Political Diary

New Delhi, 18 June 2011

Slander Now Virtue

HOT WORDS, COLD VIBES

By Poonam I Kaushish

Success breeds confidence and rapid success produces arrogance. This saying epitomises the Congress-led UPA-II actions in the last fortnight. From ‘murdering democracy at midnight’ by unleashing brutal police power on a sleeping aam janata to a slug-fest with its political rivals has come to conotate governance today. Big deal, if the hot words lead to cold vibes from the aam aadmi!

In the last few days we have been witnessed to vitriolic and acerbic mud-slinging between the Congress-Team Hazare at one end and the Congress-BJP at the other. By baring its fangs of being an ugly bully, the Congress and its cohorts in Government are down to gutter-sniping as the best form of defence, thus exposing its complete paralysis of thought and actions.

Ironically, the Congress has only itself to blame for the mess it’s in today. Who advised its spokesman to put his foot in the mouth by condescendingly asserting, “the greatest danger to democracy is from the unelected dictator. If democracy faces its biggest peril, it is from the tyranny of the unelected and tyranny of the unelectable.”

Only to get a sharp tamacha from Team Hazare: Is Prime Minister Manmohan Singh elected? Is Planning Commission Dy Chairman Montek Ahluwalia, in front of whom Chief Ministers wait for Plan allocation, elected?

Clearly, Team Hazare had touched a raw nerve. Importantly, Manmohan Singh is not an ‘elected’ Lok Sabha member but represents Assam in the Rajya Sabha. Are we to surmise that our learned Prime Minister took the ‘nomination’ route as he was unelectable? Remember, he contested the Lok Sabha poll from South Delhi in 1999 and lost. Since then he has conveniently opted for the House of Elders.

This has also raised a basic Constitutional issue. True, no where does the Constitution earmark the criteria of who should be Prime Minister. But as Article 75(1)states: the President anoints the leader of the majority Party in the House of the People as Prime Minister. Even in the coalition milieu, it is Party with the largest elected Lok Sabha MPs which clinches the Prime Ministerial issue.  

Till date, barring Manmohan Singh and United Front’s ten-day wonder Gujral, every Prime Minister has been from the Lok Sabha election and Leader of the House. Today we face an absurd situation wherein senior-most Minister Pranab Mukherjee is the Leader of the House.

Worse, thanks to the Prime Minister not being a member of the Lok Sabha a wrong precedent has been set in Lok Sabha. Normally, at the time of voting of Bills prior to the division of the votes, the Lok Sabha lobbies are cleared. Whereby, Ministers belonging to the Rajya Sabha are told to leave the House. However, with the Prime Minister being a Rajya Sabha member a piquant situation has arisen. Certainly, one cannot ask the Prime Minister to leave the House? Leading to the unhealthy practice of permitting him and his other Rajya Sabha colleagues to remain.  

Arguably, Hazare has a point. If the unelected Prime Minister or any other minister for that matter can dictate policy which will affect the destiny of over one billion people, why cannot civil society recommend what is good for the people? The Government’s arrogance is such that it tramples on the aam aadmi as if he belongs to the strange species of being ‘unelectable.’  In today’s polluted and distorted scenario, votes, not values, are the gaddi spinner.

If this was bad, the BJP-Congress tu-tu-mein-mein was third-rate. Asserted BJP President Gadkari  "Sonia Gandhi says she will fight corruption. I say it is like Pakistan saying we will fight terrorism. When Pakistan says we will fight terrorism, even the people of their nation and rest of the world don't believe them. Similarly, when Sonia Gandhi says so, not even Congressmen will believe this,"

Needless to say, it had Congressmen frothing. Retaliated Party spokesperson, This is gutter level, uncivil, uncouth ….. Gadkari is unfit at any level to be a player of our democratic polity look at his venom and lack of culture….." Countered the BJP: “Sonia started in 2002 by calling Modi ‘maut ke saudagar’

Sadly, through all this diatribe one thing emerges crystal clear: the political skullduggery indulged in mirrors the harsh and horrendous reality of our polity. Where there is no dividing line between statecraft and witchcraft. What is correct and incorrect? Never before has politics denigrated to the gutter level as it has today. Slander, sleaze, sensation, smear, sully, soil and smirch are the new political dialogues. The new vote-catching mantra. In the hope that this gutter sniping would bring them tripti --- and power.

Alas! This has led to confusion, complete breakdown and paralysis of the decision making process, compounded by the absence of any direction from its ‘High Command. Clearly, the Party’s carefully scripted strategy of distancing itself from the Government, typified by Sonia and Rahul’s deafening silence on issues of public importance read corruption has ripped apart the Gandhi use-by-this-date mystique.

Instead of leading from the front taking the corruption bull by the horns and making an example of a few of its corrupt leaders, the mother-son duo choose to enunciate their views on populist issues like land acquisition, employment et al. Or get their cohorts to ridicule BJP leader Sushma Swaraj dancing to patriotic songs at Raj Ghat. What are they scared of?

Sadly, the Congress and its Government continues to believe that the people are stupid and cannot see through its games. Whereby, its strategy to control the Government through ‘remote control’ has failed miserably and become counter-productive adding to the inertia. It has to not only desist from talking at the people and instead talk to them. But also re-invent its politics, assert and give a policy direction. Else, not crib of civil society, judiciary and aam aadmi walking all over it.

This is not all. The widening chasm between the Party, Prime Minister and his colleagues has reached a ludicrous point where the Prime Minister himself hoots for being included in the Lok Pal but his Ministerial colleagues oppose it. What are they guilty of? Do they have a bad conscience?

What next? Clearly, our netagan have to halt this eddy of licentiousness True, the rules of the game have been changed recklessly without a thought for the future. The basic point is: Are we putting a premium on slander? On immorality. Will profligacy be the bedrock of India democracy? How long do we suffer the stampede for sensation and slander?

The parties should remember one age-old truth: If you point one slanderous finger at another, four other slanderous fingers will point back at you! Can a nation be bare and bereft of all sense of shame and morality? Paralysed from top-to-bottom? And, for how long? ---- INFA

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)