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Journalism of Courage
Funny, isn’t it, how I simply cannot relate to a situation except in terms of a native, preferably rustic, parable. No wonder Rajiv Gandhi had such an impossible time countering my earthy logic in 1989, caught as he was in the "haarenge ya loosenge" trap of his own making. The babalog types, actually, we desi types could take on en passant. But the key thing now is not to lose your sense of humour even in bad times such as these.
I remember the story my maths tutor often told me: hisaab jyon ka tyon, kunba dooba kyon (my arithmetic is as perfect as I had imagined but how come my entire family drowned)? This was the story of an absent-minded mathematician crossing the flooded Ganga along with his wife and two children. He found the water was 12 feet deep. Then he totted up the heights of his family members. It added up to 20 feet. No problem, he thought, and walked into the river. One after the other his children and wife drowned. When the water came up to his own nose, hepaused, still incredulous, added up the figures again and asked himself the question: "Hisaab jyon ka tyon…" A bit longwinded, that one, but how else do I explain my own dilemma? The Brahmins have voted for the BJP. The dalits, mostly for themselves. The Yadavs have voted for fellow Yadavs. The Muslims have voted for one of my secular stars. And yet, not only is Atal Behari Vajpayee going to be sworn in as Prime Minister tomorrow at the head of a BJP-led coalition, even the dynasty is back at the helm of the Congress party. The Third Force, the marvel of electoral arithmetic I had cobbled together so lovingly lies in tatters with its convenor now, for all practical purposes, a member of the BJP-led coalition. What, in the name of God — oops, Mandal — went so wrong? Hisaab jyon ka tyon….
Actually, I should perhaps be a little less sanctimonious over what Babu has done. I too had taken the BJP’s support to run a minority government, but it was different. I was every bit their match in thecraft of realpolitik and the issue, then, was entirely different. We had to keep out the dynasty and punish Rajiv for his corruption and arrogance. Naidu, on the other hand, has put the clock back on the growth of that beautiful phenomenon, regionalism. His meek capitulation has made it quite clear now that a regional party can survive only as an adjunct of a major national party. Now that is not what I had set out to achieve. I had believed a post-Mandal India would create several regional chieftains who would then control the power in New Delhi. Ask Naidu how close he came to it last May, except that Surjeet got on the phone in the nick of time from Moscow. That is history and Babu has now condemned himself to being a regional bit player for the rest of his political career. His problem. I worry about something else. The first menace I had set out to fight and eradicate, corruption, has today ceased to be even an issue. This election has been such a cleansing dip in the Ganga for all the supposedly corrupttypes. The Congress has Laloo for an ally and the BJP has Jayalalitha. Buta Singh, Kalpnath Rai, the entire hawala gang, are all doing fine. My second problem was Hindu communalism. Remember how I preferred to sacrifice my government rather than put up with the BJP’s nonsense on Ayodhya? The BJP is in power now. But the unkindest cut of all is the revival of the dynasty at the head of the Congress party.
I don’t usually like to admit it but much of the arithmetic genius that went into my re-engineering of the Hindi-belt vote banks was used to destroy the space that the Gandhi family had monopolised for decades. A defeated Congress party, I had believed, would discard the Gandhis and die.
Meanwhile, its middle ground and weaker sections vote banks would have been divided up amongst the constituents of my third force. Now the third force is dead, the Congress still hasn’t got its vote banks back — in fact, some have gone to the BJP — but it has got the Gandhi family back at the helm.
You just had tolook at your television screens yesterday. The new body language, the new swagger in the way the Congressmen strode around the Central Hall, well, whoever claimed that electoral arithmetic was infallible? All I can say is, nobody can accuse me of not having done my best. Never underestimate the flexibility of the Brahmin mind, I have always warned my followers. But there is nothing wrong even for the rest of us to appreciate the virtues of flexibility. Why else would I be the first one to come out in support of Sonia midway through the campaign, even forget Bofors, the issue over which I blighted her late husband’s prime ministership and then destroyed his vote banks? Unusual situations call for unusual solutions. And flexibility. You can’t expect me to remain frozen at the 1987 position when even that wretched, ungrateful nephew of mine from Amethi is well on his way to becoming a BJP minister?
The art of realpolitik consists in figuring out the key challenge of the day and then finding the way to answerit, and principles be damned. Soniaji, actually, is the answer and please don’t blame me now for thinking like a Congressman, for that is what I have been for much of my life. What she needs, however, is good, sound advice. She needs someone older and wiser telling her what to do. She needs someone to teach her electoral arithmetic. The new sovereign needs a rajguru and who said he necessarily has to be a Brahmin?
I am, after all, a creative type. When not playing politics or re-engineering vote banks I paint, write poetry and now even find time to do a TV serial. Such a charmer that Subhash Chandra of Zee is, it is impossible for anyone, even someone as self-effacing as I, to say no. But all these are mere leisure pursuits. The Congress, under Sonia, gives me the hope that the secular dream is still not over; we can talk about corruption and Bofors later. Now if only she would give me a call and ask my advice on how to put the party in fact, the only successful secular confection in our history — backtogether that I tore to shreds so effectively just a decade ago!
