NK SINGH
In February 2017 Vishwa Hindu Parishad expelled president of its cow protection cell in Satna district, Ashish Singh Rathore. The action was taken after Anti Terrorism Squad of Madhya Pradesh police started investigating Rathore for his links with Balram Singh, the alleged kingpin of the espionage racket for Pakistan that it had unearthed earlier.
The saffron organisation announced: “VHP is a social and patriotic organisation; it does not protect traitors or anyone with links to anti-national elements.”
The development came as a shock to VHP’s sister organisation, Bharatiya Janata Party, which happens to be in power in the State. It was at great pains to disown another prominent member of the spy ring, Dhruv Saxena. ATS has arrested Saxena, who described himself as information technology cell chief of Bharatiya Janta Yuva Morcha, the ruling party’s youth wing, at Bhopal.
Congress lost no time in pouncing upon its political rivals. Tweeted former chief minister Digvijay Singh: “RSS-BJP is now ISI certified.”
Till the time of writing, ATS had arrested one dozen persons who allegedly formed the network involved in espionage for Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence. The ring operated in several districts of MP. It operated parallel telephone exchanges that helped ISI routing calls originating from Pakistan camouflaged as Indian numbers.
As some people have pointed out, all the arrested persons are Hindus. But as anyone keeping a tab on ISI operation in India knows, it is not the first time that Hindus have been arrested for involvement in espionage activities for Pakistan.
The case has attracted attention because of the political background of some of the accused. Organisations like BJP and VHP pride themselves on wearing their patriotism on their sleeve.
The arrests immediately sparked off a political controversy as Dhruv Saxena’s photographs with senior BJP leaders, including the chief minister, surfaced.
According to MPCC chief Arun Yadav, Dhruv’s IT company, Vocal Heart Infotech, had created BJYM’s official website. The party came out with a Google cache screenshot of the website containing Saxena’s photo and name.
Digvijay Singh tweeted: “BJP-ISI link, spying against army J&K. Fake telephone exchange and cloned SIM cards.... demand public enquiry into Pathankot-Uri attack.”
State BJP chief Nand Kumar Singh Chouhan “categorically and repeatedly” denied that Saxena was a BJP man. He pointed out: “It is an age of selfie. Anyone can take selfie with any leader or celebrity. On the basis of selfie, one cannot claim anyone’s link with a certain person.”
The arrested ISI spies’ preference for saffron is not surprising. Can there be a better camouflage? Who is going to believe that the member of an ultra-nationalist organisation is a Pakistani agent? And, of course, having a little political clout never hurts.
But is it right to question VHP’s and BJP’s patriotism, as Digvijay Singh’s tweets seem to imply? Is it proper to link the organisations to ISI just because a couple of its members could have sold their souls for pecuniary gains?
Along with prostitution, spying is one of the oldest professions. Is not Congress playing the same kind of politics for which the saffron brigade is infamous? Till now it was the saffron brigade that had a monopoly on issuing certificates of patriotism. Just try to imagine the BJP-VHP response had Saxena been the IT cell chief of Congress!
Congress is trying to establish a link between BJP and ISI. One of the main accused in Vyapam racket was a Congress leader, Sanjeev Saxena. He had even contested assembly election as a Congress candidate. Apparently, he was quite high In the party hierarchy.
Can Congress be charged with involvement in Vyapam scam just because one of its leaders was arrested in it?
Sangh parivar is stung by criticism because it has hurt them at their most vulnerable spot ---- their nationalist credentials. It points out that BJP is a mass organisation and no one had the the right to measure anyone’s patriotism.
RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat said at Bhopal soon after the arrests: “Even those who may feel they are running the show cannot measure anyone’s patriotism, or pass judgment on it.”
One hopes that discovery of black sheep like Saxena and Rathore in its ranks will lead to an introspection. Where have things gone wrong? Is it the result of developing an ambivalent attitude towards corruption and turning a blind eye towards financial misdemeanour of some its leaders?
Going in a denial mode would not help. It is true that anyone can join a mass organisation and it is not possible to keep a check on private conduct of all members.
But where is that system of check and balances and scrutiny on which cadre based organisations like RSS once prided themselves? Apparently, that mechanism crumbled long ago under onslaught from money power.
Powers That Be, my column in DB Post of 19 Feb 2017
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