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Harish Khare is a senior journalist, commentator and a research scholar)
If the President's Address to the Joint Sitting of the two houses of Parliament on Monday did not exactly set the Yamuna on fire, the reason was simple. This traditional Address is a device designed to enable a new government to show-case its intent and purpose; but it turned out to be nothing but a collection of the cliches and slogans that were mouthed by Narendra Modi in the prolonged Lok Sabha campaign. A Prime Minister and all his mantras.
However, in paragraph 17 of the President's Address, the new ruling dispensation had Pranab Mukherjee declare "my government is committed to making all minorities equal partners in India's progress." Wait a minute. A pleasant incongruity. This is - and could be - a significant commitment from the Modi sarkar, given the context of the 2014 Lok Sabha electioneering, especially the polarizing undertone of the Sangh Parivar's contribution to the impressive BJP victory.
It is entirely understandable that many secular and saner voices in the country have watched with considerable anxiety the outbreak of soft-communal violence. In particular, the death of a Muslim techie professional in Pune last week seems to have confirmed worst fears. There is a sinking feeling that bad days may be round the corner.
Soft communal violence is practiced with considerable finesse. It is intended to generate a sense of disquiet and vulnerability among the minorities, without overt violence against them. The idea is to tell them never to cross the lines drawn by the local power structure. Be content with your reduced status; don't raise your voice or hopes. It is natural that the local and national practitioners of this strategy should feel validated by the Lok Sabha results. And the Pune murder was a logical outgrowth of this post-election exuberance.
In the midst of this gathering anxiety comes Para 17. Even though its sincerity and the credibility are yet to be established, it is a somewhat reassuring sign that the Modi Sarkar has deemed it advisable to hold out the assurance of "equal partnership". Such a partnership will necessarily involve respect, security and safety.
After the "Modi wave", there is an intellectually fashionable rush to impress upon the new regime that it need not feel beholden to the Vajpayee government's conventions and traditions. This exuberance too is understandable. However, someone should remind the new prime minister of the intrinsic usefulness of a basic working proposition formulated during the Vajpayee-Advani days: while it is entirely possible for the BJP to come to power without the minority vote, it is difficult to run this country without the minorities' cooperation and support. The only time Atal Bihari Vajpayee could not insist on the wisdom of this proposition was in the aftermath of the Gujarat riots of 2002, and Prime Minister Vajpayee lost his job.
This Vajpayee-Advani proposition is not a statement of appeasement nor an effete relapse into "pseudo-secularism" but an acknowledgement that the basic obligation of every government is to protect and deepen social harmony. A sense of security and equality among all sections of the society is one of the most fundamental duties cast on a ruler. After all such an assurance is very much implicit in the oath prescribed in the constitution for the Prime Minister of India.
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