Jaswant Singh expelled from BJP

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Jaswant Singh expelled from BJP

CommentLarger | Smaller Agencies
Tags : BJP, L K Advani, RSS, Jaswant Singh, Vasundhara Raje, Rajnath Singh, Chintan Baithak

Posted: Wednesday, Aug 19, 2009 at 1247 hrs
Shimla:
Jaswant Singh, whose book eulogising Muhammad Ali Jinnah has come under attack from BJP and the sangh parivar, was expelled on Wednesday from the BJP.



The decision to expel Singh, a Lok Sabha member and a former Union Minister, was taken at the Parliamentary Board of the party which met in Shimla during the opening session of the three-day brainstorming session of the top leaders here.




former Union Minister, was taken at the Parliamentary Board of the party which met in Shimla during the opening session of the three-day brainstorming session of the top leaders here.


President Rajnath Singh, who had yesterday issued a statement totally distancing the party from Jaswant Singh's book "Jinnah - India, Partition, Independence", announced the decision to the media here.



"I had issued a statement yesterday that the party fully dissociates itself from the contents of the book. Today I put up the matter before the Parliamentary Board which decided to end his primary membership.



"So he has been expelled. From now onwards he will not be a member of any body of the party or be an office bearer," he said on the expulsion of the 71-year-old party veteran.

Rajnath Singh said yesterday he had told Jaswant Singh not not to come to Shimla for participating in the 'chintan baithak'.



Jaswant Singh has been having an uneasy relationship with the party leadership ever since the Lok Sabha elections on which he had circulated a note demanding thorough discussion on the debacle

one down...few more to go!

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

This is utterly ridiculous.

I understand that Pakistanis have a hard time swallowing India's secular principles, considering the number of threads and posts on this forum that mention "Secular India" accompanied by general sneering and stupid emoticons, but the fact is that the BJP is free to kick out whoever it wants for not conforming with the ideas of the party.

It has nothing to do with freedom of speech and secularism. You could however, legitimately raise that point had the CBI decided to arrest Mr. Jaswant Singh for expressing his opinion on the issue.

This has nothing to do with 'swallowing India's credentials' - do point out where I said anything f the sort.

Unless the BJP has a specific article in the party constitution that bans 'praise for Jinnah', this expulsion is exactly how I described it, based on the public reasons given for it, an inability to digest freedom of speech and idea's by one of the two major political parties of India.

 

[abdulrafi]

 

[sob]

Apart for many reasons one of the main reasons that the people are overlooking is that Mr.Jaswant Singh has criticized Sardar Patel and with Mr.Advani trying to don the mantel of Sardar Patel, this was not at all acceptable.

Loh Purush and Chhote Sardar: Two reasons why BJP can't take Jaswant's criticism of Patel


Loh Purush and Chhote Sardar: Two reasons why BJP can't take Jaswant's criticism of Patel

MORE than praising Jinnah, it's Jaswant Singh's criticism of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel that's touched many a raw -and politically strained -- BJP nerve.

For, while the Congress has always tried to appropriate the legacy of the national movement, it's through the strand in the Congress represented by India's first Home Minister, Sardar Patel, that the BJP has tried to connect itself to the freedom movement.

Sardar Patel was referred to as the Iron Man -- for uniting the princely states. This was the imagery L K Advani tried to invoke with portrayals of him being a Loh Purush as India's Home Minister during the NDA rule.

Subsequently,in Patel's home state, Chief Minister Narendra Modi has always cultivated the image of Chhote Sardar.

Jaswant Singh's 669-page book (Jinnah -- India, Partition, Independence) refers to Patel at about six places, the theme being that Jinnah's interpretation (false, in Jaswant Singh's opinion) of India being two nations, was finally acceded to by both Nehru and Patel.

The key excerpts from Jaswant Singh's references to Patel: Page 417: Leaders like Patel accepted partition "in order to seek relief from the torments of the past many years and in the process offering many ingratuitous suggestions." Singh quotes from a letter written by Sardar Patel to Kanti Dwarkadas on March 4, 1947: "I am not, however, taking such a gloomy view as you...
before next June, the Constitution must be ready, and if the League insists on Pakistan the only alternative is the division of Punjab and Bengal."

Patel, in the letter, goes on to say that in his view, the British would not agree to such a division and would not help the minority secure a division and a strong centre (subsuming minority demands) would ultimately prevail.

This letter, Jaswant Singh writes, "is a revealing letter for quite apart from how far off from the mark Patel was in respect of so many of his projections about the future, he was also for the first time, even if by implication, accepting partition on condition of a division of the Punjab and Bengal."

Page 418: Jaswant Singh goes on to suggest that the formal adoption, accepting the partition of the country by the Congress party on March 8, 1947, was done in the absence of Mahatma Gandhi and Maulana Azad who, "Nehru and Patel had known would oppose the resolution." Singh quotes Patel explaining the resolution to Gandhi later as "that you had expressed your views against it, we learnt only from the papers."

There is a strong suggestion here that Nehru and Patel acted as one in changing the long-held position of th Congress, one of opposition partition to agreeing to overnight. Jaswant Singh concludes that within a month of Mountbatten's arrival, the Congress's view on partition had changed.

 

[Tango25]

This has nothing to do with 'swallowing India's credentials' - do point out where I said anything f the sort.

Well I'm new here but from I'm just stating my observations.

Unless the BJP has a specific article in the party constitution that bans 'praise for Jinnah', this expulsion is exactly how I described it, based on the public reasons given for it, an inability to digest freedom of speech and idea's by one of the two major political parties of India.

Tomorrow if a senior member of Pakistan's leading political party says something that is completely contrary to the ideology of that party, and might harm its election prospects, will they retain him?

Lets say that some senior politician says that partition was a mistake. I'd love to see you cry about freedom of speech on that day.

 

[EjazR]

Jaswant has a rejoinder: Sardar Patel banned RSS, why is he core to BJP?

New Delhi
Jaswant Singh came out combative and unbending a day after he was sacked from the BJP, trashing his former party’s argument that he had violated its “core” ideology by criticising Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, reminding it that it was Patel who first banned the RSS in the aftermath of the Mahatma’s assassination.

Back in New Delhi from Shimla where the BJP is at its chintan baithak, Singh announced he would meet ailing patriarch Atal Bihari Vajpayee, and promised to make public the note he had circulated to senior party leaders in June, demanding that responsibility be fixed for the Lok Sabha election defeat.

“I don’t know which part of the core belief has been demolished. Patel, what is so core about him? Patel was the first one to ban the RSS and imprison RSS workers (in February 1948). But he did not ban the Muslim League,” Singh said.

Senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley had said in Shimla earlier in the day that “to denigrate Sardar Patel goes against the national consensus and the party’s core beliefs”.

Singh said he continued to believe it was Mohammad Ali Jinnah’s “intractability” and constant change of positions that led to Partition. But, “certainly Congress leaders were responsible as were the British,” he said.

He argued the BJP’s 2005 statement on Jinnah after the L K Advani episode was not a “resolution” — merely a statement by leaders. BJP spokesperson Prakash Javadekar, however, insisted the BJP had passed a resolution on the party’s ideological stand on Jinnah and his role in Partition — and that Singh had been part of the group that passed it.

Singh also hinted that the contents of his book were not the sole reason for his expulsion when, in reply to a question, he said that some people in the BJP were perhaps not “comfortable” with him around.

He said he was sure he would remain in public life despite yesterday’s incidents — he would not, however, join any other party.

Singh said he nursed no grudge against L K Advani for not standing by him — even though he had backed Advani during the Jinnah episode because he believed Advani had said nothing that was not correct.

He quoted from one of his earlier books, A Call to Honour: In Service of Emergent India, to summarise how he was feeling about Advani: “In that book I had written a quote that my grandfather had told me. ‘Never remember a favour you have done. Never forget a favour somebody has done to you.’”

Singh said the banning of his book in Gujarat by the Narendra Modi government amounted to “shutting doors to thought”, but he did not plan to challenge it in court. It was up to his publishers to take that call, he said.

Singh repeated that it had been widely known in both the RSS and BJP that he was writing a book on Jinnah, and that his expulsion remained incomprehensible to him. The BJP, he said, had wanted him to delay the release of the book twice — during last year’s Assembly elections, and during the Lok Sabha polls.

If they had indeed read his book before they decided to act against him, “all I can is that it was very fast reading”.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

Well I'm new here but from I'm just stating my observations.

Observations you have not substantiated as of yet.

Tomorrow if a senior member of Pakistan's leading political party says something that is completely contrary to the ideology of that party, and might harm its election prospects, will they retain him?

What exactly about 'praising Jinnah' is contrary to the ideology of the BJP? Could you quote the relevant excerpts from their party constitution/manifesto that might help us understand this 'ideology' of the BJP?

Lets say that some senior politician says that partition was a mistake. I'd love to see you cry about freedom of speech on that day.

The equivalent statement to a politician saying that partition was a mistake would be an Indian politician saying that Indian should not have become an independent nation, and the various provinces should have merely been part of the United Kingdom, and Punjabis, Tamils, Bengalis would be like the Scots, English and Irish are.

If that were the case I would say that expulsion was completely justified, because one can argue that an individual that does not accept his nation's existence is unfit to remain part of a political party that might put him in a position to govern that nation.

So your attempted analogy does not fit in this case.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

He argued the BJP’s 2005 statement on Jinnah after the L K Advani episode was not a “resolution” — merely a statement by leaders.

Could any of you find and post this 2005 'statement on Jinnah'?

 

[garibnawaz]

It's a shame that BJP cannot hear difference in opinion , in our free society in India we all have our opinion some may agree some may not, but this step if going too far.

I can say that apart from few idiots in BJP no one agrees with them.

Hmm and what other difference of opinion you respect?

Arundhati Roy's differnce of opionion? Which is nothing but treason.

A.R.Antuley's difference of opinion after 26/11 attacks?

Wrong is wrong. Difference of opinion doesnt make it right.

GB