Leaders as hooligans

Vishal Sharma
To say that it made for an unpalatable viewing would be an understatement. Shiv Sena MP Rajan Vichare’s act of shoving a piece of chapati into the mouth of a catering supervisor ostensibly for poor quality of food Vichare and his colleagues were served at Maharashtra Sadan was outrageous. There are better ways of driving home the message; more so, when you are a parliamentarian. If a commoner was a protagonist in this theatre of absurd, some allowance could be made even though many would still have issues with that as well. But a legislator doing something like that, well, it just does not make sense. Does it? Surely, he had in his powers to ring in the changes he wanted in the catering department of Sadan.
But the recent behavioural history of our legislators has not been particularly edifying. They have been deviant to a fault. Their indiscretions are perhaps the product of their backgrounds. Those who have risen from extremely humble backgrounds have been as deviant as those who have fattened on their existing riches and become drunk with a notion of power that is all powering to them. Sadly, the ranks of our legislators are predominately populated with the above two categories.
Equally, problematic has been our tendency to put the individuals of influence over the institutions. In our more than 50 years of democratic traditions, the rule making has inexplicably lent itself to an array of inbuilt provisions for exceptions and special privileges, popularly named as discretion raj. This discretion raj has been at the root of the order of precedence that has set itself so strongly in the corridors of governance and where services are delivered. You are served first, if you carry a certain name that rings bells where it matters. You will be entertained above all, if you are a VIP. We all have grown up in an ambience of this entitlement apartheid.  It has never mattered much to the service providers that those who have stood in the queue for a particular service to be delivered have had to wait longer; that their rightful claims have been depriortised.
As if this were not enough, where inbuilt discretions have been amiss for those who have come to expect them as a matter of routine, rules have been bent without so much as even breaking into a single bead of sweat. It has been taken as par for the course both by the beneficiaries and the obliging and colluding officialdom. If it has not come your way, you have been taken as not belonging to this league of privileged. No wonder, this culture of playing with the rules has created a generation of violators for whom such necessary institutional normals as waiting for the turn, paying for the services availed, institutional scrutiny etc have been equivalent of usurpation of their god gifted rights of being more than equal. Vichare belongs to this breed. His act is a presumed right ordained by the divinity. It is now a matter of judgement whether he alone is responsible for what he has done or is it to do with where he comes from?; what he is a product of? Careful appreciation of the issue would bring out that a part of the problem is of our making. If we had rebelled early enough, may be Vichare and his ilk would not have so behaved.
While his behavior is no doubt deplorable, it does not appear that he did what he did in the knowledge that the man at the receiving end was a fasting Muslim. Atleast the tv grab does not reveal that clearly. What clearly comes through though is a man who is offended at the food served and, thus, wanting to make the man responsible for it to taste it and imagine the wretched food quality for himself. Nowhere it appears that he had the foreknowledge that the man was a muslim and fasting; and that he did it despite this. Even though it has been said that the catering supervisor let known his religious persuasion and that he was fasting, in the heat and fury of the squabble, it is likely that his pleadings may not have registered themselves over the noisy exchanges. In a climate of confusion that prevailed in the melee, for everybody to, therefore, form a firm opinion, particularly the media that the catering supervisor was forcefed because he was a fasting Muslim tantamounts to stretching the credulity. It appears that the media has simply created a story of communal slant where there was perhaps none.
There could well be a possibility that Vichare may have acted not entirely without a communal bias. But it should have been left to the inquiry that will most likely be conducted to unearth the facts. This story that had developed in a certain way was ugly enough anyway to be reported. The slant which was, therefore, put on it was not only premature, but also dangerous as this could have led to some serious implications given the abiding faith invested by the Muslims in the Ramadan fasting.
In this country, tendencies to colour even the most innocuous perspectives on communal lines are growing. Perhaps, there are more political and journalistic capitals to be had from them. Such tendentious proclivities though portend an ominous augury that we can most certainly do without. Why do we have this feeling that Vichare forcefeeding a poor and faceless caterer in the manner he did in this case is less likely to face political and legal wrath than when he is seen force feeding a Muslim fasting in Ramadan? If not, why was there such a rush to twist the story on almost across the board basis without doing even basic checks? Is it to do with the systems that we have devised that they react only when the misdemeanor has a communal basis? Or is it rather a cultural issue where misbehaviour with a poor man is less of an infringement in comparison with that of a man of caste, creed etc.,? There are these questions to be asked of those who ran with the story after giving it a certain slant.
Vichare’s case should be inquired into to discover the facts. He simply can’t be allowed to get away with it. There was a reflection of too much of impunity in its actions. He seemed to have fear of none. Such a conduct is just not on. But at the same time investigations should not have a term of reference that mirrors what most of the media had to scream on the subject. It has to be about his misbehavior with a poor service provider. If, however, in the course of the inquest, his communal bias is discovered, law should be allowed to catch up with him.

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