Is Afzal Guru your son-in-law? Gadkari asks Congress
Taunting the Congress over the delay in hanging Afzal Guru, BJP President Nitin Gadkari asked the party whether the Parliament attack death row convict was its "son-in-law".
In comments that could stoke a controversy, Gadkari thundered at a BJP rally in Dehra Dun last night asking Congress leaders "Is Afzal Guru the son-in-law of Congress? Have you(Congress) given your daughter to him(Afzal). Why is he being given special treatment?"
Congress reacted with disdain to Gadkari's remarks saying he has lost his mind and scoffed at the BJP chief.
When asked by reporters today whether he would apologise for his controversial remarks, Gadkari said he stuck to his stand.
"I have said nothing wrong. I stick to my stand and so there is no need (to apologise)," Gadkari told reporters in Dehra Dun.
In this regard, Gadkari said Congress government of Delhi was sitting on the file related to execution of hanging of Afzal Guru for four years and when asked Chief Minister Sheila Dixit said it was done on the instructions from the then Union Home Minister.
Now the decision is pending with the President, he said.
"I have not made a wrong statement. They (Congress) should rather give the reply as to why they are not executing the orders of the Supreme Court," he said.
Gadkari made a reference to the Afzal Guru issue while slamming the Congress and the UPA for the delay in the hanging of the death row convict, bringing the focus back on the Afzal case file.
Is Afzal Guru your son-in-law? Gadkari asks Congress
I say if you cant do anything just have a slack in security and give him over to public. we will take good care of him
would love to see him crucified on the India Gate with feast for the crows for his dead body....
Evil yindoo trick to increase thank count....
Ok let me game it on. Those who dont support congress thank here....
So we have one more peanut-brained trouble-maker determined to reprint inflammatory and tendentious news from his favourite brand of inflammatory and tendentious news-making.
Why do we need to react to it in such terms? Exactly the terms that allow people who are sensitive to the degeneration in
their country's civil systems to say that we are in fact exactly alike in our respective countries in our responses to critical situations, that the decay of our civic sense is exactly that of theirs?
Why is it difficult for you two, Divya and Jha, to 'get it'?
The article tried to pour cold water on the Indian charge against the Pakistani establishment in general, but against its military in particular, that there is a conspiracy going on against India, a conspiracy backed at the highest levels of Pakistan, excluding the civilian political establishment. Did it do that? It only stated that Indian courts threw out the conspiracy charges, and went to town partying on that.
Big deal.
The courts refused to acknowledge the conspiracy; it was quite right to do so. There was not sufficient evidence. The rules of evidence in Indian (and in Pakistani) courts are drawn up to ensure the protection of the individual citizen against the might of the state. It is this protection that you and I can seek in case of need. They cannot; mob rule is setting in as far as the minorities are concerned, and it is increasingly difficult to define, even for Pakistanis themselves, who is a minority.
Let us dismiss the conspiracy business as a matter for debate in these fora once and for all. We don't need to debate it here; this is a discussion forum, and no decisions will be reached, at best information can be exchanged, and information on these issues is already so thick in the air that any further dissemination is superfluous. Let us instead stick to what the article said, that there was probably no conspiracy because 'even' Indian courts refused to acknowledge conspiracy.
It was impossible for Indian courts to find and establish this conspiracy, not because it didn't exist, but because the signs and indications are not such as qualify as evidence in a court of law.
This is a case of an entire state waging a quiet and relentless war against another, with no sector excluded from attack, not Parliament, not the common man, woman or child, and no one else in between. This
cannot be proved in court, although it was and is accepted fact in intelligence circles. It is why Pakistan finds it possible to prepare deliberately weakened cases about the Bombay massacre, and expects its courts to dismiss these deliberately weakened cases with the contempt that they deserve. The courts work within very tightly defined boundaries, and within those boundaries, they are effective; not all terrorist actions come within those boundaries, which is why we have such a lot of legislative head-scratching about the appropriate way to deal with terrorist activities consistent with the laws of the land.
That was the core of the posting made by our latest baby troll, and that is all the air-time it deserves. But by our reaction, we have ourselves raised additional issues; be sure that sharp-eyed, hostile observers, the Developereos, the RoadRunners, the Agnostic Muslims are observing these gross excesses with keen delight and recording every detail.
Our reactions really let us down. We came out looking like a bunch of immature clowns, totally unaware of what the rule of law means. But this is not merely a public relations disaster. It has other implications for our discussions with Pakistani counterparts as well.
Pakistan's tolerances for the democratic ways of doing things are failing rapidly, at an increasingly rapid rate of failure. Their fanatics kill their leaders as a rule, not as exceptions. They cannot speak up and oppose a religious faction without risking their lives; but the way some Indians have projected matters, that is what we will face soon, if our fellow-countrymen are not checked soon. If we want to take the law into our own hands, we are imitating our neighbours, and abandoning what we have established over the years as a hallmark of our democracy.
Their systems and processes are failing. Our systems and processes are not. We tell the truth, even to ourselves. Whoever it is involved in terrorism, we acknowledge it, we hunt down those responsible, regardless of whether or not it suits our preconceived notions.
The reason why we hold together is that we are still honest, and we still abide by the rule of law, and nothing else. Our policemen, with all their very visible defects, still do not hesitate to stand up and say that Indians, otherwise supposedly patriotic Indians, have killed others in acts of terror.
Pakistan noticeably does not. Pakistan noticeably is still in a state of denial. Pakistan's processes work in parallel, one visible to the world, a liberal democratic process with a liberal tinge, a deeper religious orientation, and another not so visible, the deep state's ways of doing things, not apparent to any but other habitues of the deep state.
It has an existential need to prove its case, that Indians and Pakistanis are equally dangerous and indisciplined people, equally violent and uncaring of the due process of the law. And we walk right into the little trap by posting pictures of Afzal Guru and the noose, by posting comments about how 'we' will take care of the matter if the government does not. What have we proved? That we are just the same! Is that what you really think?
As far as the BJP is concerned, I'd be more than happy to explain why it is a dangerous and de-stabilising force, and hostile to the core the 'idea of India', the
nazariya-e-Hind, if there were to be such a thing. But not in this atmosphere, not with this tom-foolery going on.
The execution of a fellow human being is a very solemn and serious step, one that is banned in many countries. When we take such a step, we do so when our courts of law are convinced that it is a matter among the gravest of grave cases, and deserving of the exceptional step of taking life. It is a solemn act of state, rare and very, very exceptional. It is not a joke, nothing that deserves this carnival of bad taste and display of bloodthirstiness, which - in my personal opinion, at least - cuts at the very root of what being Indian is all about.
And the crows on the India Gate are not in the service of the due process of law. In the service of the Taliban, maybe; that's what, more or less, sparing some detail for the sake of the delicately brought up, their predecessors did with Najibullah.
