POLITICAL DIARY

New Delhi, 16 February 2008 

Crisis Of Leadership

  WHERE ARE THE NATIONALISTS?

By Poonam I Kaushish

Remember the famous Roman saying: Nero fiddled while Rome burnt. So true of India today. See how our netagan contrive while the country burns. One look at Maharashtra says it all. The State stood mute testimony to three days of gory violence against all non-Maharashtrians unleashed by a small-time neta Raj Thackeray’s and his outfit Maharashtra Navnirman Sena. Even as the Centre and State Governments vacillated shamelessly for 13 days before going through the arrest-bail charade.

It would be easy to dismiss Raj Thackeray’s diatribe of wanting to rid Maharashtra of all North-Indians as a case of competitive populism at its crassest best. Or that it’s all about supporting regionalism. But, the tragedy of the episode is two-fold. First, how dare the MNS Chief cock a snook at the law and order and be allowed to get away with it.

Second, where was the Iqbal of the State? Its roab? Which allowed a piddly local outfit to run riot with India’s Commercial Capital and made its leader a national hero. When, in fact, Thackeray should have been told to shut up. That he wasn’t tells us the asli rajniti story. Of a ruling Congress leadership, which wanted to play both ends against the middle. One, counter ally NCP’s Sharad Pawar’s clout over Maharashtra and, two, use Thackeray’s new stature to eat into the Shiv Sena base and, eventually, benefit the Congress.

Exposing as never before, the acute crisis of leadership and paralysis of governance the country faces. Of pygmy leaders with small minds masquerading as giants. Bereft of any sense of nationalism who willy nilly abet competitive populism and vote-bank politics to batter down all semblance of leadership and chip away at established democratic institutions. Leadership today is all about political survival alone. Looking for genuine leaders is like looking for a needle in a haystack. Ask them about the nation. What nation, they ask?

Think. Isn’t it ridiculous that a country as vast as India and boasting of a billion-and-growing population is swinging like a yo-yo between hope and despair, thanks to the fracas between the ruling coalition partners, its adversaries and friends-turned-foes or vice versa. All bogged down by tantrums, one-upmanship and clash of egos. Especially in a scenario where polarization is now based on vote-bank politics and unbridled lust for power and money --- not on values, ethics or national agenda. Forget good, clean governance and national interest.

Look at the inexplicable configurations of the UPA. The enemies and friends are all rolled into one. The Congress and the Left parties, which account for 64 seats in the Lok Sabha, are arch rivals in three States: West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura. Both have been fighting each other tooth and nail in every election since Independence. Yet they came together at the Centre simply to keep the “communal BJP” out. The Congress and RJD are arch rivals in Bihar and Jharkhand and the NCP cannot see eye-to-eye with the Congress in Maharashtra. Ditto the case down South with the DMK & Co. Can Governments be formed and held together merely on the negative and ill-defined premise that my enemy’s enemy is a friend?

Today, the Left continues to have the Congress-led UPA profusely sweating over the Indo-US nuclear deal. Wherein Comrade Karat has once again threatened to pull the plug if the Government goes ahead with it. Making plain that the Grand Dame of Politics should be ready to go to the polls if it went ahead. This eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation between Manmohan Singh and the thorny Left has pushed the country into suspended animation.

The basic issue is not the Indo-US nuclear deal or whether the UPA Government stays or goes. Or, who is to blame and why. But it is the sad spectacle of today’s polity exposing their hollowness and hypocrisy of political commitment and subordinating national interest to personal egos and gain. If the Congress feels so strongly that the deal is the best thing for the country why doesn’t it call the CPM’s bluff and face the consequences? Sadly, as oft is the case, power breeds arrogance and absolute power breeds absolute arrogance.

Again, look at the Party’s relationship with the UP Chief Minister and BSP supremo Mayawati which swings like a pendulum. First, the Congress High Command read Sonia, tried very hard to have a pact with her prior to the State Assembly polls, failing which it decides to humour Mayawati and let her get away with outrageous anti-Congress diatribe. Now suddenly Sonia has woken up to the BSP’s electoral threat and has decided to deride her. But, when the Dalit icon dares the Congress to take action against her in the Taj corridor scam, the Party backs off.

So unlike the Congress leadership during Indira Gandhi’s time who epitomized the stuff leaders are made off, including the capacity to be a butcher when the need arose. Hailed as Durga after India’s victory in the 1971 war with Pakistan she was the only man in her Government. None dared oppose her and if someone did he would be cut to size in no time. Remember, like true leaders she gambled her political career by taking on the powerful Party Syndicate of senior leaders.

But more than that she was a true democrat and nationalist. True, she imposed Emergency in 1975 after the Allahabad High Court set aside her election, but she was uncomfortable with it. Recall, she not only lifted the Emergency but called for elections in 1977. After her defeat, she gracefully demitted office.

Sadly, her son Rajiv, who took over the reins, converted the Congress into an organization of ‘yes men’ who were loyal only to him. Pure sycophancy. Thus friends and rudderless leaders were handpicked by Rajiv to form his coterie and propelled on to the centre-stage. His wife Sonia carried the family banner forward and has perfected sycophancy and loyalty into Brand Congress. The most unpleasant aspect of all this is the withering of internal democracy.

The BJP too is on the decline. Vajpayee has been replaced by Advani, who may talk tough but lacks the charisma and oratory skills to weave a magic spell. Surrounded by ‘hot-house’ second rung leaders who trot around with an all-important air but are incapable of wining even a single municipal election. The Party President Rajnath Singh and his “coterie” of junior and inexperienced ‘yes men’ play the cat and mouse game with Advani.  Knives are even out for Modi who just resurrected the Party. 

Gone are the days of Brand BJP---collective leadership as opposed to individual control. Its reputation of being a highly disciplined cadre-based faction-free party is in tatters. Its killer instinct, that its leaders so assiduously described, has been killed by the vicissitudes of power.

What about the regional parties? With a mohalla mentality they lack a national perspective. Worse, with the national parties losing their clout with the electorate there is a very high premium on these parties which get traded and horse-traded many times over. The trading is made easier by the total collapse of the moral fabric of all parties in their naked lust for the gaddi. Unfortunately, the national parties have been caught in a web of their own making. By pandering and giving in to the blackmail of these regional vote banks. They have created a Frankenstein over which they have no control.

What next? India today once again is facing a Hobson’s choice. Gripped in the vicious tentacles of a petty power-at-all-cost polity the time has come to throw out the scoundrels and replace them with true nationalists who feel, think and breathe India.

A people, no doubt, get the leaders they deserve. But, at the end of the day, are we going to mortgage our conscience to “fair-weather fliers” and “hot-house leaders”? Are we going to allow leaders without nationalism to recklessly play havoc with India’s future?  The moot point: How long are we going to continue to look for giants among the pygmies and allow the latter to ride-roughshod over us? Time for people to look for real leaders. ---- INFA

(Copyright India News and Feature Alliance)