Men, Matters & Memories
M L Kotru
Don’t blame it on destiny or ‘karma’ if you will. If India appears to be in deep trouble, it is because of it’s political parties. The Congress and the BJP have failed the country. History tells us that even as foreign conquerors took charge of the country that the land had stood its ground. The country remained itself, never mind the odds it may have been up against. Her boundaries may have altered, but not the contours, the climate , the rivers and the seas, the tall mountain ranges and her eternal spirit.
It is a country that is inhabited by a people who, in the course of history have undergone the most diverse experiences. Unless it falls apart – forces to achieve that have been at work for long- the human amalgam answering to the description, Indian, is striving to remain in charge at one and the same time of yesterday’s heritage, today’s interests and tomorrow’s hopes.
The obligation is vital, which in the event of a national crisis tests the strength of the nation which in turn comes from the legitimacy of the conviction of the governing power; that conviction should inspire faith in national unity and continuity when the nation is in danger. In some countries the conviction I speak of may come out in an acute crisis like fighting a war, the conviction not to give up the fight
We in India seem to have lost the conviction even as we continue to inflict unnecessary wounds on ourselves . As a consequence we are losing faith in ourselves and our institutions, thanks largely to the failure of the political class and the two major political parties in particular. If you listen to the ruling party at the Centre, don’t be surprised if you hear an echo of Marie Antoinette’s ‘give them cake if bread is not available’. The Congress party would like us to believe that everything is hunky dory with the nation. Its tired leadership is far too deeply involved in sorting out the mess in the wake of the flurry of charges against its Ministers, its top leadership which covers even the Gandhis headed by Sonia
Sonia’s son in law, Robert Vadra is the latest to find his image ( if he had one) tarnished. His wheeling dealing with one of the country’s top real estate giants , DLF, has added a new dimension to the extent of corruption at the highest level. Does one have to reproduce the charges that face Chief Ministers , Ministers et al, in the States, not all from the Congress. The BJP, the second most important political party, figures prominently in the list of wrong doers.
And come to think of it, one is beginning to have doubts about what the man behind the expose’s, Arvind Kejriwal is up to.
After quitting his mentor Anna Hazare’s anti – corruption movement, he is determinedly carving out a political space of his own. And in doing so, he appears to have been carried away by the response the anti-corruption campaign has evoked. His political ambitions are by now an accepted fact; he himself said it before parting ways with his mentor , Anna Hazare. His overflowing rhetoric is only a manifestation of a burning desire to be part of the political elite. One has noticed his growing tendency to act more as a dictator than someone leading a peaceful crusade to cleanse the body- politic of the deadly malaise that has overtaken it
What is distressing is that India Against Corruption, the outfit he inherited from Anna, is unwilling to give the investigating agencies – for the most part discredited as they are, the chance to inquire into the plethora of charges he has brought against the high and mighty, mainly of the Congress. The BJP, at the time of writing, is said to be on his hit list. I wonder why Kejriwal, given his mistrust of the CBI, the police and other investigative agencies, has not approached the courts to file his version of the truth with them and ask for judicial supervision of investigations into the charges. The Courts have done it in the past – on being requested to or acting on their own.
Does Kejriwal have some other agenda ? Why does he play a virtual cat and mouse game with the authorities , even as he claims to be uncovering acts of malfeasance and misdemeanour by the hour. Our TV Channels are , of course, having a ball with Kejriwal’s non stop road show. Obviously short of content to sustain their 24/7 status, the channels gleefully accept Kejriwal’s show; one had him the other day racing towards UP on a mobike tracing the so called beneficiaries of the trust headed by the Law Minister Salman Khurshid: another channel at exactly the same time, stop a bus urging people to lay siege to Khurshid’s house, block the roads leading to it etc .
At this rate I do not know what is in store for us via the channels. We may be asked to believe that Kejriwal is no less than the ‘desi’ TV superman, “Shaktiman” , an amalgam of Batman, Spiderman, et al. There apparently is no authority capable of calling the channels to order.
One has to be out of his mind to pooh pooh the serious charges levelled against these personages. Anyone found guilty must be shown the door out of our political system . But equally, we shouldn’t let things spin out of our hands leading to anarchy . I shudder sometimes , seeing Kejriwal going about his chores .
He reminds me , I hope wrongly, of the German Army corporal who, between the years of the two World Wars – 1919 to 1932- aggravated the sense of defeat of 1914-1919, among fellow Germans and placed himself in a position to corner nearly 37 percent of vote against President Hindenburg, whose Chancellor he became as a compromise and whom he replaced in a year’s time installing himself as the Fuehrer , the ultimate Leader. Mr Kejriwal’s rantings, his demagoguery instantly bring to mind the picture of Hitler transforming an unsuspecting citizenry into an unthinking mob.
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