Flying high, J8217; class

The home minister said that these problems had been tackled fairly successfully. Fair enough, but these problems would have confronted any ministry, whether or not the BJP was a constituent of the ministry. You might argue that other parties have done a worse job 8212; or a better one! 8212; but that is another matter. My question, however, is what remains of the party8217;s claim of being 8220;a party with a difference8221;.

Advani himself tacitly admitted as much. While stating that the party had become the natural party of governance, a space once occupied by the Congress I, he reminded everyone that this was not really enough. The party, he exhorted, should strive to become a party of 8220;good8221; governance. Did he, I wonder, have Uttar Pradesh in mind as he spoke?

I am not too sure how many people in the audience imbibed that message. Returning to Congress history, I could not help remembering an acid remark made by Khan Abdul Ghafar Khan when he saw the Congress ministers of the Central Province driving up in state in their official cars to a party session in the 1930s. 8220;As far they are concerned,8221; the Frontier Gandhi said, 8220;Swaraj has already been achieved.8221;

Unfortunately for the BJP, that attitude has crept in already. The flight from Mumbai to Nagpur on Sunday, August 27, was instructive for all the wrong reasons.

It was supposed to be an Alliance Air flight that would take off at 5.45 a.m. Passengers checked in an hour ahead of that. At 5.15, the decision was made to change the aircraft, an Airbus 320 was hastily pressed into service, and Indian Airlines was told to operate the flight. The J8217; class seats were then occupied by various politicians, the hoi polloi being relegated to the lesser Y8217; class. It was at 6.30, forty-five minutes after the scheduled time of departure, that the plane took off.

After we had all settled down, Captain Deshmukh apologetically offered a reason for the delay. Indian Airlines, she announced, had only been told of the change after 5 o8217;clock, and it had taken a certain amount of time to assemble the crew. As to why the change was felt to be necessary, it was because 8220;a political party is holding its convention in Nagpur8221;. This led to derisive laughter among the passengers who knew what she meant.

But mark what follows. Some time later, the captain8217;s voice was heard again on the public address system. One of the passengers, the captain said, had protested against the assignation of the reason and any talk of party conventions. However, the captain went on, she had only been offering passengers the same information that she herself had received, and it was always possible that it might have been incorrect. This led to even louder sniggers than the first announcement.

Sensibly, none of the VIPs snuggled in their J8217; class seats chose to challenge this; it would only have resulted in more bad press for their party. The point is that everybody on board knew that Captain Deshmukh was telling the truth. It was bad enough that they got the flight changed. Was it because Alliance Air lacks those coveted J8217; class seats? But it was even worse that some of them tried to cover up the original sin, and even attempted to protest when someone else told the truth.

Having arrived in Nagpur, an observant colleague noted that food was being served in plastic ware. Shouldn8217;t the party, he noted, have used earthen cups, thereby supporting the cause both of the environment and of the local craftsmen? This is one of my pet peeves, by the way, whenever I travel by train; I defy you to hold on comfortably to scalding coffee in one of those stinking, paper-thin plastic contraptions. Of course, my colleague noted detachedly, the cups were offered for free by friendly industrialists, an act of generosity which poor Atilde;sup2;f40Atilde;sup3;kulhar-makers could never match8230;

I understand that several senior leaders of the BJP are worried about such trends 8212; an abuse of power as in getting plane schedules changed, an unwillingness to hear the truth epitomised in the correction8217; forced on Captain Deshmukh, and a slight distancing from the grassroots accompanied by a rush to embrace the modern8217; plastic rather than old-fashioned clay. Taken individually, these may not matter much, but they are disturbing for the direction to which they point. That was one of the reasons why Advani spoke as he did.

But did anyone listen? Yes and no. On the flight back from Nagpur to Delhi, I noted that Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Dhoomal was sitting in the Y8217; class the last row, but some Members of Parliament and even their aides had occupied all the J8217; class. Who, I wonder, was the more accurate representative of the party?

Was the chief minister demonstrating his 8220;difference8221; from his colleagues, or was it his fellows showing their lack of difference from the CongressI? If the latter, shall the BJP8217;s own fortunes be any different?

BLURB

My colleague noted that the plastic cups were offered for free by friendly industrialists, an act of generosity poor kulhar-makers could never match