BJP ropes in Naipaul to stress Hindutva agenda

The Bharatiya Janata Party leadership paraded Nobel laureate V S Naipaul and his Pakistani wife Nadir at the party's headquarters to take legitimacy from Naipual's views which conform to the party's Hindutva agenda.

The 70-minute session with Naipaul was planned by the BJP's cultural wing in an attempt to neutralise the negative publicity the BJP has incurred on account of the entry and expulsion of DP Yadav into the the party .

At the same time, Naipaul who has developed a close proximity with the Hindutva Parivar in the post-Babri masjid phase turned out to be excellent advocate for the BJP on the eve of the elections.

Though the interaction session was a private affair, Naipaul's utterances were music to the ears of members of the BJP's cultural and intellectual cell.

Those attended the meeting say that Naipaul justified the demolition of the mosque in his inimitable way and pointed out that there were occasions when historical wrongs were undone in the modern times.

"But Indians are not interested in the history" he is learnt to have remarked when someone asked him if the controversy over the history writing in India was genuine.

Though maintaining a neutral position on the issue, Naipaul told the audience that he was of the view that the history-writing be not influence by any dogma or ideologies. In a specific response to a query about Jihadi Islam, Naipaul said that such variant of militancy would not survive.

But what appears to have given most comfort to the audience is the convergence of Naipaul's view with the BJP on the issue of preventing the people of foreign origin to occupy the top posts in the country. "The idea is worth considering" he is quoted as saying.

Naipaul also referred to legal provisions existing in the US. Quite frustrated over being mobbed by media-persons, Naipaul's wife Nadira wondered as to why they have become a subject of curiosity by visiting the BJP as observers.

However, the BJP's media-managers feel that the whole event would take the steam off from the DP Yadav episode and once again enable the BJP to take leverage of the nobel laureate's pro-hindutva stance to advocate ardently about the ideological issues.

That Naipaul's presence adds glamour to the BJP's electioneering is an additional factor which prompted BJP strategists to invite him and his wife to the party's headquarters. "Naipaul expressed his desire to come to the party office and meet members of the cultural cell" said union law minister Arun Jaitley who flanked Naipaul on the dais.

That the party considers joining of the BJP by a large section of influential people as indication of the political trend is reflected in the statement of Jaitley who said that the Congress must introspect as why people had been deserting them and joining the BJP.

Joining the issue with the Congress leadership, he said that it would be absurd on the part of the congress leadership to "call names" to those joining the BJP camp. "Instead of being a structured political, the Congress is today crowd around a family" he said in an obvious reference to Sonia Gandhi and coterie around her.