A Time For Nic Pic-king

The meeting, the first one of its kind, had all those whom the BJP describes as pseudo-secularists—Congress chief ministers, a Janata parivar chief minister, members of the Left Front and assorted Muslim groups. The diversity of the gathering was wide: from Swami Agnivesh to Nafisa Ali. Laloo Yadav and Shabnam Hashmi rubbed shoulders as did grassroots NGOs and trade union groups. Congress president Sonia Gandhi led the charge against the ruling BJP, saying that never had there been an attempt to divide society as was being done today. "How we meet it head-on is one of the challenges before us," she said. Madhya Pradesh chief minister Digvijay Singh outlined ways in which the saffron challenge could be met. cpi(m) member Sitaram Yechury had his own ideas and called upon all non-BJP political formations to form a united front, to include as many people as possible agreeing upon a common minimum programme.

Indifferent media coverage did not come in the way of strong words. "The time to discuss and debate is over. Now it is time for action on the ground," said Saeed Mirza, eminent filmmaker and one of the delegates. The problem, as ever, is how to broadbase a movement like this. While all those who attended were familiar with the issues being debated from the podium, a secular counter-culture spread through the length and breadth of the country and aimed at the Sangh parivar is quite another matter.

The main organiser, Arjun Singh, certainly looked a worried man with charges of his party taking on a soft Hindutva hue. "The problem in this country is people who speak in English think they own the copyright on secularism," he told Outlook. "I am an ardent worshipper. Does that make me communal?" His arguments are pretty much the current Congress line: do not equate visiting temples with communalism. For someone who represents the left-of-centre view on communalism and has been one of the main backers of anti-communalism groups like Sahmat, Arjun Singh’s views come as a surprise.

Says Arjun, "This is a very good meeting and we need to expand our base from here on." The other problem: cynicism. Said J.S. Bandukwala, a delegate and one of the prominent Gujarati Muslims at the receiving end of riots, "This is a good beginning and we need to take it further from here. But as insiders in the Congress admit, merely galvanising NGOs and intellectuals will not do. Hard work has to be put in at the ground level and the idiom of campaigning has to change. Otherwise, the message will not reach the target audience."