Harsh Dev Singh
“Politics is the last resort of a scoundrel”. We have been hearing the aforesaid adage since our childhood. Once considered an ugly bromide against politicians, the said definition of politics however has become most befitting in the present era especially in J&K and more relevant now than ever before. Gone are the days when honesty, probity, morality, truth and consistency were the hallmarks for a successful political career. Once considered highest virtues they do not even show up anywhere near a today’s prospered politician. A successful politician today is the one who is adept in the art of manipulation and manoeuvrability, who can speak lies with ease, who can change loyalties at his sweet will, who never means what he says and never says what he means. Rather than practising morality, he needs to be articulate in preaching morality.
Politics in our UT is the conduct of public life for private advantage. Just as you need to study law or medicine to be a lawyer or physician, you need to study your-own interests to become a modern politician in this new political era. Inventive acronyms, deceptive adroitness, proximity with media, jugglery and hollow rhetoric are the mantras for success in today’s politics. The more morbid emotionalism and paroxysm you create by your platitudes and seductive slogans, the more successful will you be. Politics in J&K has transformed in its functioning, character and facade. To reach the pinnacle of your career in political life you don’t have to be consistent. For the party that supported you might have become weak. It therefore needs to be abandoned.
Opportunism has become the watchword for a J&K politician to qualify as successful leader. And power has to be the only goal. Attain it by hook or crook. Means are immaterial. You must kill your conscience the very moment you enter the political arena. Give an impressive lecture on Principles but don’t ever follow any such thing. Be prepared to relinquish your political philosophy as and when the opportunity knocks at your doors. No permanent friends and foes. Expediency and self interest need to be your priority. Be prepared to demonize those who were once treated as God fathers. And be ready to switch over loyalties as and when any lucrative offer comes your way. You should be as fast as chameleon in changing colours in tune with the political situation for that would place you higher in the merit list. Never hesitate to enter into “Faustian bargains” like Dr. Faustus who sold his soul to the devil for power. And never fail to follow Aurangzeb who not only overthrew his father, Shah Jahan but put him behind bars to ascend the throne of power.
The concept of Machiavellian politics is based on the theory that politics has no relation to ethics or morality. And one who knows how to deceive will always find those who allow themselves to be deceived. A businessman turns politician by using the support base of a mass leader of Kashmir who is no more today. The leader dies and the new politician hurriedly tries to occupy his place while most of their erstwhile colleagues continue to rot in jails. And since he has the art as well as the science of manoeuvrability, he easily finds those who would abandon their past loyalties and switch over to his camp. Both from Kashmir and Jammu regions. The weaklings and those lacking self confidence fall easy prey to his declamatory and bombastic talks, his noisy frolic and jollification.
‘There are none so blind as those who will not see’. This holds true for the Jammu leaders who are opting for BJP and its allied parties of Kashmir. Rejecting parties which catapulted them to power, they have started laying eggs in their opponents’ baskets. Truly politics has become a game of shocks and surprises. No one knows who will quit his party tomorrow to join another who he thinks can assure him a better deal. Let me remind these prodigal sons of Jammu of the solemn pledges made by them in the bygone era. With their persistent rhetoric for safeguarding and promoting Dogra land, they would nail the BJP leadership for not doing enough for Jammu. And while they all along depicted the anti Jammu leaders as some kind of monsters, they opted to embrace them at the first available opportunity and acknowledge them as their leaders. It was amusing now to see the so called ‘hard core BJP opponents’ of yesterday romanticizing with those who were dubbed by them as agents of New Delhi rulers. A long queue of such leaders appears to be waiting in the wages to embrace the BJP deliriously oblivious of their past statements against the saffron leadership. Such a shameless, brazen brothelization of politics.
Jammu region has often been cheated by its own leaders. In 2014, the Dogra land gave massive mandate to the saffron party and ensured victory of its 25 Assembly candidates with both MP seats also falling in its kitty. But what did it do? It conceded the CM’s chair for full term accepting the leaders of PDP whom they had vowed to decimate during the said elections. Those who were projected as monsters by BJP were embraced by it as partners. And subsequently also after the collapse of PDP-BJP coalition, it made a desperate though unsuccessful attempt to hand over the reins of power to Sajad Lone of PC which had only two MLAs from Kashmir. And now again, it’s the saffron party which is reportedly providing tacit as well as overt support to the new Kashmir based parties to emerge.
The JKAP and PC are granted audience by top leadership of the country without any hassles and have easy access to the corridors of power in New Delhi. The said parties have also been allotted Estates Bungalows at Gandhi Nagar for their political office only adjacent to the residential ‘A type’ accommodation presently held by the State BJP President. The allotment of government premises to the JKAP and PC for office has been made only recently when all other opposition leaders of recognized political parties have been evicted from Estates Quarters through the use of Police force. And of course, all this with a design. A new alliance in the offing. A new experiment to capture power. The media is being fully exploited to create hype in favour of the new parties. Larger than life characters of JKAP and the defectors are being created through magnified media coverages. The headlines seem to have been monopolized. The defections as such are being glorified and glamorized. And then all efforts made to justify such defections, floor crossings and change of loyalties. Justifying brothelization. Of course there still are politicians who have stood firm. Unmoved by pulls and pressures, threats and intimidations, offers and allurements. They surely deserve public attention.
(The writer is Former Education Minister & Chairman J&K National Panthers Party)
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