If the previous Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh careened from crisis to crisis, the present Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi is faring no better. Barely 50 days into office, Modi would be realizing how difficult it is to rule India even if his party has a clear majority in Parliament on its own, unlike his predecessor. The only saving grace for the Modi government thus far has been that it has not been embroiled in any corruption scandal, not a mean achievement though it is still very early. Now the Modi government is faced with its biggest embarrassment with the disclosure that freelance journalist-columnist Ved Pratap Vaidik, a close confidante of Yoga guru Ramdev, met India’s most wanted man Hafiz Saeed in Pakistan on July 2. Saeed has been charged by India as the mastermind of the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks in 2008. In April 2012, the United States had announced a $10 million bounty for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Saeed for his alleged involvement in the Mumbai attacks that killed more than 160 people, including six Americans.
Ramdev who? He is a self-styled spiritual guru who likes to call himself as Baba Ramdev. He is close to top leaders of the Modi government, including Modi himself. Arun Jaitley, an important union minister who heads three key ministries, including finance and defense, had recently compared Ramdev to Mahatma Gandhi.
Interestingly, it was Vaidik himself who broke the news by releasing his picture with Hafiz Saeed on Twitter on July 13, the day Modi left for Brazil to attend the 6th BRICS summit.
Bizarrely, the two Indian newspapers, which published the story of Vaidik-Saeed meeting — Indian Express and Mail Today — carried the news item on inside pages. It is not known whether they deliberately downplayed the story or whether the editors failed to understand its implications on national politics.
But the impact of the story was swift and the entire opposition came up with its fast and furious responses. Not just the opposition, even a BJP ally like the Shiv Sena, roundly criticized Vaidik and its spokesman Sanjay Raut went on record with this statement: “If he really said what he is believed to have said about Kashmir, if he went to Pakistan and bad-mouthed India, then action should be taken against him of the same type of action initiated against Ajmal Kasab and Afzal Guru. A man who goes to Pakistan and talks about giving away Kashmir can’t be Indian.” Vaidik became the most interviewed, written about and talked about figure in the Indian media since the disclosure. All channels showed his interview to a Pakistani TV news channel wherein he advocated independence of Kashmir, saying that both parts of Kashmir (administered by Pakistan as well as India) should become one, be ruled by Kashmiris themselves and should have a common chief minister and a common governor.
Shortly after the Vaidik interview started making waves in Indian media, he denied having made this statement, saying: “I never said Kashmir should be separated from India. Removing Kashmir from India would be the same as removing my head from my body”.
Parliament has been paralyzed since this disclosure with the opposition disrupting proceedings and forcing adjournments on Monday and Tuesday and there is little likelihood that this situation would change in the coming days. The much-depleted Congress, which has just 44 MPs in the Lok Sabha, led the protests inside and outside Parliament. Top Congress leader Rahul Gandhi remarked: “The question is whether the meet was sanctioned by the government. It is known that Vaidik is an RSS man.” BJP spokesperson Nalin Kohli pooh-poohed Rahul Gandhi’s charge by countering that, “It seems Rahul Gandhi sees RSS hand in everything, Vaidik went with Mani Shankar Aiyar and Salman Khurshid (both Congress leaders and former ministers); so are they from RSS too?”
Top ministers in the Modi government stated that the government had nothing to do with the Vaidik-Saeed meeting. Swaraj, the foreign minister, said: “Ministry of External Affairs did not facilitate Saeed-Vaidik meet. The Indian government does not have any connection with the Saeed-Vaidik meet. The accusation that the government has anything to do with the Vaidik-Saeed meet is not only untrue but also unfortunate.”
Arun Jaitley came up with his own defense of the government, saying thus: “This is a diplomatic misadventure of a private individual. If there is any party that has had a clear and strong line on the Kashmir issue that is my party. Knowing my party’s view on Kashmir, there is no way that Vaidik’s views can have anything to do with my party or the government.”
It is highly unlikely that the Vaidik controversy would come to a closure anytime soon. It remains to be seen how Modi reacts to this embarrassing episode. Modi has not come up with any reaction thus far on this controversy. He can justifiably keep mum about it as he is in Brazil and engaged in a serious diplomatic outreach with major world powers.
But Modi cannot keep quiet for long. He will have to take a call on the issue within days.
