OBVIOUSLY, the Dravida Munnetra Kazagham (DMK) has not learned any right lessons from its defeat in the recent legislative elections in Tamil Nadu. Its leader, Mr. Udhayanidhi Stalin -- also the Leader of Opposition in TN Assembly -- vomited pure vitriol against Sanatan Dharma in his speech on the floor of the House. Even as he expressed a positive attitude towards the C. Joseph Vijay Government, Mr. Udhayanidhi Stalin stressed that Sanatan Dharma should be destroyed. Most unfortunately, Chief Minister Mr. C.J. Vijay accepted Mr. Stalin’s speech with folded hands but did not express his opposition or displeasure about the vitriolic statement about Sanatan Dharma. In fact, the DMK should have realised that its anti-Sanatan stance was one of the most critical factors that led to its fall from popular grace.

 

That does not seem to have happened -- as can be sensed from Mr. Udhayanidhi Stalin’s hate speech. It is obvious that in the coming few years, his party would surely walk to its doom if it does not give up its hatred for Sanatan Dharma. This message stands equally true for all the parties -- as was proved very powerfully in West Bengal. The question is about the lop-sided political ideology which the anti-Sanatan lobby has adopted. That is an anti-Constitution stand since the statute attaches equal importance to all faiths and creeds. Yet, one segment of political community in the country has taken an avowed position against Sanatan Dharma calling it bad names every now and then. From the floor of the Tamil Nadu Assembly, taking the help of constitutional immunity, Mr. Udhayanidhi Stalin insisted that Sanatan Dharma needed to be destroyed. Others present in the House should have stood up against him immediately. Unfortunately, that did not happen.

 

Though there is no need to question the constitutional protection elected members have while making any statement on the floor of the representative Houses, it is important that some counter arrangement needs to be made so that such hate speeches are banned -- no matter made by whom and on which side of the ideological divide. For, it is important to start making a clear and well-defined distinction between expression of differences of opinion and abusive statements or hate speeches. What Mr. Udhayanidhi Stalin was indulging in was not a statement of any ideology, but of a dirty political narrative that is purely propagandist in nature. Nobody -- ABSOLUTELY NOBODY -- should be allowed to indulge in making such statements. There should be some procedural, legal and constitutional arrangement by way of which hate speeches can be stopped immediately. If the elected member of a representative House has a constitutional immunity when he indulges in abusive statement about Sanatan Dharma, then crores of people under the Sanatan umbrella should also have the constitutional protection from such abusiveness -- from whichsoever platform. A high body like legislature cannot be exempt from restriction of sanity, sensibility, dignity, decorum and responsibility.

 

It must be made clear that Sanatan Dharma -- or for that matter any faith -- cannot be destroyed just because a political upstart like Mr. Udhayanidhi Stalin or anybody else wishes so. If he continues to harbour such ugly wishes, he will ensure his own doom in the long distance. In his blind arrogance, Mr. Stalin does not realise the terrible consequences he is inviting upon himself and his party by his idiotic abusiveness. This will be the case with anybody who tries to defile and destroy the Sanatan Dharma whose eternality is a universal fact -- which nobody has ever been able to deny. It must also be made clear that Sanatan Dharma is not a ‘religion’ by strict definition. It is a way of life practised and polished over thousands of years. It is the most inclusive philosophy human society has ever evolved. It is this aspect that never positions Sanatan Dharma against any faith. No Stalin can ever even damage it, let alone destroy it.