Single personality disorder

Then, once you personalise an issue like this, the rest, the adjectives, the prejudices, the judgments follow. So for the Left, it was a deal between one 8220;international criminal8221;, Bush, the most hated American president of all time, and Manmohan Singh, that hateful Johnny-come-lately into the Washington consensus, a socialist turned card-carrying neo-liberal in love with himself. That is why the Left still attacks the deal more in terms of Manmohan Singh having dragged the country, the UPA and even his own party into a crisis just 8220;to keep his word to George Bush8221;. Take note, therefore, that in all these vicious attacks over the past few days, there is not a word against the Congress, any of its other UPA allies, and definitely, definitely not a whimper against Sonia. On the contrary, Pranab Mukherjee is now an honest man, and a victim of betrayal as much as the Left, irrespective of how strongly he himself may support the nuclear deal.

The BJP8217;s adjectives for the 8220;individual8221; responsible for the crisis reflect their own prejudices. For three years now they, particularly Advani, have described Manmohan Singh as India8217;s weakest prime minister ever, a description that would have embarrassed Gowda, Gujral, and most certainly V.P. Singh. This deal, though sound in substance, needed to be done by a 8220;real8221; Indian prime minister, preferably of course from the NDA. They did not see the situation as a Congress-led UPA carrying forward their own agenda. They saw it, instead, as a weak, inadequate interloper in the prime minister8217;s office being tricked or arm-twisted by a much cleverer Bush.

It is no surprise that the virus did not spare the Congress. As recently as two weeks ago, most Congress leaders would tell you in whispers that Manmohan Singh had unnecessarily got caught up in this crisis. If he was a real politician, or had stakes in politics, he would not have forced the party into such a risky enterprise. They were not willing to even discuss the merits of the deal. For them, it was a docile, nominated Manmohan Singh getting delusional. Here was a man, they said, so 8220;flexible8221; that he allowed Ramadoss his 15 seconds of fame by enacting an outrageous legislation to victimise an honourable individual, a surgeon the prime minister himself respected and consulted. Now he wanted the party to go down fighting with, and for him! Maybe he even wanted a place for himself in history, when he was supposed to have been no more than a footnote, if not a comma. Surely, Mrs Gandhi was soon going to talk him out of it, or show him his place. Names of replacements were floated all the time, all the usual suspects that can8217;t hold a candle to Manmohan Singh when it comes to integrity, intellect and, most important of all, the trust and respect of his high command.

All three, the Left, the BJP and the Rajya Sabha-ist inner coterie of the Congress, blundered in focusing on the individual rather than the issue. If the Left had seen the nuclear deal for what it was, a negotiated agreement between two great powers that was wrecking the four-decade-old NPT regime which they themselves considered discriminatory, they would not have allowed their judgment to be muddied by their hatred for Bush and contempt for Manmohan. They were so blinded by their dislike of Manmohan Singh the person that they even forgot to make a realistic assessment of his political equation with Sonia Gandhi and of how her mind works. They had begun to so enjoy the criticism, the barbs, the jokes that so many Congressmen themselves, some of them mere ministers of state, shared with them in the corridors of Parliament about their own prime minister that they thought inevitably, one day, Sonia would dispense with him rather than risk the future of her government. They overlooked the fact that the implications of stepping back would have been more than loss of face for Manmohan Singh. The embarrassment, and the loss of opportunity, would have been national, and colossal.

It was for the same reason that the BJP kept pressure on the deal against its own best judgment. It believed it was a matter of time before the Left and their 8220;friend8221; Sonia would sacrifice Manmohan; they would then go to the polls against an incumbent that had given us our weakest prime minister ever, come back to power, and resurrect the deal with cosmetic changes.

All three, the Left, the BJP and the Congress coterie, are hurt because they thought they were up against an expendable individual rather than a party, a government or, most importantly, an intellectual idea. So, we now have a Left whose Third Front dream is in tatters with the UNPA decimated; it has chosen isolation from the left-centre coalition that gave it such spectacular presence on the national political stage and 24-hour TV channels. Even if it has the self-satisfaction of defeating the UPA in a vote of confidence in cahoots with the BJP, it won8217;t resurrect its politics or ideology. If the NDA wins, they will be not only isolated, but the common villains of the piece for the other 8220;secular forces8221;, as revolutionaries in a hurry who brought the 8220;right-reactionaries8221; to power. Even if the UPA comes out ahead in the next election, the Left will have no choice but to align with it against 8220;communal forces8221;. So they will be back to where they were, except with smaller numbers, depreciated clout, bloodied noses and diminished egos. The only thing that they may demand and even get is that Manmohan Singh should not lead the next UPA government.

Similarly the BJP is already twisting in the wind on how it will handle the nuclear deal even if it brings down the UPA and wins the next election. Quite predictably, it has nuanced its position on the nuclear deal greatly already and is now clinging to the pathetic idea of keeping the deal and the strategic alliance with the US while counteracting the Hyde Act with its own Jekyll Act of some kind. The BJP is also left with the consequences of Jaswant Singh visiting Amar Singh, attempting the pettiest of palace intrigues. The doubters in the Congress will now all be lining up on TV, in Parliament and in election meetings to defend the nuclear deal. In the end, all three may have the totally Pyrrhic satisfaction of not seeing Manmohan Singh as the next prime minister. The Left may derive additional cheap thrills from Bush not being there then. But there is no way that the deal won8217;t be there.

Which brings us to where we began: the perils of personalising all issues and getting fixated on an individual rather than an issue, principle, the ultimate target or the victory. It applies to politics as much as it does to a cricket match, and to whoever you demonise, whether Manmohan or Mendis.

sgexpressindia.com