said the administration cannot remain quiet saying these were “stray incidents” and added that individual views will be reflected as Government’s views if these were not contradicted properly.