Communal one day; secular the next!

What I wrote earlier were the questions that came to my head while reading about the furore surrounding L.K. Advani’s statement regarding the secular credentials of Muhammad Ali Jinnah.

The statement itself can be seen as an attempt at an image makeover, an attempt to move away from the right wing hardliner to an all encompasing moderate.
To me it represents the typical nature of the politics of the sub-continent: lack of any core beliefs and simply following the prejudices of the day. Looking back at Jinnah's history - "Messiah of Hindu-Muslim Unity" (1916), "Champion of the Two Nation Theory" (1940), dubbing Pakistan as a "laboratory of Islam" and following it up with a call to rise above religion and being citizens first (speech of August 11 1947 which Advani cited), one can easily see a politician at work. A similar pattern can be cited for Advani and perhaps for most politicians - ruthlessly using religion to forward their own cause and then trying to distance themselves from it once the purpose has been served.

What is saddening and at times annoying is the fact that people are unable to see past the rhetoric, the media meant to keep people informed is busy milking the story, I wonder how many people even know what Advani said and in what context; other politicians are either mocking Advani or trying to join the "me too" wagon and hailing the change in attitude; all blind to their own past aberrations.