The Congress scores a self goal

                                                       The Congress scores a self goal

 “For whenever the anger of divine spirits harms someone,
it first does this: it steals away his mind
and good sense, and turns his thought to foolishness,
so that he should know nothing of his mistakes.”

These lines are attributed to some of the old poets of Athens and they have been later adapted by many Greek dramatists. If the Greeks have to be believed, one should not venture to find out why and when we become victims of the divine wrath, but accept it unquestioningly as the power of the Immortals over the mortals. The Western writings, in particular after World War II have identified this irrational and unpredictable the quirk of the Gods as the Absurdity of existence- as something that is beyond reason, logic and understanding. The more one tries to look for meaning in a meaningless world, the greater the possibility of his being unhinged. This is what the ancient Greek proverb says: “Those whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make them mad.”

The Congress led by the mother and son have been the target of the divine spirits in recent months-if not in recent years. After successive defeats in UP elections and General elections besides in some of the State elections, the Congress party is in disarray. After the initial period of trauma when the only news from the Congress headquarters was that the party was in deep introspection, post introspection the party seems to have gone into slumber. Occasional outbursts from a few party members against the mother-son duo and more against the son’s incapacity to articulate and lead from the front were given a quiet burial and the Congress blithely ostrich-like went with its head buried in the sands of 10, Janpath in deep meditation. Every now and then the sleeping giant was disturbed by the quacking of a few congress men demanding a change at the top echelons of the party. But surrounded by the non-political backroom boys, the mother-son du were insulated from the quack-quack of the dissenting voices.  In their state of somnolence all the men and women of Rahul, the prince,  instructed  him and his mother to plug their ears  from hearing the well meaning and well articulated views of a few party loyalists like Manish Tiwari, Rashid Alvi and Digvijaya Singh as though they were the mythological Sirens to lure them into total annihilation. They were removed as the spokespersons of the party adding to the further depletion of any sane voice arising out of the party in wilderness.

 With Congress-mukht Bharat as his one single agenda, the deft PM used the opportune moment to rope in Shashi Tharoor the intelligent, cultured and sophisticated face of the Congress party to join him in cleansing Bharat( without mentioning that this cleansing included cleansing Bharat of the Congress).   PM also knew that Tharoor may need his benevolent grace if his party’s maverick Subramanian Swamy were to tighten the noose rightly or wrongly around him. The Swachh Bharat Andolan was handy and Tharoor was roped in before being tight roped by the PIL expert. The PM did not ask the leader of the opposition(though without an official status) nor Mrs. Gandhi nor the price as he fondly called him nor any other non BJPleader, but only Tharoor. Tharoor’s praise of the PM for giving him the opportunity to join him in Operation Cleansing was enough to raise the hackles among those who must have had a complex with regard to the distinguished diplomat turned congressman. PM ‘s clever ploy worked very well. The henchmen bayed for Tharoor’s removal , the prince frowned, the Queen nodded and the PM had his last laugh.

The Congress has scored a self goal. Even the diehard congress supporters gasped at the inability of the GOP to grasp the significance of the PM’s Tharoor call. The more intelligent among them felt dismayed that the original GOP founded by the intellectual giants like  Gandhiji, Nehru, Patel, Ambedkar, Rajaji, has now declined to the extent that it could not understand that true culture lies not in withholding praise where it is due but in raising one’s bar to go a step farther than that which has been achieved. Congress would have reinvented itself if it had allowed its spokespersons to articulate with passionate conviction and without emotional overtones. It depende still on mother-son duo where the mother can still read her texts well while  the son’s occasional foray into public speeches are best  remembered for the gaffes than for any substantial content. Maybe the divine wrath has stolen the present Congress party of its mind, forcing it to commit folly after folly and what is worse, has made sure that the party  knows nothing of its imbecile and ludicrous acts. Let us pray that the divine wrath is lifted and we have an opposition that acts and talks with wisdom, with malice towards none and graciousness towards all.

If the GOP is to reach heights that it had initially reached under the stalwarts who were cultured, articulate and well educated crusaders to restore national pride  and progress, it should shed off sycophancy and in a true democratic way elect those who have the intelligence, the experience, the power of articulation and the passion for bringing a new India. The current democracy under one man rule may be good in the short run, coming as a relief to the rudderless governance of the last few years. But true democracy is that which allows million voices to speak, million ears to listen and million minds to reflect and act. If GOP has to score goals in the future, let it first learn to resist scoring self goals that are easy to come by but difficult to be counted for victory.