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Bihar chief minister Laloo Prasad Yadav has, as usual, proved his
detractors wrong. The 'mother of all rallies' has turned out to
have deserved the billing it got; indeed, judging by the crowds
that thronged the 'garib maharailla', the scandals and such that Mr
Yadav was alleged to have been involved in would seem to have made
not the least difference to his rapport with the poor. Little
wonder, then, that Prime Minister Deve Gowda was moved to describe
the meet as a fitting reply to all those who were predicting the
Bihar strongman's early downfall. The Prime Minister even saw in
the overwhelming turnout an endorsement from the poor and the needy
of his government's budget: If the budget was pro-rich, as was
being alleged, surely the poor would have boycotted it? No
quarrels with any of this. By all accounts, the rally was a
phenomenal success even allowing for the fact that it was an
incumbent regime's organised roadshow. Clearly, Mr Yadav has once
again established that he has a certain earthy appeal, a certain
ability to communicate and empathise, which makes him an instant
hit with the people at large. So if he flaunts his rally's triumph
or reads into it an attestation of his pro-poor policies, he is
entitled to do so. That is part of realpolitik. Except for a
small, disturbing matter. On the same day that Mr Yadav and his
friends were celebrating his huge popularity with the teeming
millions who occupy the lower end of the country's economic scale,
two among them, both women, were crushed to death; they had been
stampeded by crowds returning from the rally.
In any other country, that fact would have got priority over
whatever else may have transpired at the rally, including the large
crowds that turned up to hear Mr Yadav and Mr Gowda. But all that
the two unfortunate women, rallyists themselves, managed was a
passing mention in newspaper reports, almost as if to say that when
an event was mounted on a scale such as this, a death here or there
was only to be expected. The rally, after all, was a pilgrimage of
sorts; where in a religious pilgrimage (he devotees paid obeisance
to a god, here, the poor did the same to their political lord and
master. But, really, can there be a greater irony than (hose
standing for the rights of the poor and, in fact, claiming to
derive their raison d'etre from the poor, remaining unmoved by this
'blood sacrifice', as it were? The incident, tragically
underscores the point that when a political leaders, or for that
matter anyone else, claim, on the basis of a popular mandate, to be
above the law of the land, they thereby place all others, including
the supporters who have conferred this paramountcy on them, below
the law of the land and civilisation. The same arrogance was
behind Rajiv Gandhi's famous statement on the 1984 pogrom against
the Sikhs: When a giant tree (Indira Gandhi) fell, it would but
create tremors (deaths). In other words, the political leader is
only too glad to be placed by his support base on the pedestal; he
is quick to claim also that this fact alone is enough to place him
outside the purview o ' f the legal framework. And yet he would
not discharge the responsibilities that go with the position that
has come to him courtesy of his support.
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