The Hindu : National : Gowda sees ugly display of fascism

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Tuesday, Sep 16, 2008
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National

Gowda sees ugly display of fascism

Special Correspondent

BANGALORE: The former Prime Minister, H. D. Deve Gowda, on Monday termed the attacks on churches and minorities in Karnataka as the “ugly and naked demonstration of fascism” and demanded that Home Minister V.S. Acharya resign immediately owning moral responsibility for the violence.

Mr. Gowda sought a judicial probe by a sitting High Court judge into the incidents of violence against minorities reported since the formation of the Bharatiya Janata Party government in the State.

The Janata Dal (S) national president, who was addressing a press conference here, urged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to send a team to Karnataka to assess the situation. He also appealed to the National Minorities Commission to send a team to the affected areas to get a factual report and submit it to Parliament.

Mr. Gowda demanded immediate arrest and prosecution of the culprits, besides providing substantial compensation to the victims. The government itself should take up the task of rebuilding the damaged shops and churches attacked by the sangh parivar.

Parliament, at its next session, should consider enactment of law to compensate the damage and losses incurred during communal violence and imposition of penalty on areas where such violence was perpetrated.

“The violence in Tiptur and the attacks on churches in Davangere, Dakshina Kannada, Udupi and Mangalore are manifestations of the manner in which sangh parivar organisations are fast spreading their tentacles across the State and turning it into a Gujarat of the south.” These incidents would only serve to alienate youth and draw them to separatist and terrorist activities.

Mr. Gowda — whose party withdrew support to the BJP government in Karnataka last year for that party’s “attempts to convert Karnataka into a Hindutva laboratory” — said his worst fears were coming true. Chief Minister B. S. Yeddyurappa had lived up to his promise of introducing the “Gujarat-model” of governance. “Karnataka has today emerged the worst terror and communal hub in the South.”

He refuted the argument of the sangh parivar that the attacks on churches in Karnataka were fallout of the violence in Orissa. If that was so, these issues should have found their “natural echo” in West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh, where parties other than the BJP were in power.

BJP leader L.K. Advani did not express concern over the situation, though he was here that time. Instead, he was issuing certificates to the State government, he said and appealed to people not to fall prey to the Goebbelsian propaganda of the sangh parivar on alleged fraudulent conversions and cow slaughter.

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