In an interesting letter to this newspaper, a reader has suggested that it is the DMK which has to get its secular credentials certified from the BJP and not otherwise. Somewhat in a similar vein, the Prime Minister has, yesterday, taken exception to Karunanidhiās āpontificationā on secularism and has declared that the BJP needs no certificate from anyone on secularism and has even gone ahead to say that the BJP is most certainly a secular party.
The letter which has been published in page 4 of todayās issue, lambasts Karunanidhiās double standards and goes on to narrate the DMKās special brand of secularism which castigates one religion while turning a blind eye to similar practices in other religions. One may agree or disagree with the arguments and it may even seem to be the language of Hindu zealots, but what cannot be missed is the stark hypocrisy inherent in the rhetoric of the likes of Karunanidhi as brought out by the reader. I am neither aware of the credentials of the reader nor his political affiliations, but a point is a point, and must be treated purely on merit.
Who the hell is Karunanidhi to distribute secular certificates? For that matter what merit can the DMK and its chief lay claim to that entitles them to talk about secularism or religion? If anything these godless, but superstitious hypocrites, through their deceptive rhetoric and shameless doubletalk have wrought upon this state nothing but pain.
All the ills that afflict Tamilnadu today have their roots in the DMKās strange culture and self-serving ideologies as propagated by its sole leader. Of course today much of their loud talk has faded away owing to compulsions of survival, but if the flesh was as strong as the spirit, even today they would wish to go back to their founding tenets, read, secessionism and obscurantism.
Given a chance, greater Eelam could still be achievable for them for it was after all a grand dream shared by a Thaanai thalaivan and a terrorist thalaivan. If the first DMK regime secured a certificate for scientific corruption from a judge named Sarkaria, the next two stints were notorious for their wanton encouragement to anti-nationals.
There is the Jain certificate about the DMKās dalliance with the LTTE, which was also supplemented by another certificate called Article 356, in 1991. More recently, the DMK received a certificate written in the blood of the unfortunate victims of a carnage in Kovai which was made possible by their special brand of secularism which meant turning a nelsonās eye to the criminal activities of a violent section of a minority.
Once again, we should not mistake their extreme show of love for their language, the people or the minorities as an exhibition of their commitment to ideologies. Rather such display is purely a ruse to further their own ends which simply means the prosperity of the leaderās families and theirs closely held businesses that include the DMK and Arivalayam, more popular now as the Sun TVās HQ.
It is precisely this survival instinct that had made the Rising Sun warm up to the Lotus lately. The prospect of an opening in the ruling coalition for the CMās loyal nephew had raised hopes of a tie up with the ācommunalā BJP. But with such chances receding at least temporarily, the CM after blabbering eloquently about BJP being different from the government and that the governmentās stability is vital, has now been forced to eat humble pie.
Hence the sudden enlightenment about BJPās secular credentials. So, we are to believe that the DMK would tie up with the BJP only if the latter turned out to be secular? Forsooth! Karunanidhi would be happy for an alliance even if the BJP were to be led by the Sankaracharya! The chief and his co-borns would even be ready to do kar seva for such an opportunity. It is purely a case of sour grapes with the fox behaving as is its wont. Vajpayee need not have worked himself up. The certificate would be delivered at his door step voluntarily if the need arose.
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