This is all I can do and this I have done
With Prakash Karat scything any possible liaison with Congress, the
chances of a united opposition are receding. ( since writing this piece, I
learn that Karat has been overruled for his objection to uniting with Congress)
A few regional satraps are attempting a Federal Front (more of a notional
unitedness than a reality ) and making tentative and nearly inaudible noises as
their only interest is to selfishly safeguard their regional and parochial
territory from the triumphal march of the
Moditva forces. These satraps are state-centric and not Delhi-centric as
they know they do not have either the pan national presence or the
extraordinary charisma to be accepted as pan-India leaders. It is more like parts trying to coalesce into
a whole rather than a whole functioning through its parts. The opposition unity
is like a chimera, an imaginary monster made up of disparate parts, a fanciful
mental illusion. Their combined force can only be centrifugal whereas what is
needed at the national level is a centripetal force to hold the nation
together. United opposition today looks like an emaciated paper tiger that does
not even possess the static sturdiness of Behenji’s stone elephants in
Uttarpradesh. Federal Front against Mahaghatbandhan
(grand alliance)sounds sweet to the BJP ears. Any fragile unity can be easily
torpedoed by sheer money power that BJP has in its election war chest. This has been
clearly demonstrated in Bihar where the Chief Minister who won because
of the Ghatbandhan (alliance)between
his party, Congress and Lalu Prasad’s RJD, switched to the rival BJP without a guilty
sense of betrayal of those who earlier had helped him to defeat the BJP and come
to power in Bihar. Money trumps marginal
electoral wins and makes a winner out of the loser. Goa and Meghalaya have shown
how the verdict can be turned on its head through money power.
So the shrill cry Modi Mukht Bharat is a poor parroting of the BJP’s
blaring call of Congress Mukht Bharat. 2019 is just a few months from now and
the BJP is confident that all the leaders of the Humpty Dumpty opposition that
had its ignominious fall five years back cannot put it together again. This,
despite the harsh and indelible truth that
in the last four years India has become a huge cauldron of conflicting hate
politics spread along caste, class, religion and ideology.
There has been (and which continues) an intense fight to capture the
intellectual space. Fiercely arrogant, the spokespersons of the ruling party outshout the
opposition on the TV channels and through the social media to claim that all
that was left is no longer right; all that is right is no longer left. Many universities
like JNU, Central University of Hyderabad, Benares Hindu University and Delhi University
have seen political clashes, unprecedented violence and police presence. The
media seems to be a pathetic spectator, most of them have willingly accepted to
be gagged and those who have the temerity to speak out what they feel the truth
have come under harassment, labeled anti national and their premises raided by
Income tax sleuths. The FTII was in the eye of the storm for a good many months
while films like Padmavaat was subjected to vandalism through artificially
induced hysteria over alleged slight to Rajput( read Hindu) pride. Cow
vigilantism, love Jihad and moral policing have resulted in lives being snuffed
out by mob violence. Temple visits and temple building are given top priority among
the “must be done” activities in a nation striving hard to develop its
scientific temper and technological advancement. Those who spoke out have been
silenced forever like Gouri Lankesh, Pansare and Kalburgi -who have been gunned down between 2015-17. The Republic
of India is plunging hell bent to become the Rapeublic of India. These are
facts, not imagined ones.
Something has gone rotten with the state of India. What has caused the
rot? The paradoxical truth is the huge unassailable majority with which BJP had
been returned to power. What should have galvanized the party to establish a
glorious rule, got dissipated because of the hubris it bred that they can do
whatever they wanted to ,as the marginalized opposition was reduced to be a
pathetic and spineless spectator. The manner with which the social media cell
of the party trolled the opposition gave the party members-big and small, ministers
and MPs, fringe workers and lumpen elements unbridled sanction to indulge in
actions that went contrary to the secular and pluralist ethos of the nation
enshrined in our Constitution. The strength of democracy rests with an
effective opposition, an impartial judiciary and a watchful media.
Hence the need to have an effective opposition is urgent and imminent.
If democracy is to survive, the ruling government must work with the opposition
to steer the nation out of the present state of chaos and lawlessness. George
Santayana’s saying “Chaos is a name
for any order
that produces confusion
in our minds" best describes
our current state of mental apathy and torpor . The gingerly attempts to forge a united opposition
suffer from factionalism and ideological differences. Every leader wants to be
a sultan in his/her own state. We are returning to pre-independence state when
there was no one India or Bharat till leaders
like Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Patel and writers like Tagore, Subramanya Bharati, Aurobind
Ghosh, Sarojini Naidu and thinkers like
Gokhale, Tilak and Ambedkar, to name a few, forged a single entity Bharat from Kashmir to Kanyakumari,
from Kolkatta to Mumbai crisscrossing North, South, East and West. Before that
there were only princely states at war with each other. We are once again back
to that ancient order- what is known in Tamil as ‘vanga desam’ of 56 kings fighting
against each other. Protest marches led by Dalits, Safai karamcharis, farmers,teachers,
students, traders and other different regional groups reflect a divided and discontented
society. Hate speech has been shown to have increased 500 times more than at
any other time prior to 2014.
How do we bring back sanity, decorum and civilized and cultured
behaviour in action and speech? It can only be done by getting rid of the TINA
factor that gives BJP a head start. The macro monumental optics
that has been assiduously built up around Narendra Modi as a divine
avatar( going to absurd lengths of his rise as predicted by Nostrodamus) has to
be seen with greater penetration, objectivity and rigour. Everyone has his/her plus as well
as minus points. For the ruling party to focus only on the plus and spin it out
of all proportions is nothing but indulging in hagiography – or to use a
Sanskrit word ,’nara sthuthi (worship of Man). Hagiography suppresses the truth
and after sometime it produces an opposite effect of ennui and apathy. Similarly for the opposition to focus only on
the negative side is to remain like the one eyed Cyclops , blind, suspicious
and vengeful. No government is wholly bad and wholly good. There are hits and
misses and the opposition has to see both objectively.
The only pan India party to steer the nation back to democracy is the Congress.
That is why PM Modi had targeted only Congress
and has been working overtime to rid Bharat of Congress. Not for a moment I see
any greatness in Congress to solve all the problems. But it has to be a strong
and reasonable opposition even if it is not voted to power. Here are a few
suggestions- nothing new or sensational, but something to ponder over to get a
decent number to be in the opposition.
1.Congress must have the humility and the courage to accept its
mistakes for which it was thrown out of power and start on a new and clean
slate. It has to provide an alternate narrative that has both a rational and emotional appeal to the
masses. Instead of digging into what Modi had promised but failed to deliver, instead
of blaming the ruling government for every conceivable ill , let the congress
focus only on what it can do to better the present period of unrest, slow
economic growth, cash crunch, rape, murder, education, environment and
pollution, foreign policy, agricultural and industrial production etc.
2. Congress has to show that it
has learnt the lesson and is ready to start as a rejuvenated party. Let it
start with the slogan “We Can” and “We Will”.
3. Don’t criticize the PM or his trusted aides or the ruling party. The
brilliance of the Prime Minister is to turn the criticism on its head and play
the card of a harassed victim. In London, he told the Indian diaspora (whose
heart and soul bleat for the poor in India even while enjoying their personal
and physical comfort in a far off distant land) that his strength comes from the
daily dose of abuses he takes. He is a master orator and a brilliant spin
doctor.
4. Congres must re-christen itself
as Congress National Party where
it should invite leaders and intellectuals of repute and integrity to be a part
of the government. This is not the time for ideological debate, not about right or left, but about what is best for the
nation that ensures economic equity, social justice and better quality of life
for all Indians.
4. Take the positives of the present ruling party. The GST and Aadhar were
the brainchild of the Congress, though opposed by the BJP in the past. Today they
are the central focus of the present government. It is to the credit of BJP
that it did not throw the baby out of the water bath. Just articulate the changes
Congress wants to introduce and why the two are needed for the limited purposes
and benefit the people and how these
changes will obviate the possible
hardship and loss of privacy inherent in the present scheme of things.
5. The Mohalla clinics of AAP and the utopian Modicare schemes have
many positives to follow. Congress should not cavil at them but show how they
can be improved upon, how they can be linked to the existing CGHS schemes and
Insurance schemes and how to make it
work through private hospitals. Congress should adopt the microcredit and not the microfinance pattern to provide
healthcare. The primary difference between microcredit and microfinance is that Microcredit is defined
as the loan facility for poor customers while a broad range of financial
services for the poor clients is known as Microfinance. The government does not have the money to
finance healthcare to all but can make the poor take monthly insurance for a
paltry sum of five rupees per member per family which can provide them the
cushion for hospital expenses. People don’t need charity; they need self
sufficiency and self dignity through their own efforts.
6.Education must be given top
priority in the scheme of things. Again don’t fault AAP which in its infancy
has attempted to better the quality of government schools. Be magnanimous in
acknowledging the good work done by others even if they have defeated you in
the elections. Formulate a new education
policy after consulting academics and scholars who are known for their passion
for education. Bring back to focus what Rousseau had said in his treatise ‘
Emile or on Education’ : “In the first place, “Is it good in itself?”
In the second, “Can it be easily put into practice?”The proposed scheme that
Congress formulates should be intelligible and feasible to adopt. Here is no
point in providing one size fits all education that is imported from the
West. To quote Rousseau once more, “one
kind of education would be possible in Switzerland and not in France; another
would be adapted to the middle classes but not to the nobility. The scheme can
be carried out, with more or less success, according to a multitude of
circumstances, and its results can only be determined by its special
application to one country or another, to this class or that.” Make a
tripartite scheme that caters to basic education and skill training, professional
education and academic-cum-research oriented studies. This will be a bold move
and ensure that no one scheme is privileged over the other.
7. The present government has done well to seek Israel’s assistance in
agricultural methods to improve produce and income. Accept this graciously and
implement Swaminathan recommendation as the first step towards alleviation of
farmers’ misery.
8. It is good that the muscular
and military approach to Kashmir is slowly being wound up by the government.
Build trust and start dialogue with Kashmiris and find solutions that do not
compromise their loyalty and self dignity.
9. Kindly tone down anti-Pakistan rhetoric. What is the use of going to
every forum and call Pakistan a terrorist state? It has only bred more enmity
and vengeful reaction. No need to brag
about our military power nor run here and there seeking more and more arms. Let
us return to Pt. Nehru’s Panch sheel. Even if he was betrayed by China, remember
one swallow does not make a summer. We
can quietly strengthen ourselves and do surgical strikes without telling the
world, “hey, look, we have taught them a lesson!” More things are wrought by
action than loud words. With sports, cinema, music, art and literature, let us
attempt building a new relationship which at the core should be founded on
Gandhiji’s concept of Non violence. To be non violent needs more courage than
pressing the trigger.
10. There are many more things to attend to. But let the goal to set is
a United India that follows the Rg Veda which exhorts us to accept noble ideas
from everywhere. “Aano
bhadrah kritawo yantu vishwataha
I end up with my return to
Rousseau: “I have not written about other people’s ideas of what must be done but
about my own. My thoughts are not those of others;… It is within my power to
refuse to be wedded to my own opinions and to refuse to think myself wiser than
others…. This is all I can do, and this I have done. If I sometimes adopt a
confident tone, it is not to impress the reader, it is to make my meaning plain
to him. Why should I profess to suggest as doubtful that which is not a matter
of doubt to myself? I say just what I think.”
