Q: Coming to the Gopal Subramanian case, I have two questions. One, do you believe that Gopal Subramanian is not suitable to be a judge of Supreme Court? Second, do you believe that the stand that the government has taken is in the interest of the judicial system in the country?
Swamy: If you ask me a question, should Mr. Gopal Subramanian be a judge of the Supreme Court, my answer is NO. Is my reason the same as the reason given in the leaks to the newspapers? The answer is NO. I have a different reason.
My reason is that he filed an affidavit as the Solicitor-General and defended it till I forced him to withdraw it and that was that Ram was a mythical character and that Ram-Setu was not a man-made bridge but a natural formation. On that ground itself I had told him at that stage, you are a morally unfit person.
Q: But his point is that because of the role he played in Sohrabuddin case that also involved Amit Shah, he is being targeted by the new govt.
Swamy: So does it mean that other candidates played sycophantic roles? Are they chamchas of the government?
I opposed his appointment on the ground that he filed an affidavit that hurt the sentiments of 80 percent of India i.e. Hindus. There were widespread protests and they were forced to withdraw it. And then he was removed from that case in Supreme Court. I don't know anything about other reasons forwarded like 2G, Nira Radia etc.
Is he a competent person? YES. He is a very, very competent person. Is he a good man? YES. He is a good man. But he has a character flaw. I make a distinction between personal and national character. We need both.
Both Manmohan Singh and Gopal Subramanian had personal character but both of them lacked national character.
Q: Coming to the performance of Modi govt, Modi had promised a lot in his election campaign but there is a section of people which believes that the kind of decisions this govt has taken in the very first first month is contrary to the promises he had made. For example, the steep hike in Railway fares. Do you believe it was avoidable and do you foresee its repercussions in upcoming assembly elections?
Swamy: As far as Railways is concerned, I have made it clear to him and I have mentioned this in my tweets as well that yes, Railway requires lots of funds as it has been brought to a breaking point but there are other ways of collecting those funds, not by raising passenger fares.
Q: So you disagree with the government on this?
Swamy: I disagree with the govt in raising resources for the Railways through raising fares but I am in favour of govt finding other ways of raising resources for Railways.
Q: Have you communicated this to Mr. Modi? And has he given any positive response?
Swamy: Yes I have communicated this to him. He and I meet often. But I'll not tell you what he told me.
Q: Do you think this decision will have any negative impact on upcoming elections in Maharashtra, Haryana, Jharkhand and possibly Delhi?
Swamy: No. We'll win all of them. People are fed up of corruption. And after this National Herald case, people have got faith that corruption will be fought.
Q: Dr Swamy, let's come to the concept of ‘Hindu Rashtra'. Can you explain what do you mean by ‘Hindu Rashtra' and how will it be different from today's Secular India?
Swamy: Let me start with this. This election was an amalgam of three issues.
One was Narendra Modi's governance record. People were convinced that this man can rule the country. And it was a big plus for us because on the other side was the ‘buddhu'. There was no match.
Second was the fight against corruption which I led. People got convinced that yes, these people can remove corruption. There was not a single corruption charge either against me or Modi. So the people were convinced and there was support for BJP as party of honest people.
Third, the cadre of the BJP which had gone to sleep after 2004, after 6 years of secularism of NDA, they suddenly got fired up that Modi means Hindutva with RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat putting the entire weight behind him. So Hindutva was the third factor. And all three factors are important. You can't just do governance and expect people to support you. There is large number of Hindus who believe that they have got a raw deal. And it also includes particularly educated young people.
Now coming back to your question of ‘Hindu Rashtra', it does not mean that only a Hindu can be a prime Ministry. ‘Hindu Rashtra' does not mean only Hindus can occupy public office. That is a ‘Muslim Rashtra', ‘Christian Rashtra' but never a ‘Hindu Rashtra'.
All through history, even Shiva ji, who spoke about Hindu Rashtra, had a Muslim as commander-in-Chief. In 1857, we made Bahadur Shah Zafar as emperor who appointed a Hindu his Prime Minister. If your secularism is that the church and the state are to be separate, and that is the original definition, then we have already done that throughout the history.
Second, the Hindu concept of secularism is ‘Sarva Dharma Sam-bhava' and it means that all religions lead to God. So we show respect to all religions. The Jews came, we looked after them. The Parsis came, we looked after them. The Arab Muslims came and we looked after them in Kerala. But will the Muslims say that all religions lead to God? No, they'll never say that. They'll say if you don't believe in Islam, you are Kaafirs. And you are fit for either conversion or killing. Christians will say that you are pagans if not Christians and that devil has got your souls. You are to be saved and in extreme form like crusade they will kill also. So the only religion in the world that has practiced Sarva Dharma Sam-bhava is Hinduism.
Q: My question is how would this Hindu Rashtra be different from the secular India that we have today?
Swamy: We'll teach Sanskrit. We'll teach them the correct history of India. We'll say that all Hindus are one. That varna is not birth based. Its discipline and duty based.
