Nelson’s eye, like Madras Eye, appears to be contagious. What was an affliction confined only to the DMK has surely spread to the BJP too if one were to read a meaning into the latter’s continued dithering on the use of Art.356. If successive DMK regimes had turned a blind eye to the subversive activities of imported terrorists, the BJP on its part is neither doing itself nor the nation a service by even refusing to bat an eyelid at the gory happenings in the state that culminated in the Kovai blasts, to which its own leader was a personal witness, besides being the target.
Of course, we are not so dumb as to not realise the roadblocks in the free usage of Art.356, as used to happen before. There is the President to reckon with, the well-laid out tenets of the Supreme Court to be adhered to and above all, there is the elusive majority in the two Houses of Parliament that has to be considered. Yet all these are just speed-breakers and could be easily tackled, if only the ruling party at the Centre wills so.
If only, for unless Moses goes to the shores, how will the Red Sea open up? But alas, such intent is palpably lacking for no valid reason and the BJP is yet to even stir out of the quagmire of the pros and cons of Art 356. If at all, it is the BJP that should have taken the initiative in consigning a criminal government to the graveyard of history, for the events that happened here, not to speak of the ominous prospects that continue to lurk, were not mere acts of vandalism, but a calculated assault on the nation’s integrity. The perpetrators are none else than those the BJP touts as its enemies, and the sponsor is that one nation, to deter whom the BJP is busy bursting nuclear bombs.
That such an enemy and their long arms of insurgency have come to play in the foreground of India is in itself motivation enough for the BJP to act. And the fact that such a carnage has been perpetrated despite several alert warnings to none else than the Chief Minister of the state, who also doubles up as the police minister, speaks even more candidly for the DMK’s affection and affinity towards those of the underground.
It is indeed a pity that the BJP government has not even exhibited the intent to make a diligent assessment of the security situation in the state as also investigate the conspiracy of silence at the highest levels of the DMK government in the face of repeated warnings of the impending attack to the last detail.
The rational CM, of course, has fantastic arguments for why he and his government should be let off the hook for laying the State, nay, the nation itself wide open to foreign terrorists, despite being forewarned adequately. In yet another demonstration of his characteristic deceptive rhetoric in chaste Tamil, that the English language is incapable of conveying, he waxes eloquent on the situation in the State vis-a-vis other states. And he concludes by inferring that, in spite of Veerappans and Ayeshas being still at large and the undiscovered cache of explosives continuing to remain a mystery, Tamilnadu is a haven of peace. Phooey!
We must now remind the all-knowing CM of some of the chinks in his rational armoury. His allusion to the L&O problems in other states as mountains when compared to the molehill of a situation that prevails in TN is nothing but a blatant display of callousness and a classic case of deception. We now know how the LTTE and the Al-Umma were able to get away with what they did.
It is this shameful tendency to trivialise the damage potential of unseemly elements, either on considerations of ethnic affinity or minority appeasement, that has already cost the nation and its security dear. So, the Kovai blasts are minor events when compared to what is happening in a Bihar or Bengal. If we were to borrow the CM’s logic, the ISI hand in TN is of little significance when seen in the light of the breakdown of the law enforcing machinery in those states. And so we, the mute subjects of these Dravidian rajas, will have to wait till the molehill becomes a mountain?
Well, it is already a mountain as the nature of the law and order problem here is one that threatens national security and not merely a matter of internal disturbances. Pray, which other Chief Minister or political party in power, has ever been accused of pampering militants or has been indicted by commissions of inquiry for indirectly abetting the assassination of a national leader? If all such incidents are just smoke without fire, is it then one of those rare coincidences that the underworld surfaces whenever a DMK government comes to power or that criminals of the likes of Veerappan feel free to the extent of contemplating joining the mainstream and even politics, at the very advent of the Thaanai Thalaivan and his coborns in Fort.St.George?
ISI’s conviction in the cause of destabilisation of India far exceeds our own patriotism. They could be trusted more to strike at will, at a place and time of their choosing than our ability to defend ourselves. Such a situation gets even more aggravated if the rulers themselves, wittingly as in the case of DMK, and unwittingly, if the BJP follows suit, allow these elements to have a free play in our land.
There has been no bomb blasts since Kovai, simply because all old hands, barring probably the elusive Ayesha, are languishing in prison, though only after they had done their mischief. And those at large may be lying low for the dust to settle down. But it will not be long before the ISI finds new mercenaries to carry on its mission of destruction as there is unlikely to be any dearth of takers for such inglorious tasks and when it does, the facade of peace is certain to come crashing down on the people of Tamilnadu.
It would then be too late for the BJP as well as the future corpses amongst us, to realise what price one has to pay for a Nelson’s eye, an infection that had caught on from the DMK. And if still the BJP deems it unnecessary to cure itself of the blurred vision caused by the aforementioned communicable affliction, its leaders shall better start sporting dark glasses too! Besides, it would also be a symbolic response to the CM’s overtures yesterday.
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