Ramachandra Guha on Article 370

In 1992, a senior Professor got some industrialists to sign a letter condemning an illegal action by an Opposition party. They readily agreed so as to curry favor with the ruling Congress party which had been in power for much the greater part of post-independence Indian history.

In 2019, Guha- now himself a senior Professor- confesses he is unable to get even one industrialist to sign a letter condemning the same Party for a perfectly legal action. Guha thinks this proves industrialists are afraid of that Party because it is now in power. He does not think the fact that the 1992 action was illegal while the 2019 action was legal makes any difference. He writes-

This is because — for all the other parallels I began this column with — in one critical respect, 2019 is not 1992. This is that the government now in power in New Delhi is far more vindictive and vengeful than the one that was in power when the Babri Masjid was demolished.

That party was the Congress party which opposed the demolition of the Masjid. Condemning the enemy of the ruling party is a means to curry favor with it. Guha, being a historian, may not be aware that the Prime Minister at that time was Narasimha Rao who, like it or not, was Sonia's second choice- after Shankar Dayal Sharma turned her down- for the office of P.M.

When Bharat Ram and Lalit Thapar were approached by Dharma Kumar, they did not think that the fate of the tens of thousands of workers they employed would be put at risk by the mere act of their signing a statement.

How could the fate of either Ram or Thapar's enterprises be put at risk? Congress was in power. These rich men were attacking the BJP because it was the enemy of Congress. Thus they were currying favor with the Ruling party.

Consider the case of Bharat Ram. He'd had to fight off a takeover by the British based Swaraj Paul- who had ingratiated himself with Indira Gandhi while she was in the wilderness- and knew full well how important it was, under 'License Raj' or 'Raid Raj', to stay in the good books of the Dynasty. This was because most of the shares in Indian business houses, like D.C.M or Escorts, were owned by Public Sector Institutions like the L.I.C.

 In this instance, his old school chum- Rajiv Gandhi- came to his rescue and cut down to size his Mum's P.A - R.K Dhawan- who had been gunning for Bharat Ram ever since his company grabbed some land from a relative of Dhawan's. Later Dhawan was accused of having a hand in Indira's assassination though Rajiv magnanimously cleared him of that charge. However, by then, there was no doubt in anybody's mind that Pranab Mukherjee would have to play second fiddle. All power would vest in the dynasty.

As for Lalit Thapar, the man had been arrested for tax evasion as part of V.P Singh's crackdown on black money when he was Rajiv Gandhi's Finance Minister. Thapar admitted his guilt. But it was V.P Singh who was punished- being sidelined to Defense, a mistake Rajiv would live long enough to regret because Singh used the knowledge he gained about Rajiv's own corruption in connection with arms deals to discredit Congress. Thus V.P Singh was able to become P.M but lost the post when he arrested Advani in connection with the planned Babri Masjid demolition. Rajiv's assassination put the Dynasty firmly back in power and that is the reason the Corporates always bent the knee to it and did its bidding. This also meant that some third rate Professors could pretend to have influence by getting these industrialists to sign their names to partisan screeds attacking the BJP. Those days are long gone. Industrialists don't have to fear the Dynasty or its minions- more especially those in the Academy- anymore.

Guha has a genius for making the stupidest possible argument and assembling the most damning evidence possible against himself. It is well known that Rajiv took over the Finance Ministry to save the Corporates from having to pay their taxes or else go to jail. It is also well known that he and Sonia were corrupt- as are all the other dynastic parties, including those of Kashmir.  No doubt, corrupt politicians and tax dodging Corporates have an interest in defending 'Secularism' which means the perpetuation of dynasties, whose interests are wholly worldly, not moral or spiritual in the slightest, in saecula saeculorum.

The plain fact of the matter is that V.P Singh as P.M saved the Babri Masjid. The people knew he was 'Clean' and, what's more, not dynastic. Thus he could chuck Advani in jail if he wagged his tail and Advani- a Sindhi- would look a fool. However, because V.P Singh showed his hostility to the Ambanis- and thus to the Corporates- they were greatly relieved when he fell. They did not care that Narasimha Rao let the Babri Masjid be destroyed. They were not even shedding crocodile tears on this issue. What they were doing was signalling loyalty to the dynasty. Guha is doing the same thing. How so? Well, the current Congress narrative is that Rao was a traitor who secretly conspired to have the Babri Masjid demolished. Guha, with typical Huccha Venkat type hysteria, goes the extra mile and pretends that Rao was actually a BJP Prime Minister who ordered the destruction of the Babri Masjid and that Hindu industrialists were courageous enough to protest this illegal act even though this would get them into hot water with the Ruling Party!

Guha, it seems, is a Historian who believes in rewriting History in the craziest and most reckless manner possible. What's more, he fancies himself something of a mover and shaker in the Corporate world. Industrialists hang upon his lips. They consider him the new Mahatma Gandhi whose word is law- at least as far morality and righteousness is concerned.

But were I to approach their counterparts today, even if they entirely approved of what I was trying to do, they would be too scared to sign on. They would have feared retribution, in the form of unannounced raids, cooked-up cases, arrests, and worse.

They would fear being associated by a Huccha Venkat type cretin who does not understand that Congress was ruling in 1992 when the BJP broke the law and thus it was a smart move to condemn the BJP for doing something illegal because the ruling party would reward such behavior. Now, by contrast, the ruling party has done something which is perfectly legal. Why condemn it? What has been done is for the good of the country. Guha may not like it, but he is a fool. Why pander to this cretin? Tomorrow, he may demand you sign a letter saying Modi must convert to Islam to show his secular credentials. The day after, he may suddenly discover that he is not himself a Muslim and thus he might try to bite his own foreskin off so as to remedy a defect his ancestral religion has saddled him with.