Should
Akhilesh Singh Apologize for the Killing of Kar-Sewaks?
Shrikant G. Talageri
I stopped reading
newspapers and watching the news channels since 2019, because I realized what
was going to be happening in India thenceforth. However, I am constantly on the
internet, and often important news items do catch my eye. yesterday I had been
to the house of a (Modi-bhakt) friend in whose house news channels are
continuously running whole day long. The particular channel was India TV,
and the hot news going on and on was about Akhilesh Yadav (the
chief of the Samajwadi Party) apparently going to be going for darshan
at the Ram Janmabhoomi Mandir Ayodhya on 12th
December 2026. The channel was agog with reaction to this news
from all sides (with spokespersons and journalists from the BJP, AIMIM
and SP constantly stuck on the screen).
The headlines
flashing across the screen all the time mainly spoke about the fact thay Akhilesh
Singh’s father, Mulayam Singh Yadav, as the then Chief
Minister of Uttar Pradesh had ordered firing on kar-sewaks
in Ayodhya on 30/10/1990 and 2/11/1990:
the official death tally was 15 (but the VHP claims to have
identified 59 victims). The headlines asked poignant questions:
“Do nāv
mein savārī … kyā akhileś ko paḍegī bhārī?”
(“With one foot each in two boats … will it cost Akhilesh heavily?”),
“Akhileś kā
jai śrī rām… ayodhyā karegā viśvās?” (“Will Ayodhya trust Akhilesh
saying ‘Jay Shri Ram’?”)
And “apne
mahāpāp ke liye māfī māṅgiye” (“Apologize for your Great Sin”):
BJP spokespersons repeatedly
demanded that Akhilesh apologize for his father’s
Great Sin before daring to think of entering the Ram Temple.
Two general
points:
1. Any Hindu
can visit the Ayodhya temple. [So can non-Hindus, if they
do so with respect, but that is a secondary issue].
2. It is Akhilesh’s
father who ordered the firings, not Akhilesh himself. It
is an Abrahamic idea that descendants must pay for the sins
of their fathers. While Akhilesh is also a multiple-times
sinner against Hinduism, he is in no way himself responsible for the
firings which killed the kar-sewaks.
But should Akhilesh
apologize for his father’s actions anyway?
Yes, but only if Narendra Modi, and the BJP as a party, first apologize for rewarding Mulayam Singh for ordering the firing on kar-sewaks, and for simultaneously insulting the martyred kar-sewaks and treating them like dirt, by awarding the Padma Vibhushan award to Mulayam Singh Yadav (post-humously) on April 5 2023. It was ultimately on the foundation laid on the corpses of those martyrs (and others before and after them) that the BJP shot up from 2 seats in the Lok Sabha in 1984 to 353 seatsin 2019.
Much can be written and said on all the different aspects of the matter, But this is the only fundamental point I find necessary to make on the subject.
