Silence once again?

In his customary Dussehra speech, Bal Thackeray has indulged in his customary minority-bashing. Shall it be met with the customary silence? Will the governments at the state and at the Centre once again refuse to act on the Shiv Sena chief’s fulminations? Will they step back, as they have on innumerable occasions in the past, from holding him to account for his inflammatory rhetoric and politics? These questions have acquired a new edge because, by all accounts, this time, Thackeray has surpassed himself. This time, he has touched uncharted depths. He has urged Hindus to form suicide squads to ‘take the Muslim head on’. This call to arms and annihilation is accompanied by the supremo’s usual muscular prescriptions to secure India, to be addressed henceforth as ‘Hindurashtra’: issue ‘ultimatums’ to Pakistan; show ‘them’ action, not words; ‘kick the 4 crore Bangladeshi Muslims out’; throw out ‘pro-Pak’ Muslims… For good measure, it is padded with a diatribe against the NDA government’s disinvestment programme and an insulting take-off on the prime minister.

It has been argued before in these columns and it needs to be underlined again that we do not have the option to ignore Thackeray or dismiss him. He is not the chief of a misdirected overenthusiastic group that flounders at the extremist fringe of the polity. The Shiv Sena is an old ally of the BJP; it is a constituent of the ruling NDA. It has ministers at the Centre; a member of that party occupies the high office of Lok Sabha Speaker. When Thackeray spews venom against the minorities, therefore, when he broadcasts threats against the Indian Muslim community, he will be seen to speak for a section of the NDA government. At a time when New Delhi has presided over a hugely successful election in Kashmir, at a time when official circles are debating a de-escalation at the borders, and at a time when the focus was slowly beginning to veer from the communal conflict that scarred Gujarat earlier this year to more hopeful vistas in Kashmir, Thackeray’s Dussehra message is dangerous. It has the potential to muddy the government’s efforts to change the subject from old animosities and breakdowns to new beginnings.

Hope and reconciliation is in the air. This is a time when the nation must concentrate on the stirrings of a new political dialogue in a state where the gun has ruled. We cannot allow Thackeray to distract us from the task at hand. But, for that, it is essential first that the BJP-led government clarifies its own stand on its ally’s postures. It must unambiguously strip Thackeray-speak of any official resonance.