The unbearable Buta

It was so easy for Buta Singh. When mathematics took precedence over idealism in post-election India, he was just a one-vote, one-wish barga...

It was so easy for Buta Singh. When mathematics took precedence over idealism in post-election India, he was just a one-vote, one-wish bargainer in the market. For the BJP, a Buta Singh, even though he was a discredited refugee from the Congress, mattered quite a lot then. And for Buta Singh, whose ministerial history is a study in fearsome servility and profitable criminality, power mattered more than reputation. Buta Singh the Union Communications minister: circumstantial triumph of a man who came out of the sewage system of the Indian National Congress.

In this age of coalition, Buta redux was certainly not a rare occurrence. But this is the age of Jayalalitha as well. The mother of retribution is larger than the collective size of the ruling coalition. So Buta Singh had to go. Perhaps he should have gone without that moral8217; impetus from Jaya.

Perhaps he should not have been there at all. But Buta Singh cannot afford to just go and disappear. If one woman in Chennai can make him an ex-ministerovernight, he hopes, the first lady of the Congress can always take him back. So Buta Singh is waiting for a call. He wants to teach the BJP a lesson a lesson in the art of touchability.

But the question: who is this Buta Singh? Turn the back pages of Indian politics, particularly of the dynastic Congress era, and Singh emerges as a type worth avoiding. A sevak at the Indira durbar, Singh was the one-dimensional Congressman forever subordinated to the leader. In post-dynasty Congress, he had no one to serve but himself. Apparently, for a while, he did a fine job in that regard. As Sonia dawned on the Congress on the eve of last elections, Buta Singh, accused in the JMM bribery case, found himself without a ticket. Some principle.

For, Singh should have been embarrassingly corrupt for a clean8217; party like the Congress to get such a treatment. Independent Singh won the election and won the ministership too. Corruption, after all, is such a relative term. And a life in a BJP-led coalition provided noexistential dilemma to Singh, who is so used to the ways of power. Take me back, madam, my corruption is worthy of a homecoming it takes a Buta Singh to make it all so casual, so natural, so inevitable.

Some politicians never realise their redundancy. They have such a faith in their value in a system that rarely says no to a Buta Singh. And when this particular Singh calls out to the Madam for another life clean life? in a party that had once rejected him, the sight is less than funny. It is repulsive. There is an arrogance about him the arrogance of a redundant politician who has nothing to lose but quite a deal to gain in a polity that refuses to call your average scoundrel8217;s bluff. The Congress has a chance here. It hardly requires a Buta Singh to enhance its image. The ideal choice for Buta Singh is to remain an independent forever. Independent of morality, of conscience, of principle 8230; Can India and its parties be independent of Buta Singh? Hope Sonia Gandhi will never write that invitationletter.