Be it, the Congress leader Salman Khursheed saying Sonia Gandhi wept seeing the Batla House encounter images, or be it, P Chidambaram shamelessly tweaking the affidavit on Lashkar terrorist Ishrat Jahan in 2009.
Or, the dead silence of Vadra-Priyanka Congress over the violence of Popular Muslim Front, despite hard evidences in the anti-CAA violence.
Or, be it the erstwhile Siddaramaiah-led Congress government in Karnataka releasing as many as 40 PFI activists who were accused of communal violence.
This sort of appeasement politics should not be tolerated at the cost of national security.
Now, things are beginning to change in some of the Congress leaders. They are beginning to understand – minority appeasement is not secularism.
In fact, senior Congress leaders Jairam Ramesh and AK Antony are giving them a reality check.
Yesterday, Ramesh had said that the Congress should fight PFI and Jamaat-e-Islami type of communalism.
“The Congress party should discover the same degree of aggression against minority communalism and outfits like PFI … We have to fight RSS type of communalism, BJP type of communalism as also PFI and Jamaat-e-Islami type of communalism,” he said.
Ramesh said the party cannot be selective, but have to be upfront, bold in saying that minority communalism is dangerous to India as majority communalism.
He told PTI at Krithi International Book Fair in Kochi.
Ramesh also reminded the Congress of the uncompromising stand of Nehru against all forms of communalism. “We have to be very clear. We should not be pandering to any religious sentiment of anybody and that is real secularism,” he said.
Yet another Congress leader A K Antony, in June 2014, had acknowledged the fact that the people’s faith in the party’s commitment to secularism had eroded because they felt that it favoured the minorities.
The Congress, then, had expressed apprehension that the BJP would project the party as a pro-Muslim party and try and exploit it politically.
He also had said the party should remove some slants that people perceive that it does not give equal justice to all sections of people.
Antony had triggered a debate then, when, he was asked to head a committee to conduct an introspection exercise to pinpoint the reasons for the Congress’ electoral debacle and find a way to restore the morale and strength of its members.
But, are these comments enough for the Congress party to stem the rot of minority communalism? Shouldn’t Salman Khursheed and Ramesh visit Jamia Millia Islamia, Jawaharlal Nehru and Aligarh Muslim universities to counsel the rubble-rousers?
This kind of moral grand-standing on national channels or on a national news agency is not going to rebrand Congress as the most secular party of India.
It may sound intellectually aesthetic, but politically pathetic, because people have seen the face of the Congress.
