Even before the completion of India’s second mission to the Moon Chandrayaan 2, news about the third moon mission Chandrayaan 3 is out. While there is speculation about the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) collaborating with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) for a 2024 mission, I’m referring to is a different Chandrayaan, which most likely could be a manned mission. At this point neither ISRO nor the Government of India is aware of this, but some Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders are in the know — particularly party spokesperson B Gopalakrishnan.
In a Facebook post on July 25, the BJP leader from Kerala suggested that noted filmmaker Adoor Gopalakrishnan register at Sriharikota and ‘Go to the Moon’, of course after he changed his name! The BJP leader’s bone to pick with the filmmaker is that the latter was one among the 49 signatories (the only one from Kerala) in an open letter to the Prime Minister highlighting the increasing number of law and order situations, particularly ones where lynching and the usage of the chant ‘Jai Shri Ram’ was being used as a “war cry”.
The open letter brings back memories of 2015 when sections of the intelligentsia protesting against an increase in violence and intolerance, returned their national awards. They were dismissively called the ‘award wapsi gang’ and once many prominent awardees refused to return the awards the story fell off the news charts. Now in response to the July 24 open letter, on July 26 a group of 61 signatories have come out with a letter countering “selective outrage and false narratives”. Chances are that this too will be forgotten in a few days.
This is not to say that the concerns raised back in 2015 or now must be dismissed the way they were and are being done now. Instances of violence and law and order situations must be investigated. Without doubt such incidents are taking place because the law and order machinery in these states is not up to the task — and the Centre can pull up states that fail to do so. Denying it will do no one good.
Unfortunately, denying is what the government has done, almost as a Pavlovian reaction. Reacting to the letter, Union minority affairs minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said that the letter was from people who were “yet to recover from” the Lok Sabha defeat. Union minister of animal husbandry, dairying and fisheries Giriraj Singh said that the “award wapsi gang has once again become active to destabilise and defame the Modi government”.
Are those opposing the open letter missing the wood for the trees? B Gopalakrishnan, the BJP leader from Kerala mentioned above, in his Facebook post, has written that the voters re-elected the Modi government for further chanting Jai Shri Ram. This is far from the truth. Post-election analyses have shown that the Narendra Modi-led BJP came back to power with more seats in Lok Sabha because of the welfare measures rolled out between 2014 and 2018. To attribute a religious motive to Modi’s re-election is belittling the developmental work down by Modi 1.0.
As a threat to Adoor Gopalakrishnan, the Kerala BJP leader also wrote that protesters would chant the slogan in front of his house. In a befitting reply, the filmmaker said that as a believer he would join such a group in front of his house.
B Gopalakrishnan’s Facebook post is unbecoming of the position he holds and must been seen as an overenthusiastic attempt to gather attention — and one which has terribly misfired for the BJP. If the BJP leadership wants to make its presence known in Kerala, there are numerous developmental, environmental and political issues that need attention — attacking a highly-respected, apolitical intellectual is not the way.
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