Opinion A sabbath mystery
How and where exactly is Rahul Gandhi spending his ‘sabbatical’?
In what could be a new instalment of “Histories Mysteries”, Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi has chosen to take a “sabbatical”. In years to come, this may be remembered as one of the great political enigmas — like where did Hitler spend his last days, what did Marilyn Monroe know, who was behind the Purulia arms drop, really? There is plenty of speculation. But if you’re picturing sabbaticals as one long Sunday, spent sunning on a deck chair, back the truck up.
Yes, it is reported that god created the world in six days and took to his metaphorical deck chair on the seventh, giving rise to the sabbath, or the day of rest. The word “sabbatical” probably draws its roots from the Hebrew “shabbat (release)” and the Latin “sabbaticus (to cease)”. And in Mosaic law, a “sabbatical year” was the seventh year, when the land was not to be tilled, and debtors and slaves were to be released. All of this might suggest pina coladas and feudalism.
But the sabbatical was reinvented in the late-19th century, when it became a year of absence granted to researchers. The trend soon spread and taking a sabbatical seemed to convey a degree of political chic. “Anonymity is a therapeutic treatment for tired politicians,” said then Singapore Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, wintering in Harvard in 1968. During his month there, Lee is said to have picked up tips on the “development of our economy”, security and how new nation states became a “modernised community”. But if North Korean leader Kim Jong-un was on a sabbatical when he disappeared from public view last year, he probably wasn’t taking a refresher course in governance.
So will the pina coladas versus governance mystery ever be solved? Time or subsequent events will tell. In the meantime, Indian politics might have found its new favourite euphemism — the sabbatical.
Share
