Mahatma Gandhi once said: “I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent.” Those justifying the increasing social and political violence in the country should ponder over the ‘permanent’ damage that is being done to Indian society.

Violence and its justification portentously spills now into the social arena. Narendra Modi’s owning up the encounter killing of Sohrabuddin Sheikh in response to Sonia Gandhi’s description of him as the ‘maut ka saudagar’ and seeking the validation of such extra-judicial slaughter from the crowd he was addressing, is not the only instance of the justification of violence from those running the machinery of the Indian state. The BJP’s damage control squad is defending Modi by accusing the Congress and the colluding secularists of doing worse.

The defence of Modi and his goons, both in and out of the government, by all the NDA partners after the 2002 riots has a parallel only in Rajiv Gandhi explaining away the brutal 1984 anti-Sikh riots as a tremor caused by the fall of a big tree. Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee’s ‘paid back in their own coin’ justification of the brutal reprisal by the party cadre in Nandigram against the Bhumi Uchhed Pratirodh Samiti supporters offends civilised ears despite his recent apology. Worse, Prakash Karat virtually justified Bhattacharjee, by pointing fingers at the Congress for the Babri Masjid demolition. This ‘your violence is worse than ours’ and ‘don’t blame us, you too have done the same, or worse’ rhetoric is creating a new raison d’être for promoting and perpetuating violence in the social arena.

... contd.