Delivering the Rajiv Gandhi memorial lecture organised by the Institute of Parliamentary Affairs here on Monday, he said the spate of bombing incidents across Pakistan had turned the country into a Jurassic park, a madhouse. Blaming Muhammad Ali Jinnah for creating a theocratic state, Mr. Katju termed him a British agent who did not care for the people killed in the Partition riots.
Mr. Katju said Indian history had been doctored by the British to sow the communal virus and divide society after the Mutiny in 1857. “Today, we are facing a problem because of this virus. All our history books have been falsified to poison the minds of children and make them hate each other. It is time we rewrote our history books to show that there was no communal problem in India till 1857,” he said.
Mr. Katju said Pakistan would be reunited with India in 15-20 years. People would realise that Partition was nonsense.
Mr. Katju, a former judge of the Supreme Court, said 90 per cent of the people in India voted on the basis of caste and religion and not on the basis of the candidate's merit. “The time has come to see through the game. How long are we going to be taken for a ride? Are we fools that anybody can come and make us fight each other?,” he wondered.
In his presentation titled “What is India,” he said the country was passing through a period of transition from a feudal agricultural society to a modern industrial nation. “Old values are collapsing. There is going to be turmoil during this period because vested interests will not give up without a fierce struggle. We have to spread rational and scientific ideas and combat casteism, communalism and superstitions to tide over this transition faster and with less pain. The forces working to break up this country have to be exposed,” he said.
Answering questions from the audience, he said India had to carve out its own growth trajectory while ensuring the welfare of the people. “Isms” did not matter. It was the task of every system to raise the standard of living.
Observing that courts in India were flooded with cases involving atrocities against women such as honour killing and dowry harassment, he said governments often failed to act out of the fear of losing vote banks. He said the perpetrators deserved nothing but the death penalty.
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