Varun Gandhi and the politics of hatred

Recently joined a discussion forum on whether we should ban Varun Gandhi for his inflammatory speech or not. Here is what I had to say:

If we as a country pride ourselves on the rich democratic tradition and secular values, then in my opinion Varun Gandhi should be banned immediately.The reason being that Varun being young and highly educated, the people of this country had a lots of expectation from him and the least they expected was for him to behave in the most irresponsible way that he has done in the last few days.

Before people rush and start supporting Varun Gandhi, lets just go back in history to the time India got independence. At about the same time two nations emerged - India and Pakistan with dreams on their eyes and hope for a better future than what their lots have had till date. In Pakistan the government and people of that time opted for Pakistan to be an Islamic republic while India opted to be a democratic secular republic. It is not that in India there was no pressure from fundamentals group to give precedence to religion over state. But great leaders and visionaries like Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Patel and others stood their ground and weathered the conflict to preserve the secular nature of India. Hence the India which all of us see as the great melting point of all culture and all religion is due to the perseverance, tolerance and foresight of the people of this country which makes it such a great nation.

The very fact that we are sitting calmly in the nice confines of our homes and discussing this issue threadbare goes to prove the secular and democratic nature of this great country. otherwise we would have been dodging bullets of terrorist, or the army or bombs triggered by some militants if we were like Pakistan, which has lost all originality and sovereignty as a country being hemmed by all sides by Taliban, the military, U.S, the corrupt selfish politicians etc.In such a scenario if we have to preserve our secular fabric and culture and the very freedom which we pride ourselves with, then we'll have to curtail the advance of extremist forces like Varun Gandhi coz he represents not an organisation but a thought process which is very dangerous to the very existence of our great country.As we brace up to curtail his fundamentalist march, India remembers with dread what Varun Gandhi Sr. did in his hey days some 30 years back. May we never see such a day coming to pass."

As an Indian who is trying to unravel the mystery of my own country thru readings by great author like Ramchandra Guha or William Darylmple, I occasionally get alarmed by the sudden rush of extremist wind over this country which fundamentally (through ages and centuries) been secular in nature. It has silently weathered ravages of numerous foreign invasion but in the end ended up being the victor in culturally assimilating what is good in these races and cultures. The United States may pride itself for being the oldest democracy but in my opinion India had in built democratic values from such a time when the nationhood of the U.S even did not see the light of the day.