The nationalism debate escalated on Monday with Opposition parties slamming BJP’s “insistence” on ‘Bharat Mata ki jai’ as the only way to express this as an “unfortunate replay” of Hitler’s tactics, prompting the ruling party to assert that opposing the slogan amounted to treason.
The Opposition parties also accused BJP of stoking the nationalism issue to shroud its “failure” in keeping promises.
The BJP on its part maintained that “opposing” Bharat Mata “for sure” falls in the category of treason and made a strong pitch for “instilling” feeling of nationalism as “some people” have habit of “eulogising” anti-nationalists like Afzal Guru.
“Hindusthan Zindabad, Jai Hind and Inquilab Zindabad are nationalism. So, nationalism can be expressed in various forms. Now to insist nationalism means only the slogan (Bharat Mata ki jai) that they want people to give is very clearly an unfortunate replay of how (Adolf) Hitler used nationalism for the rise of fascism in Germany,” CPI (M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury said.
Rajya Sabha Opposition leader Ghulam Nabi Azad said people of the country are “clever” and understand that the debate is allegedly being stoked to divert their attention from BJP’s “failure” in keeping poll promises of employment, development and price rise among others.
Concurring with Azad, JD(U) leader Pawan Verma said the issue is being escalated also in view of forthcoming Assembly polls in five States.
Countering the Opposition, Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister M Venkaiah Naidu said there is a need to instill feeling of nationalism as “some people” have objections to chant ‘Bharat Mata ki jai’ and have the “habit of eulogising” anti-nationalist like Afzal Guru and
Yakub Memon.
Union Minister of State for Minority Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said chanting ‘Bharat Mata ki jai’ is not a “certificate of nationalism”, but “opposing, abusing and criticising ‘Bharat Mata’ does fall under category of “treason”.