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Ms. Seema Mustafa – the veteran journalist columnist of Deccan Chronicle, Hyderabad. You know something; the people of this country are not fools. This might come as something of a revelation to the political class, particularly the Congress whose intelligence has registered a steady decline over the years as it gets more and more steeped in its arrogance, but the people of India have a keen political sense, an innate sense of survival, a street smartness that is evident in each election where it is the rural folk and not the semi-educated urban dweller who determines the final result.
Experience has leant a degree of cynicism to this wisdom, but despite the years of toil, the promises not delivered the resigned acceptance that the future will not change dramatically in a lifetime, it is the rural voter who stands patiently for hours in the queue to cast the precious vote. It is not the slick urban dweller, reaping the benefits of globalization, who can be bothered to get out of his car and join the toiling masses to exercise his franchise, for in the final analysis for him “they are all the same.” The villager has learnt, the hard way, that he has no other say in the system, no way to manipulate the system, and even if he knows, nothing will change, he will still give it a good try once every five years when the election finally comes his way. Somehow, this is interpreted by the politician as helplessness, as a sentiment that can be exploited, and when the political parties indulge in their machinations at the Centre, they appear to have forgotten that there is this silent majority, with an astute ear to the ground, that is listening and judging for it knows that every little move will impact on its future. It is the same people who threw out Indira Gandhi, a leader of no mean repute, not just because of the Emergency, but because she became so arrogant that she stopped listening to the rural voice. It is the same people who brought her back as they realized that the Janata experiment was just that, an experiment that had no vision and no strategy. It is the same people who threw out the Congress for years on the issue of corruption and brought in a coalition of regional parties that they thought would be able to answer their needs more sensitively. It is the same people, who tired and unhappy with the regional parties, gave a chance to the BJP, but in a coalition, to address their problems. It is the same people who threw out the BJP when it became too arrogant to realise that India was shining only in some select streets of the big cities, and when it completely forgot the existence of the poor farmers and the oppressed. It is the same people who reposed their confidence in the Congress, but again in a coalition, taking care to give the controls to other parties to keep its arrogance from exceeding acceptable limits. The two-day charade enacted by the Congress will take its toll. For one simple reason, the people are tired sick of the politician and his exploitation of the system. One does not even have to listen with an ear to the ground to realize this, it is being shouted from the top of the mud hutments and the tenements, but unfortunately, the politicians have turned totally deaf. The people are tired of political corruption, of the politicians’ insistence on exploiting the system for their own ends. It was made clear by the newspapers and the political parties over the days that MPs had come under the scanner for enjoying an office of profit. This, in real terms, will read: further exploiting the system. A Congress-led political campaign had managed to ensure the disqualification of high profile Samajwadi Party MP Jaya Bachchan. Perhaps not many tears were shed for her as, after all, a head had rolled. But within minutes it became apparent that other MPs were also involved, including Congress president Sonia Gandhi. The Bachchan case opened a Pandora’s Box that again was not factored in by the Congress leadership chuckling and laughing over the Samajwadi discomfiture. So what did the Congress do? It went into a huddle at the first sign that their leader could be in trouble and came up with a plan that to its limited brain spelt “strategy.” As always, this was based on tampering with democratic institutions: adjourn Parliament sine die with the argument that all business for this Budget Session has been completed; and then bring in an ordinance placing Sonia Gandhi and others above the pale of the law prohibiting MPs from holding an office of profit. A media leak exposed the plan, and the Opposition parties as well as ally Samajwadi Party rushed to President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam in separate delegations seeking his intervention, urging him not to sign the proposed ordinance, and demanding that in the interest of parity under the law, similar action should be taken against Sonia Gandhi as had been against Jaya Bachchan. The wily former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee was the first to recognize the writing on the wall when he said: the ordinance will not come, and if it does the government will go with it. By Thursday morning it was apparent to the sycophants in the Congress that the ruse was not going to work. So after long meetings, operation damage control was launched. From the morning the same party leaders who had been insisting a day before that the executive had the right and the authority to adjourn Parliament sine die, started making it known that Sonia Gandhi was very disturbed, that she had no idea about the ordinance, that she did not like what was happening. The same Sonia Gandhi without whose assent nothing moves in the party and the government, who frowns at any sign of independence from those “under” her — be it Prime Minister Manmohan Singh or chief minister Sheila Dikshit — suddenly became totally ignorant of the developments. As ignorant as she was when Natwar Singh went to Baghdad as the head of a Congress delegation to collect the oil, as ignorant as she was when her government moved to de-freeze her friend Ottavio Quattrocchi’s bank accounts in London. So the party and the government that live to please her worked out another “strategy.” To, somehow, rescue her from the new crisis, as it was clear by the second day that it could not move ahead with the ordinance, and something needed to be done if the dirt was not to attach itself to Ms Sonia Gandhi’s mantle. Sacrifice! That was the answer, and the Congress president emerged from her residence to face the battery of cameramen and reporters (with son Rahul Gandhi behind to indicate that this was a family decision, yet again). There was no mention of the ordinance, no mention of Parliament, just of her decision to sacrifice posts for the people of India and for secularism. The Congress leadership somersaulted to recover some of the lost ground, and spent the rest of the day speaking of her “personal decision,” of her commitment to the nation, of her sacrifice. Of course, as Ms Sonia Gandhi announced herself, she will be going back to re-contest the elections from Rae Bareli. As for the National Advisory Council, the seat will be kept warm for her until she can reclaim it after Parliament duly amends the law. But what about the party? Once again in her desire to extricate herself from her mess and save the image of the Family, Ms Sonia Gandhi left the Congress holding the dead buck. “I have decided…” was the refrain, there was not a word about the poor Congressmen who were then left to re-group with Prime Minister Singh stepping in to give some respectability to the suddenly orphaned party whose leaders had only been following instructions with a “we will examine all option … she is the tallest leader in the country” argument. It, unfortunately, did not quite wash, but by that time the Congress president had escaped through the back door having used the party to plan her exit route, leaving her leaders to face the media and the Opposition. Cynical? No sir, cynical are those who shamelessly exploit the people’s faith, fiddle around with democratic institutions, and place themselves and their Family far above the nation. Cynical are those who use the fine tenets of the Indian Constitution to defend their offices of profit, speak of secularism to protect their backs, not to fight for the people awaiting justice in communally ravaged states like Gujarat. Pious rhetoric to save one’s skin will not convince the people of India who have lived with words all through their lives, and yet are idealistic enough to nurture the hope of direct action. Article submitted by P. Subrahmanyam |
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