And this is why one should always read original sources, wherever possible, instead of a reporter's colored take. Go to the original wikileaks cable (link provided on the page), and see if it says anywhere that Sonia gandhi wanted to ban Bajrang Dal. What the cable does say about Sonia, is this:
He told us that Sonia Gandhi and MK Narayanan asked him to help open a dialogue between Christians and Hindus, which he said he has already begun to do.
Look, Sonia gandhi is a politician, and an astute one at that. Politicians are not idiots, they play with logic to determine what would get them votes. Why would Sonia do something suicidally stupid like banning the Bajrang Dal, and give ammo to the opposition to charge the congress with all sorts of denunciations, like curtailing religious freedom, hurting the sentiments of a religion, intimidating political opposition, etc etc?
She will NOT want to do something like that, even if everybody in the security establishment urged her to. That would be politically stupid. In fact, if you read the original cable, the comment by the US diplomat on the cable says precisely that. He calls the BD "thuggish", and bemoans Sonia's (congress') refusal to ban them as political expediency. So on the one hand, the US diplomats who wrote the cable are criticizing the congress party and SG for playing politics in not banning the BD, and others who read the document (which, by the way, is an internal US cable solely meant for their eyes, simply a communication between american diplomats on the Indian political scene) are up in arms against Sonia for "wanting" to ban the BD.
But none of this should matter, it is easy to come up with (and believe) a naieve headline like "Sonia wants to ban Bajrang dal, how dare she, how dare she".
Cable: 08CHENNAI330_a
(Another point to note is that these days, a small memo by an american embassy staff to another american embassy staff is supposed to be the authoritative, truthful voice about India's political scene. The politicians' own voices, or those of Indian commentators, are irrelevant. If it's there in wikileaks, that's where the truth is. Because you see, a note by an American consulate staff in the Chennai consulate trumps all that. In this case, it is not even his words, but a website's false interpretation of his words.)
they should be banned, bunch of low life thugs
