The death by lynching of a member of minority community at Dadri was extremely unfortunate and condemnable and no right thinking person can ever rationalise and condone such an action, such incidents bring a bad name to the country, said Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, on Wednesday evening.
Questioning the writers in a Facebook post titled, ‘A manufactured revolt – Politics by other means’, over returning of awards conferred on them by the Sahitya Academy, he asked, “Is this protest real or a manufactured one? Is this not a case of ideological intolerance?”
“The thrust of the writers’ protest appears to be that under the present Central Government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, an atmosphere of intolerance has been created in the country,” he added.
“There are a large numbers of writers with Left or Nehruvian leaning who have been recognised by the Government in the past. Many of them have spoken out against the present Prime Minister even when he was the Chief Minister of Gujarat. After the new Government was sworn in May, 2014, those who had enjoyed the patronage under the earlier establishment have obviously been uncomfortable with the present Government.
“This discomfort has been furthered by another political reality in India. With shrinking fortunes, the Congress is showing no signs of revival. The Left is being increasingly pushed to the margins. The new strategy of anti-Modi, anti-BJP sections appears to be to resort to ‘politics by other means’. The easiest way is to manufacture a crisis and subsequently manufacture a paper rebellion against the Government in the wake of a manufactured crisis,” he said.
Holding the state governments responsible for maintenance of law and order, the Finance Minister said, “The rationalist, MM Kalburgi, was shot dead in Karnataka, a Congress ruled Government. Another rationalist, N. Dabholkar, was shot down on August 20, 2013 in Maharashtra at that time ruled by the Congress and the NCP. Both incidents need to be condemned in no uncertain terms. It is the responsibility of the State government to maintain law and order and provide security to a vulnerable target of attack.”
Lamenting the criticism of Prime Minister Modi over the Dadri killing as an “alternative strategy by Politics by other means”, the minister said, “The Dadri incident took place in Uttar Pradesh, which is ruled by the Samajwadi Party. “Politics by other means” combine the three crimes, camouflage the truth and throw all of them in the basket of the present Central Government.
“Nobody has alleged any governmental complacency in these crimes. But to manufacture a revolt, it is necessary to obfuscate the truth and create the impression that the Modi Government is responsible for these crimes even if, they took place in the Congress and Samajwadi Party ruled states. There is no atmosphere of intolerance in the country. The manufactured revolt is a case of an ideological intolerance towards the BJP.”
Jaitley sought to know from the protesters that how many of them courted arrest, protested or raised their voice against the dictatorship of former prime minister Indira Gandhi during the emergency? “Did the writers speak against the Sikh killings of 1984 or the Bhagalpur riots of 1989? Was their conscience not shaken by the corruption involving lakhs of crores between 2004 and 2014,” he asked.