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Journalism of Courage
As the BJP celebrates its 25 years with a great deal of buntings and a very characteristic bluster, one finds oneself feeling a wee bit nostalgic about the days when the party was ruling the country. Not because it did a good job of it but because the NDA government 1998-2004 showcased what was possibly the most colourful gallery of leaders in the history of the country. Oddballs, goofballs, spitballs, the inspired and the perspired, the frantic and the eccentric, they were all there.
The UPA government, in comparison, appears almost bankrupt of such talent. The closest the Congress came to staging a genuine national tamasha was during the fraught days of government-formation, when people clambered on the tops of cars and threatened to commit suicide if Sonia Gandhi did not consent to become prime minister. The lady did not oblige them, of course, and the Congress has never recovered in the blood-and-thunder department. The BJP, by contrast, whipped up public emotion like fresh cream 8212; whether of the religious or radioactive kind. It had issues on the front-burner and the back-burner, and was always willing to turn up the flame of the back-burner every once in a while. It could make a cause out of anything, whether it involved the divine or the bovine.
Khuda ki kasam, no one in UPA ranks can measure up to NDA levels of verbal velocity. Shivraj Patil is too much of a safari suit to be a genuine motormouth. Ditto, Ghulam Nabi Azad. Manmohan Singh8217;s prose appears to emanate from a UN document, full of earnestness and rationality but completely lacking in spontaneity. P Chidambaram wears his lawyerly gravitas like an over-starched shirt and Renuka Chowdhury8217;s displays of indignation appear too staged to carry conviction. Mani Shankar Aiyar had possibilities, but ministership seems to have extinguished them. He needs to be in the Opposition benches for the fire in his belly to blaze forth. Today8217;s Oily Mani is, alas, a tame version of the original.
When it came to raw lung power, Desi Bahu Sushma clearly outperformed Videshi Bahu Sonia; just as one Meira Kumar cannot summon up one-hundredth of the theatrics of an Uma Bharati. And while Pranab Mukherjee tries hard 8212; his famous 8216;8216;eat lizard8217;8217; phrase could yet get him into the quote books 8212; he pales decidedly when compared to the rhetorical excesses of George Fernandes, who as defence minister defended himself with fluorescent verbosity. Arjun Singh may fancy himself as the true political antidote to Murli Manohar Joshi, but his enthusiasm appears tame when pitted against the feverish Vedic fantasies of the professor from Allahabad.
This is not, I repeat NOT, an assessment about boring things like the quality of governance, or the performance of individual leaders. It is about a government8217;s commitment to keep its citizens enlivened, entertained, and constantly on edge. When it comes to creating that feeling of imminent out-of-body experiences which could be a riot or a rally, a nuclear explosion or an archaelogical exhumation, the NDA government 8212; and the party that had fathered it 8212; wins hands down.
