Narendra Modi poses for a photograph as party candidate from Mumbai Poonam Mahajan takes a ‘selfie’ with him at an election rally in Mumbai. PHOTO: AFP
It is getting increasingly harder for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to convince sceptical voters that it poses no threat to Muslims, after Pravin Togadia, president of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, a sister organisation, was caught on camera talking about how to prevent Muslims from buying property in Hindu-dominated areas.
“Muslims have been buying Hindu properties at throwaway prices. How do you stop this?” As a solution, he offers, “You put pressure on the government to enforce the Disturbed Areas Act the way we have in cities like Ahmedabad.”
The circumstances in which he spoke are also controversial. Togadia had joined a group of Hindu activists outside the residence of a Muslim man in Bhavnagar, Gujarat, who were calling for the man’s eviction.
“If he does not relent, go with stones, tyres and tomatoes to his office. There is nothing wrong in it. Killers of Rajiv Gandhi have not been hanged ... there is nothing to fear and the case will go on,” Togadia told the charged-up gathering, the Times of India reported.
While not a part of the BJP itself, the VHP and the BJP are both part of the Rashtriya Swayamsevakh Sang, a right-wing Hindu nationalist organisation formed in the early 20th century. There is significant overlap between the organisations, and their core political ideology remains the same.
It may also be troublesome for the BJP that the incident took place in the home state of BJP’s prime ministerial candidate and Chief Minister Narendra Modi, who is already suspected by many for his role in the 2002 Gujarat riots that killed at least a thousand people, mostly Muslims.
After the riots, Ahmedabad, Gujarat’s biggest city, was segregated along communal lines, with Muslims settling to poor, ghettoised shanty towns away from the Hindus.
India’s Election Commission took notice of the video, and demanded a copy before making a decision. Condemning Togadia’s statements, Congress leader Rashid Alvi said, “I think Togadia should be given treatment. He should be hospitalised.”
Published in The Express Tribune, April 22nd, 2014.
COMMENTS (27)
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Its not only Modi but also BJP's right-wing allies who r extremist hindus and will b partly running the show along with BJP/Modi. Evenbefore reaching the power corridors, below representatives of these organisations are letting out their hatred and making hate-speeches against muslims and Pakistan. - Akali Dal - Togadia - Ramdas kadam - Giriraj singh Its a shame that Hindus have in general have ignored these extremists and going ahead to support Modi while Muslims staying away from him. Hence a communal divide has already begun before him coming into power. Had it been a muslim, they would have been quick to label them as islamic fundamentalist.
there are always people in Hindu Muslim and other communities who think in the right direction . They have love for humanity and believe in unity .They are not selfish and short sighted and believe in justice .India can exist as a strong progressive nation only if there are equal chances for all communities to progress .Evil forces always try to spread hatred through false propaganda . they are enemies 0f the philosophy of Nehru and Gandhi .They want to see India disintegrated and disturbed. I hope people of India and Pakistan will listen to the voice of reason and join hands to fight poverty ignorance illiteracy and extremism. .
@Go65: 1) it is not proved that Togadia said what he did. 2) Togadia’s speech does not reflect VHP policy – let alone BJP policy 3) Modi and Togadia do not see eye to eye and Togadia actually campaigned against Modi in he last election.
The video was on all the major news channels.Standard policy of people who are caught on video is to say that the videos were doctored,misquoted etc. Fact.Hindus, specially vegetarians don't want to live with Muslims. He is the President of the VHP and you say his views are not of the.RSS,VHP and Bajrang Dal are of the same ilk.Isn't L.E.T and Jamat Ud Dawa one and the same Togadia may have campaigned against Modi,but they are both RSS men and have the same ideology. This was just two people fighting to show who was the biggest fish in the pond.Uma Bharati one of the people present at the Babri Masjid demolition criticized Advani and walked out of the BJP.Today she is back and is one of the BJP candidates
Age old ploy ... son goes out and beats up the neighborhood kids ... the father then goes and apologizes and gives the son a chastising in front of the elders that he did wrong.
Modi pretends that he has nothing to do with the hardliners when he himself is the writer of this play.
infact opposite should be done. In the time of riot, generally neighbours help each others. Mostly riot people are from other areas.
India is obsessed with Pakistan. No one in Pakistan's elections talk about India, because no one cares about it.
@THS: Who had doubts about partition. The only handicap is that not all of the Muslims left India as Pakistan was created for the benefit ,welfare, development growth.....so on and so forth! Partition was right and good
As is evident from this, there are moronic fanatics east of the border too! What Togadia has said is nothing short of 'Inciting voilence against a community' and you can bet your horses that the Election Commission will take notice of this and go after Togadia. That being said, will the majority (i.e Hindus) take Togadia's advice seriously? Absolutely not!
I'm glad my ancestors moved to Karachi, Pakistan, where muslims can freely kill each other. Plus, in Pakistan, we never have incendiary speeches directed towards India or Hindus, like this Togandia guy is doing in India. This gives us all the moral authority to say severely intellectual things like "Alhamdullillah we have Pakistan, yes times are difficult, but again ‘ghar ki khatir 100 dukh jhelein, ghar to aakhir APNA hai."
with this begins the communal and religous divide in India..its a pity that majority of Hindus are supporting a facist Modi by completely ignoring his right-wing and extremist mind-set. They r forgetting that one of Indias main strength lies in its communal harmony which is now at stake with Modi and RSS coming into power.
And BJP shows its ugly face. What can you expect from a party who is affiliated with RSS, a bunch of guys whose leaders idealize Hitler, racial purity and Hindu supremacy.
@THS: Israel was made for Jews. Todate any Jew from any part of the world can go to Israel and get citizenship. The claim of TNT was to make a home for Muslims of subcontinent. So why did Pakistan stop accepting Muslims who wanted to migrate from India after 1955? Forget that you have been unwilling to accept the people loyal o Pakistan who were at the time residing in East Pakistan - now Bangladesh. If you elieve in the TNT, honor it by opening up migration o Indian and Bangladeshi Muslims. You might be surprised at how few- if any show up.
In fact the only manifestation of TNT has been that you have forcily converted or driven out Hindus from Pakistan.
There are more Muslim asylum seekers from Pakistan in Europe (Shias and Ahmadis) and practically none from India. That should tell you something.
Finally in India such speech or even allegation of such a speech is not tolerated. Not oly has Togadia been attacked but EC has summoned evidence of such a speech, if it proven that he did indeed say what he is accused off, he will be punished.
Pravin Togadia actually campaigned abaginst Modi in the last election so it is disingenuous to link his opinions to that of Modi.
Secondly, Togadia has denied making the statements attributed to hiand gone to court and filed a case for defamation. While this man Togadia generally is quite extreme and i am not a fan, we must wait to see what evidence is provided o EC who has summoned these tapes. Certainly no video link to this so called speech are available on internet because i searched. If indeed he said those things he should be severely punished.
Third every organisation has millions of followers. If some follower does something crazy, it does not reflect on he organisation uless and until the crazy action of the follower were directly in compliance with the organisation's known policy.
So there are 3 distinct prolems in the conclusion that Modi would support ghettoisation of Muslims: 1) it is not proved that Togadia said what he did. 2) Togadia's speech does not reflect VHP policy - let alone BJP policy 3) Modi and Togadia do not see eye to eye and Togadia actually campaigned against Modi in he last election.
@THS: Indeed. No matter what the Muslims do, the "baghal may churri aur mun pay raam raam" attitude just doesnt go away. It wins and may become the PM of the country soon! Good luck India. Germans had the best brains, the best technology and the best policies. But hatred and a false sense of pride brought them to destruction. I think many of them are too arrogant to learn from history
That's the true face of India coming to the fore. Why is anyone surprised?
that puts a big slap on the face of all those who doubted the validity of the Two Nation theory.. Alhamdullillah we have Pakistan, yes times are difficult, but again 'ghar ki khatir 100 dukh jhelein, ghar to aakhir APNA hai'
Why are Pakistanis so worried about this? Isn't this what they were doing since independence?
India not learning from mistakes made by Pakistan or the south africans or the germans! they will end up burning in the fire tomorrow, they set for themselves today
They simply don't accept Muslims as Indians. Jinnah saw through them very rightly.
What else can you expect from 'shining' India and its 'oh-so-innocent' would-be prime minister?
@water bottle:
dude, it's 'subliminal'. Not 'superliminal'. Don't just regurgitate whatever you come across without restraint. Oh sorry, forgot. Look up 'regurgitate' on google.
Insane politics. This is not a way such big names should behave. I think they have much bigger to see than pakistan.
@water bottle
Are Modi and Negative 2 different things ?
Haha incredible India!
Though I hate my political leaders, but am happy that they never used rants against India in their entire election campaign, its time for Indian politicians to move on, looks like they are stuck in 90's era !