'It was almost as if we were back to 'acche din', when Parliament was a forum where two sides fought ferociously as equals.'
'For that we need to thank Rahul Gandhi,' notes Jyoti Punwani.
Rarely does a speech by Rahul Gandhi become a milestone. On Monday, the Congress leader's reply to the President's address was one such milestone.
After 10 years, we saw Parliament the way it should be. It's not as if aggressive speeches have not been made in this decade when the Lok Sabha has been swamped by BJP MPs. But in the absence of a Leader of the Opposition, these speeches have been short, individual performances.
This time, for almost two hours, the Leader of the Opposition held forth and remained unsparing. Rarely has such a direct attack been mounted on the prime minister in the House.
Rahul Gandhi's effort to link his own slogan 'Daro mat' with the teachings of all religions, specially with the teaching of 'Shivji' as he kept referring to Lord Shiva, was a bit of a stretch. The Congress' symbol of a hand, recall those of us who grew up under Indira Gandhi, was also interpreted as a hand that slapped you.
For Rahul to link it to 'Abhaymudra' (a gesture that denotes freedom from fear, usually associated with the Buddha), and then claim that from Guru Nanak to Mahavir, everyone displayed 'Abhaymudra', and even the hands raised in prayer during namaz were doing 'Abhaymudra', was absurd.
Yet, what Rahul himself displayed was in fact an example of daro mat and 'Abhaymudra.'
Very early in his speech he ridiculed the prime minister, making fun of his claims of being 'sent by God' and of having had a 'non-biological' birth, as well as his astounding assertion that had it not been for Richard Attenborough's film Gandhi, the Mahatma would have been forgotten by the world.
In Parliament, Opposition leaders have attacked Modi for many things, not least his silence on burning issues. They've accused him of divisive politics, but no one has as yet called him 'ignorant' in the House, that too in his presence.
The PM's many gaffes have been ridiculed on social media. Mainstream media has reported some of them, without making fun of them. Therefore, to hear the Leader of the Opposition use, in Parliament, the very words for the head of government that are used by people on the street, was like a breath of fresh air.
If only the camera had focused on the PM's face at that time!
However, more significant than this was Rahul's attack on the ruling party's brand of 'Hinduism'. 'Those who call themselves Hindus,' he said, indulge all the time in hate, violence and untruth.
Rahul did err in describing Hindutvavadis as 'those who call themselves Hindus'. He should have been more accurate in his description; he could have said 'those who claim to act in the name of Hindus', or, 'self-styled defenders of Hinduism.' Perhaps getting the right phrase in Hindi was tough.
But his meaning was crystal clear. The long build up to this accusation, during which he dwelt on the ideals of non-violence, courage and truth, that according to him, symbolised the 'idea of India', that inspired the freedom movement, and that were propagated by all religions found in India, and specially by 'Shivji', beloved deity of Hindus, made it clear that he was accusing not all Hindus but the BJP and its supporters of indulging in violence.
He even pointed towards the Treasury Benches while making the charge, added for good effect that a Hindu cannot be violent, and ended with 'You are not Hindus.'
It was expected that the BJP would twist the meaning of his words. In truth, taken in isolation, they do lend themselves to the meaning that the BJP is giving them. But even if one were to omit the build up to the sentence, what he said after that made it clear that he was not referring to all Hindus, but only to the BJP.
'The BJP does not represent all Hindus, Narendra Modi does not represent all Hindus, the RSS does not represent all Hindus,' he shouted, adding 'We here (the Opposition) are Hindus.'
This, more than anything else, needed to be said: That the BJP does not speak for all Hindus, that it doesn't have a monopoly over Hinduism. This has been said a lot over these last 10 years, by journalists, activists, scholars. Politicians have also said this.
Uddhav Thackeray, who inherited the legacy of Hindutva from his father, the original Hindutva icon, has often distinguished his brand of 'Hindutva' from that of the BJP, saying his Hindutva was inclusive, it did not 'use religion to stoke fires and win power'.
So has Arvind Kejriwal, who never hides his belief in Hanuman, and is accused of 'soft Hindutva'. Abusing people and spreading riots was not Hindutva, he said in 2021, adding that 'Hindutva unites, it does not break.'
But the distinction between Hinduism and Hindutva needed to be made in Parliament, which represents the people of this Hindu-majority country; it needed to be made by a leading politician, and by one who identified as a Hindu. It was just fitting that the Leader of the Opposition did it.
There were other milestones achieved on Monday by the Congress leader. Perhaps because of the Opposition's increased numbers; perhaps because of the blunt accusations of partisanship made against him by the Opposition on the first day of Parliament; perhaps because Rahul spoke as a the Leader of the Opposition and not just another MP, whatever the reason, Om Birla today let Rahul dominate the day.
It was sweet justice to see the home minister, who has never failed to put down the Opposition in the House, and whose party MPs have till today got away with bullying Opposition MPs, plead with the Speaker not to be 'one-sided'.
It was almost as if we were back to 'acche din', when Parliament was a forum where two sides fought ferociously as equals. For that we need to thank Rahul Gandhi.
Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff.com
