HVK Archives: Beyond the saffron pale
Beyond the saffron pale - Times of India
Shastri Ramchandran
()
2 June 1996
Title : Beyond the saffron pale
Author : Shastri Ramchandran
Publication : Times of India
Date : June 2, 1996
IF the road to hell is paved with good intentions, the way to
paradise is by hook or crook. This unwritten law of politics has
been called into question by the fall of the BJP government of
Atal Behari Vajpayee. Nothing else can explain why a party of
devout Ram bhakts could not survive to rule in a polity infested
with every specimen of the corrupt and the venal.
For all his corruption and venality the much-maligned politician
is fearful of crossing a tacitly accepted Lakshman rekha even if
it be for the promise of Ram rajya. Had there been no fear of
transgressing this implicit boundary of politics, the BJP, having
formed the government and willing to take any and all comers on
board to stay afloat, ought to have succeeded in wooing the
required number of MPs to win the vote of confidence. This did
not happen. And the entire credit for this is not owed to the
politician, who has been known to sell his seat and his
country's interests for less in the past.
But to acknowledge that the politician did not sell out at a
critical time is important, just as police officials not guilty
of custodial rape are commended for "meritorious service". That
they did not discharge any of the duties or responsibilities
required of them is never held against them. The non-violation
of the inviolable becomes in itself a virtue in an age where
opportinities abound for rapacity and greed. The mere non-
commission of an offence has earned our MPs one cheer even
before
any evaluation of merit or performance.
A hung Parliament was anticipated with all the excitement with
which one awaits horse trading. The scent of scandal was thick in
the air with conjectures of who would pay how much to engineer
whose defection and a cost-benefit prognosis of cross-overs
helping one party and harming the other.
For all its rhetoric of righteousness and moral posturing the BJP
had to admit that despite its aversion to trading it would be
willing to do business if the horses turned up. But even such
sophistry, backed by hidden extra-parliamentary persuaders failed
to move a single MP to its side from the opposition ranks.
When this did not happen the same cynical elite and
intelligentsia which enjoy feeling superior to the "corrupt and
criminal class" of politicians were crestfallen, not because they
had nothing to berate but because those who were assumed to be
merchandise'failed to live up to expectations. What bigger shame
the scandal of such utterly corrupt characters refusing to defect
to a "morally superior" party like the BJP.
"What is wrong with these MPs?"was the refrain of those
disappointed."They have been defectors all their lives, some of
MPs. They have criminal records. They were opposed to the
Congress. The BJP deserves a chance. How would it make them
any
more corrupt than they already are if they broke ranks to give
the WP this one chance at governing the country?"
Cinna, Cassius and Brutus' co-conspirator, deserves to be
condemned, if not for conspiracy then for bad poetry though the
poet and the "conspirators" were on different sides of the moral
divide in this round. Those who had always laughed away theories
of "capitalist conspiracy" were now conjuring up an apparition
of "secular conspiracy". Never before has Parliament witnessed
such complete Polarisation.
The splendid isolation of the BJP for all its proclaimed majesty
and majoritarian appeal could not sway a single MP despite the
lure of moneybags and threat of mob rule if the government fell.
There is no doubt that had the government been any other but a
BJP one it may well have succeeded in cobbling a majority before
the trial of strength. The stigma of "untouchability" would not
have been so isolating as it was in the case of the BJP.
It is not that the Politicians were not tempted by office. It
was perhaps not even the certainty of a longer period in power
in a United Front government. Above all it was fear of the
electorate, which deserves the other two cheers for keeping the
politicians in line.
Democracy has always thrived in spite of politicians and
governments because of the irrepressible urge of the voter to
have a pluralistic order. The MPs who might have been willing
to accept office in a BJP government but were afraid to defect
may well have been wondering how they would face another election
with the taint of saffron. Taints of hawala, the securities
scam and other offences pale against the more offensive stigma of
saffron. This is the last threshold, as it were, which the
politician" not cross for love of money or office.
It is a mistake that could be suicidal. Even the corrupt and
the criminal can succeed if they take care to be "politically
correct" which the BJP is not perceived to be.
This only goes to show that a divisive and sectarian political
platform, no matter how acceptable it may be to the majoritarian
mindset, is still far from gaining the sanction of the majority;
that moral, religious or even numerical majority in Parliament
cannot at an times be delinked from the aspirations of a majority
of the electorate; that Hindus do not vote in elections as
"devout Hindus" but as members of civil society to elect a
political Parliament and not a "dharam sansad".
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