To Ban or not to Ban ?

The National Integration Council has finally met, after a hiatus of three years, during which many challenges have been mounted against the unity and integrity of the country, and especially its plural and non-violent traditions of living together in harmony. Caste, religion, and terror attacks in a number of cities and interior towns and villages have become more common than the daily news of weather reports and stock market fluctuations.

One of the key questions before the country at this time, when one sees the specter of communal hatred coming alive and spreading all over Orissa and Karnataka, is whether there is a need to ban the Bajrang Dal (BD). This Hindutva exremist organisation has much to answer for. In Karnataka, the Bajrang Dal President, Mahesh Kumar, announced proudly before media and its TV cameras that it was the Bajrand Dal which was responsible for the violence against the Christians in Karnataka. He was finally arrested about ten days later, after howls of protest by all sections of society.

In Orissa, the Chief Minister, Navin Patnaik has finally broken his sphinx-like silence to admit that of the hundreds of Hindutva extremists arrested by the police, most belonged to the Bajrang Dal. So is there a need to ban the BD? Home Minister Shivraj Patil went on record to say that he needed more evidence to ban the BD, so that the ban would stand if challenged legally. MK Narayanan, the National Security Advisor, also said that a ban was not the answer and large scale arrests would be the way to go it this matter.

We agree. Not because we do not believe the BD is innocent, on the contrary we have overwhelming evidence to prove that they are indeed involved to the hilt in the communal violence. We are not in favour of the ban because it would, on the one hand, place a wholly undeserved halo of martyrdom on the BD. On the other, it would not be effective in stopping the violence. This is because the BD, while itself being front organisation of the Sangh Parivar, also has its own front organisations. Loose formations like the Ram Sene and the Karnataka Rakshana Vedike in Karnataka, and the Dharm Raksha Sena and the like in Madhya Pradesh and some other organisations in Orissa also exist as fronts of the BJP or the Bajrang Dal. with its membership drawn from the same group. Thus if the BD were to be banned, the same activists would undertake their nefarious activities as one of these other 'avtars'. They would merely change their livery, the colour of the flags they carry and the slogans they shout and carry on as beore .In fact, the role of the The Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the RSS needs to be put under the scanner, and appropriate action taken against any of its activities which have fostered communal violence or disturbed communal harmony. The sole of the state police and the lower judiciary also leaves much to be desired, and this needs to be tackled on a war footing. The media, which appears to be more biased than balanced, has also to introspect. Considering that large sections of the media is owned by the upper castes and classes who also form the main support bases for the BJP, it is inevitable that their biases also begin to show.

In the final analysis, the state falls or stands by the standards of justice it promotes in its administration and its legal system, and the freedom and objectivity of the media. We have one of the best Constitutions in the world, but the inaction and lack of political will to apply the existing laws, which are quite stringent against the offenders, does not send a good message to the voters in general and to the international community as well. Let not the safety and well-being and the human rights of the harried victims of communal violence not be held ransom by political interests and equations, by both the state and the Central Governments.

Dr. Sajan George
President

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