Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi’s remarks on Lord Ram and Ram Vilas Vedanti announcing bounty on Karunanidhi's head has given an ugly and violent turn to the Ram Sethu Controversy. Instead of condemning Karunanidhi and Vedanti, mainstream political parties in
When the Central government submitted an affidavit stating there was No Lord Ram, some of the partners in the UPA coalition like Lalu Prasad Yadav came out against the affidavit and the government immediately withdrew it. As expected, the Communist Parties (CPI-M and CPI and numerous other splinter communist groups) – always in the forefront on demanding action against Hindu groups for their fundamentalist actions – supported the affidavit.
Unnecessary comments by Karunanidhi like ‘No Lord Ram’, ‘which engineering college did Lord Ram go’, and ‘Ram is a drunkard’ were not condemned by any of the major Political Parties in
The net result was that many of the political parties could not come out openly against Vedanti’s statements as they will have to then condemn Karunanidhi’s statements. As expected, CPI and CPI (M) came out against Vedanti’s statements but shied away from answering questions related to Karunanidhi’s statements.
Will the Communist Parties remain silent, if Karunanidhi makes a blasphemous statement on Islam or Christianity? Communist Party members were seen on television screens hour after hour condemning the Gujarat Arts college episode but the leaders were not seen discussing the ‘No Lord Ram’ episode.
Had the mainstream political parties condemned Karunanidhi’s statements, then they could have easily taken on Vedanti. More and more people in
Prakash Karat of CPI (M) maintains that atheists have a right to express their opinion. Yes, they have all right to practice atheism in personal life. But Karunanidhi is not the chief minister of atheists and nor is Prakash Karat’s party existing in an atheist nation. If CPI (M) and Karunanidhi can defend the beliefs of Muslims and Christians, why not defend the Hindus?