It’s election time, almost, in British Columbia. This means that representatives will be pandering for the vote throughout the province, at restaurants, malls and pretty much anywhere there might be a crowd.
They’ll definitely be pandering at this weekend’s Vaisakhi Festival. They did in 2007, with hilarious results. One of the martyrs honoured on a float that year was Air India bomber Talwinder Singh Parmar. The politicians that day had a lot of egg that needed to be wiped off their stunned-but-still-smiling faces. Adding to the apprehension of the oncoming media nightmare was the fact that some people at the festival that day were seen wearing International Sikh Youth Federation T-shirts (promoting a group that is banned in Canada under the Anti-Terrorism Act).
In 2008, Vaisakhi Festival organizers warned politicians ahead of time that there would be on display graphic pictures of Sikhs in India who were killed by mobs with government foreknowledge, and of Indira Gandhi’s Sikh bodyguards who gunned her to death for ordering the military invasion of a Sikh gurudwara (temple).
Politicians are understandably squeamish this year, as they were in 2008, of showing up to hobnob at the parade. What to do: get the Sikh vote or lose some of the non-Sikh votes?
You won’t find this sort of squeamishness in India today. Varun Gandhi, fruit of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty and candidate for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), was allegedly caught saying some rather volatile things about Muslims and how they should be treated.
It all went downhill from there. Television channels played the videos over and over. The government of the state of Uttar Pradesh where Gandhi was campaigning invoked the National Security Act against him for inciting hatred. The rest of the Gandhi family noted that such an act on Varun’s part was horribly un-Gandhi-like.
This is hardly anything new in the Gandhi clan. Then again, this is hardly anything new for a politician.
Mohandas “Mahatma” Gandhi, who was well-known for championing non-violent protest, is far less known for his oppressive attitude towards the millions of untouchables in the country (which was not a far different stance at the time from very many others of his class). One of his hunger strikes ended on the condition that the untouchables keep their ambitions regarding voting rights at bay.
His friend and Prime Minister of India Nehru’s daughter Indira would go on to oppress the Sikhs even after her death (Indira married a man whose last name was Gandhi, though unrelated to Mohandas. This allowed the family to very proudly declare themselves the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty). After having a Sikh temple invaded in order to catch separatists hidden within, she insisted on retaining her Sikh bodyguards. In one of the world’s first PR stunts gone horribly wrong, the guards turned their guns on her.
Riots after the assassination led to the death of hundreds of Sikhs.
Indira’s son Ragiv was assassinated for his support for the Sri Lankan government against the Tamil uprising.
Varun is Ragiv’s nephew, and the second to break family lines by joining the BJP party instead of Congress. His comments were by and large opportunistic and the mark of a vote-pandering politician taking advantage of the recent attacks in Mumbai that are still being thrust onto the shoulders of Muslims.
Things seem to now be going as they always do. Varun insists that he did not say those awful things, but refuses to take a voice sample test. The BJP, after a few moments of hesitation, are solidly behind their hero after 10,000 supporters protested Varun’s detention.
Luckily for Varun and the BJP, Indian Railway Minister Lallu Prasad Yadav said something disparaging about crushing Gandhi under a roller for saying such nasty things about Muslims. Now the BJP is crying foul and cradling Varun’s delicate disposition in its arms, painting Yadav to be the real villain in this tragic farce.
The police in Karnataka coincidentally arrested a man from Kerala who was planning to assassinate Varun at the behest of gangster and pro-Muslim don Chota Shakeel. The BJP has added this fact to the list of items that should weigh in on Varun’s upcoming hearing.
Varun’s separatist tactics are ironically reminiscent of those attributed to Nathuram Godse – the man who killed Mohandas Gandhi. The only difference is that Godse was frustrated with Gandhi’s hunger strike to force the Indian government to return fleeing Hindu refugees back to Pakistan, whereas Varun just wants a few measly sectarian-driven votes.
All this hulaboo about Varun’s comments, and the world seems to have largely not noticed that it was during this week of Vaisakhi that a Sikh journalist threw his shoe in frustration at India’s Home Minister for evading a question about the 1984 massacre of Sikhs following Indira Gandhi’s assassination.
Enjoy the festivities.
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