For the average voter, the choice between the two major national parties, the BJP and the Congress, is an unattractive one since their biodata, if their history can be so called, have far too many flaws.
To start with the ruling party, what is immediately obvious, apart from its stubbornness in protecting ministers with a dubious record, is the impunity with which it flouts accepted conventions. The fallout has been the filling up of key positions in supposedly autonomous institutions with saffron apparatchiki, whose only claim to fame is their proximity to the RSS.
If there is no realisation in the government of the damage which the appointment of such unworthy nominees can inflict on the hapless organisations, the reason is the dearth of people of high intellectual caliber in the saffron ranks who are conscious of the value of institutions like the Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR) or the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII).
To the saffronites, the position of the chairman of these institutions is no different from that of the governors who are invariably chosen as a reward for their past service to the Hindutva cause so that they can spend some time in luxurious surroundings.
If, in the process, the value of these organisations decline in public estimation as has the respect with which the governors were regarded in the immediate post-independence decades, the BJP and the RSS are seemingly not bothered.
There are other defects, too, in the Narendra Modi government’s curriculum vitae. It is the propensity to ban whatever doesn’t suit its ocular or culinary preferences, whether it is a film on a gang rape in Delhi or the consumption of beef in Mumbai. Next to bans, the government’s attitude towards those who have aroused its ire is to harass them, as Teesta Setalvad has been on the lines of what happened to Tehelka magazine in Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s time. If Setalvad is paying the price for having been proactive in aid of the victims of the 2002 Gujarat riots, Tehelka was forced to the verge of closure for its sting operations nailing then defence minister George Fernandes. There is little difference in this respect from the “moderate” Vajpayee and the hawkish Modi.
Yet, the government would have won considerable plaudits in the eyes of the ordinary people if it had looked beyond the RSS shakhas to choose people for well-known institutions or accepted the opposition’s demand for Sushma Swaraj’s resignation as L K Advani hinted by referring to his own decision to step down as an MP in the wake of the hawala scandal in 1996. If ever the so-called “margdarshak” or the person who shows the right path was right, it was on this occasion.
Since the hounding of Setalvad and other NGOs like the Ford Foundation (which has been questioned by the US) is generally seen as vindictive acts, they serve little purpose other than soothe the bruised egos of those who have been at the receiving end of targeted activism.
The non-saffron hoi polloi will be pleased that the government has been able to silence to some extent the proponents of “ghar wapsi” and “love jihad”. But, it has to do much more than clamp down on the Hindutva Gestapo if it wants to recover some of the sheen which accompanied the BJP’s success in the last general election. The government cannot be unaware that the people are still waiting for the promised development.
Since one of the obstacles to the development is the Congress’s stalling tactics in Parliament, the no-longer Grand Old Party also has a lot of explaining to do for its cussed tactics. First and foremost is the “left of left” role, played by Rahul Gandhi – to quote his own words – although it is unlikely that he has read the Communist Manifesto. The reason, however, for his prominence among Congressmen is the dynastic factor which is becoming stronger instead gradually weakening.The departure Sharad Pawar, P A Sangma, Tariq Anwar and others in 1999 was the result of the realization among them that they had no chance of ever leading the Congress. So, the party now comprises only those who have no ambition other than of being servile courtiers.
An example of this submissiveness was available, first, when the sycophants opposed Sonia Gandhi’s patently token offer of relinquishing the party president’s post after the Congress’s crushing electoral defeat; and, secondly, when a group of loyalists led by AK Antony absolved the first family of blame in a report on the electoral setback.
It goes without saying that for all the sound and fury which accompanies Sonia and Rahul Gandhi’s tirades against the government, it will not be easy for a party, seen as beholden to one family and currently also perceived as anti-reforms, to recover lost ground.
The electorate is left, therefore, between a rock and a hard place because none of the two parties deserves whole-hearted support. In making a choice, the voters have to make the best of a bad bargain. (IPA Service)
