Looking Back in Anger

by George Menezes

In 1984 I was nominated to the national excutive of the
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) by Atal Behari Vajpayee, courtesy
Ram Jethmalani. Those days were heady days. I was at that time
not only a director of a multinational pharmaceutical company,
but also a member of the Pontifical Council of the Laity at
the Vatican, the advisory body of the Catholics laity to Pope
John Paul II.

All hell broke loose that January. The Christian community got
polarised into supporters and detractors. Posters accusing me
of betraying the Church were circulated, caricatures of me
appeared on walls. An effigy of me, bald but not beautiful, was
burnt by people whose sons I had helped to get jobs. Catholic
periodicals carried letters to the editor on "George and the
BJP" for several months.

The detractors belonged to three groups -- Christian
Congressmen, Christian fundamentalists and one or two
individuals, desperately trying to establish themselves as
leaders of the community.

A few friends not belong to either of the three categories
expressed surprise and pain in civilised language. One of them
was George Fernandes, a close friend. "If I knew you were
interested in politics," he wrote, "we would have welcomed you
into the Janata Party."

In the midst of all this hatred the voices of support
outnumberd the detractors by almost ten times. Hoechst India
stood by me. Liberal lay people, priestsand nuns too Bishops
inlarge numbers wrote to say they understood what I was doing.
My own Archbishop did.

I must confess I was taken aback by the nastiness of the
attacks. Why did it bother Chrisians which political party I
joined? I ws not unhappy to discover that people in my
community cared about what I did or did not do. Yet many people
did not want to believe the reasons for my joining the BJP.
Let me state them again. Because I believe in parliamentary
democracy and a two-party system. Because in 40 years of powre
the Congress had done nothing baout the country's principal
problems.


Therefore, I argued, educated Indians committed to change
needed to join in large numbers a party that would replace the
Congress government.The BJP had the capability to do just that.
Teh moderates in the BJP in those yars truly believed that
Vajpayee's leadership would steer the BJHP topower on a plank
of national issues and not a platform of Hindutva.

And lastly, because of the fears of Rashtra Swayamseak Sangh
(RSS) influence on the BJP and its repercussions on minorities,
I felt it was necessary for Christians to influence the
thinking about Christians from within the party and build up a
lobby.

In my first words to BJP national executive, which are on
record, I said very clearly: "I am an Inian and a Christian
above all else and I will quit the BJP if either of these are
compromised at any state." Which I did two years later.

Meanwhile, I was addressing seminars of RSS professors and
teachers on the Christian approach to education. I had
wonderful opportunities toshare my own Jesus-experience and to
talk about a Jesus who did not give us a law but a way of life.
But my great failure has been that I was not able to influence
Christians to have the guts to enter the BJP and influence it
from within.

Only the Vatican understood. When some my detractors wrote to
teh Vatican asking them to remove me from the Pontifical
Council, they were snubbed. On the other hand, I received from
Rome a warm communication which simply said: "When there is a
choice it is better to build bridges than to build walls."

By now the BJP was being accused of not being able to commit
themselves to a clearcut vote-winning strategy. "Do you want to
come into power at the centre soon or are you prepapred to wait
for an eternity," the cadres were asking. The answer was loud
and clear. The hardliners took over. The famous "rath yatra"
wound its inflammatory way around India. The BJP had almsot
hundred of its members elected to parliament and was able to
form governments in several states. The Vishwa Hindu
Parishad-RSS-Bajrang Dal stranglehold over the BJP was now both
permanent and overt.

Yet theordinary Indian citizen would never have imagined that
the Babri Masjid would have been demolished. In one Karsevak
stroke, the BJP abetted by the Congress government had done
what thebarbaric Moslem invaders, centuries ago and Pakistan in
recent history had failed to do. Namely, the destruction of our
republic and the exposure of the hollowness of all our
self-righteous claims to democracy, secularism anda culture of
tolerance and non-violence. Above all it exposed the political
leadership of my motherland which I love.

The unnplatable truth is that a country of 800 million people
is unable today to produce even few leaders to quality in my
field of endeavour. There are none among the rop rungs of the
BJP or the Congress.

Organisations don't close down because of irresponsible
workers. Only because of irresponsible management. Just as the
nation is not on the brink of disaster because of a few hundred
fanatical kar sevaks. But because of a few dozen ruthless,
selfish, godless, lying, cheating power-hungry politicians.

For the first time in myh life, I am afraid. I who dared. I am
afraid not for myself. I am 63 years old. I hold no office. I
am expendable. I am afraid for my children and the children of
all communities for the kind of India they will inherit.

My fear is about hwat the community and the Church hierarcy
will do if the BJPcome to power. Is this possibility on any of
their agenda? Is the strategy that will provide an assertive
yet Christian response as Indians first, always and every time?

As I lie in bed at night unable to sleep, the dust of Ayodhya
choking my fragile body, several nightmarish scenes haunt me.
One scene has filmstars marching through the streets of Bombay
with placards while riot victims are holding their bleeding
intestines in the corridors of our hospitals.

In another scene, eminent citizens whose number is legion,
sitting with Mother Teresa praying on the well-kep lawsn of
Rajghat, asking God to restore what was destroyed also in his
name. Thirdly, thousands of others not so eminent, myself included,
writing articles and making statements to the press.

If a dozen such as these jurists, filmstars, architects, writers,
painters, economists, professors, mullahs, shakaracharyas,
bishops, sportsmen, Padma Shris and Padma Bhashans were willing
to fast unto death before Parliament, or immolate themselves in
front of the officers of the BJP and the Congress, this nation
might not have suffered the wounds of today. Are we prepared
todo this even now? Or will Nazi history repeat itself?

"They came for the jews but I was not a Jew so I did not
protest. They came for the Union leaders. But I was not one so
I did not protest. When they came for me there was no one left
to protest."

And finally, the photographs of demolition squads of kar sevaks
with hockey sticks and cricket bats in their hand. Two games
which in recent time shave symbolised India's international fal
fromg race to levels of undescribable ignomity. Are we going to
stand by and watch it happen to our India?