Selective Excerpts from Shri Advaniji's today's answers at Rediff Chat that started at 11 AM, IST, are posted here below; with special thanks to Rediff.com.
byebyecongress asked, What is BJP policies to stop terrorism?
L K Advani answered, Byebyecongress,during the six years the NDA was in office, the security agencies including the IB, used to carry on a continuous campaign locating the terrorist module set up by the ISI in the country and smashing them. Most of our advance information about impending terrorist attacks used to be gathered from these raids. There were terrorist attacks, nevertheless, during those years, the more prominent being the attack on Parliament, the attack on Akshardham. In both cases, the terrorists were eliminated and those who plotted the conspiracies apprehended, and punished by courts of law. It is sad that the mastermind behind the attack on Indian Parliament who has been sentenced to death by the trial court, the appellate court and even the Supreme Court, has not been punished despite the lapse of so many years. I am pointing this out only to emphasise that terrorism can be fought only if both government as well as society have an attitude of zero tolerance towards this scourge. At this point I may even emphasise that for the Al Qaeda fundamentalists and outfits that Al Qaeda has created the world over, the most hated enemy is the United States. Why is it that after 9/11, there has not been even a small incident there? I believe that both the government as well as society there have an attitude of zero tolerance. The world over, it has been recognised that the ordinary laws created against crime are inadequate to confront this new menace that is terrorism and so the UN Security Council advised all countries of the world to enact special laws for this. I cannot forget that when the NDA government moved the Prevention of Terrorism Bill, we were able to pass it in the Lok Sabha but the Congress party and its allies who are today in the UPA had a majority in the Rajya Sabha and they defeated it. A provision of the Indian Constitution rarely used had to be invoked, a joint session of Parliament convened and POTA passed. Not only that, but one of the major planks projected by the Congress in the 2004 elections was the promise that if they came to power, the law against terrorism would be scrapped. Only in 2008, almost at the end of its tenure and that too after the horrendous Mumbai incidents, did the Congress party make a total U-turn and said that terrorism cannot be fought by the ordinary laws, special laws are needed, one of them being a special Central agency and the other being an amendment of the Unlawful Activities Act. For five years their adamant stand was that the present laws are adequate. I feel that even the laws now passed do not fully meet the situation. I pointed this out and they said that we will once again reconsider it when Parliament meets in February. On the whole there is no clarity, no consistency, and no real resolve to overcome terrorism.
L K Advani said, Vilas81, If I can attribute one single factor responsible for converting India's single-dominant polity into a bi-polar polity and making Congress and BJP the two principle poles of Indian polity, it is our success in our campaign against pseudo-secularism. For the first four decades of Independence, the debate between the Congress and BJP was perceived by the people as a debate between secularism and communalism. We changed the nature of this debate and transformed it into genuine secularism versus pseudo-secularism emphasising thereby that secularism was adopted by the Constituent Assembly without any dissent because that is part of India's tradition and history which rejects theocracy. So far as UP is concerned, with 80 Lok Sabha seats it is very important in our plans for the Lok Sabha and both the BSP and the SP, our principal rivals in that state, have by their performance in government earned immense displeasure for themselves. We are confident that in the Lok Sabha elections the party would perform very well.
L K Advani said, Sheena,I believe that a person's mental and psychological health has a lot to do with his/her physical health. As I have often said, my satisfaction in life and happiness in life is because of my personal family, as also my ideological family by which I mean the BJP and the RSS. Also, I am a small eater, some friends attribute my physical health to this fact. Jokingly a doctor who met me a couple of months back said to me that he had a thesis in respect of food. When God creates man he lays down the total amount of food he will consume in his lifetime, it depends entirely on him whether he takes 50 years to consume it or 70 years.
L K Advani said, 1000, My appeal of all sections of the people is, think and act as proud Indians. Those who are decision-makers in various fora, should also do likewise and not be influenced by considerations of caste or creed.
L K Advani said, KAYKAY, In 1997 India completed 50 years of its independence. I undertook a 59-day rath yatra to emphasise that Indian backwardness even after five decades of independence is due to the fact that we got swaraj but we could not convert it into su-raaj, good governance. In the UN human development index India ranks 128th. Its our resolve to see that by ensuring good governance, development and security, both at the Centre and in the states, within the next two decades India's human development index enables it to reach the top 10.
L K Advani said, skmagic, For the strongest democratic country of the world Obama becoming the president has been hailed as a historic event only because it is the first time that a black person has become the head of state. I remember that within the first few years of India's independence, Dr Zakir Hussein became the president of India and no one expressed any surprise over it, even though thi is the hard reality that India became independent in 1947 and that independence was accompanied by partition of undivided India on the basis of which part had a Hindu majority and which part had a Muslim majority. The basis of partition was the two-nation theory, or two religions. I believe that this has happened because of the culture of the country embodied as I said earlier in the views of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King.
L K Advani said, AKAA, The problem in Kashmir has its origin in an act of aggression by our neighbour Pakistan. This fact should never be forgotten. No wonder the Indian Parliament has passed a unanimous resolution saying that the portion of Kashmir in Pakistan's occupation is part of India and any solution of the Kashmir issue should never disregard this fact. At the same time I am conscious of the fact that problems which remain unresolved for decades tend to become more and more irresolvable. When Gen Musharraf had come to Agra we had tried to impress on him that the issue of Kashmir cannot be solved either by war or by a proxy war through terrorism. We are willing to discuss the issue as part of a composite dialogue in which all issues would be discussed. But let no one justify terrorism in the name of Kashmir.
L K Advani said, vks, One of the most consistent features of our activities throughout the six decades we have been functioning, first as Jana Sangh and later as BJP, has been our consistent campaign against votebank politics and these votebanks are comprised either of community or of caste. And even though some of our adversaries on that account tried to defeat the BJP as being anti-so and so, anti-a particular a community or caste, we have by our achievements tried to negate all that they have said and done. It is not a minor achievement for a party which had been reduced 25 years back, to a humiliating number of just 2 in the Lok Sabha, in the 1984 Lok Sabha elections, to have become the largest party in the Lok Sabha by 1996 or within the next 12 years. And it continues to be one of the two principal parties in Parliament.
L K Advani said, Rajan., In my interaction with youth during the last year I have again and again been stressing that while there was a time when India's growing population was viewed as a great liability for the country, demographers all over the world, when they find how large is the youth segment in India, they identify India's youth as one of the country's great strengths. It is therefore that the youth wing my party has undertaken a special campaign to ensure that every young boy or girl who has crossed the age of 18 invariably becomes a voter. Special programmes to honour and applaud first-time voters have been organised at several places. It is estimated that in this coming election, there may be 10 crore first-time voters. There are countries in the world like Australia, Italy where voting is compulsory and an elector who fails to vote has to pay a fine. In my proposals for electoral reforms, I have often suggested that this may be seriously considered. But meanwhile, my party units have been advised to carry on a sustained campaign to make the youth realise that strength of a democracy lies in the numbers of citizens who actively participate in the democratic process and so, even though there may be no law mandating that everyone polls, the youth should not consider voting only as a right but a duty as well.
L K Advani said, ANANDRK, In the field of economy we feel agriculture has been neglected. It is a shame that in the last few years tens of thousands of farmers have committed suicide. We believe that not only economy in general, but the country's future depends very much on how much we are able to do for the countryside both in respect of infrastructure as well as employment. The country has been exerting a lot for the spread of literacy and education. During our regime between 1998 and 2004 we launched the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan. What is needed now is to extend the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan which covers only literary, to make every citizen in the country, particularly in the countryside, IT-literate. This would radically change the countryside and give the overall economy also a great boost.
L K Advani said, Hemanand, I feel very sad when reports of the Transparency International I find India at a very low point. And therefore it gave me great satisfaction that the NDA government under Vajpayee functioned for six years in a transparently honest manner and there were no allegations made against the government. Then again, what has been achieved in Gujarat under the leadership of Narendra Modi has made this state a model for all others in the country as a corruption-free state. I believe that this would be one of the principal objectives a new NDA government at the Centre would have in mind. The example of people at the helm of affairs, the necessary systemic changes that have to be made, and the setting up of the Lok Pal and Lok Ayukt would be steps taken very early during an NDA regime.
L K Advani said, RNV Jain, your expectation is very right, and you have only to contrast the functioning of the NDA government with that of the UPA government, the functioning of several state governments of ours like those of Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Orissa etc with the few Congress-led governments in the country today, and you will see how we have tried to make not only our party but even the governments run by our party different from those of the Congress. Today, one of the major problems before the people has been power. And you have power-cuts in most of the states in the country, and yet the BJP-run states like Gujarat have not only moved rapidly towards eliminating all power-cuts but in Gujarat have guaranteed that every single village is provided electricity round the clock. Numerous developmental schemes and public welfare schemes have been implemented successfully in the NDA-run states, with the result that many foreign investors have been flockin to these states.
PRASHANT asked, WHAT PLANNING @ WAR WITH PAKISTAN ?
L K Advani answered, Prashant, security has naturally to be any nation's first concern. And a sovereign nation has every right to decide on the course of action it needs to take to safeguard itself. What action precisely to take, is a matter in which only a government which is fully posted about all the necessay parameters within which action can be taken, can decide.
tapabrata asked, What are your four priorites if you become prime minister?
L K Advani answered, Tapabrata, I recall the days I was deputy prime minister in Vajpayee's government, which gave thec ountry an excellent leadership between 1998 and 2004. Those were days when the country was beamning with confidence. The world had come to respect India and the general talk began that India would become a great power by the middle of the 21st century. Unfortunately, after the change in government in 2004, the mood has been becoming more and more desperate and these days as 2009 began, there have been more and more magazines with captions like 2008 has been the worst year in Independent India. The first task before an NDA government, if it is voted to power, would be to dispel the gloom and re-create the general climate of optimism and hope that obtained in the six years of Vajpayee's rule. Presently, one of our groups is working on what precise steps need to be taken in the first 100 days to bring about this transformation.
AK asked, Hello Advani Ji, Don't you think India needs a Younger PM at this time when there is a need to understand Global Situation and who can think of a Modern India.
L K Advani answered, AK, The question you have asked, I think the important part of it is that you need to understand the global situation, and who can think of a modern India. These are the two essential attributes you rightly think are necessary to lead the country. I can humbly claim that it is possible for me to do so.
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