HVK Archives: Thackeray-Gowda kiss
Thackeray-Gowda kiss - The Times of India
Shastri Ramachandaran
()
11 September 1996
Title : Thackeray - Gowda Kiss
Making Up a New Political Amorality
Author : Shastri Ramachandaran
Publication : The Times of India
Date : September 11, 1996
Prime Minister Deve Gowda's meeting with Shiv Sena chief
Bal Thackeray is well behind us. What remains is the
abounding speculation over what the two did when they met
at the home of Mr Amitabh Bachchan who is brand currency
in cinema, politics, business and lately the Miss World
beauty bash. The speculation over what may have
transpired during the Gowda-Thackeray tete-a-tete
persists because it carries all the tantalising elements
of the 'kiss and make up' syndrome.
Though Mr Bachchan is much less immersed in the art of
make-up than he was in his celluloid heydey, he has
obviously learnt that political making-up is not only
good image-building but makes for better business in
uncertain coalition climes. After all, politics is about
middlemen and the middle matters most when extremes meet.
Breathless Exertions
The dalliance between the perceived extremes personified
by Mr Thackeray and Mr Gowda is all the more stirring to
the excluded voyeurs because the 'kiss' has not been
followed by the anticipated 'make-up'. The breathless
exertions of the spectators have been frustrated without
a climax. This makes the kiss, not only inconclusive but
leaves it open to conflicting interpretations. Kissing
after all is a sign - of peace, betrayal, impregnation,
salutation, greeting, humility, death, etc. Does this
kiss, like these other kisses, point to something else or
is it an end, fulfilling and conclusive, in itself? Since
neither Mr Thackeray nor Mr Gowda is likely to tell,
those on the sidelines have themselves to blame for
having got worked up over a demonstration of endearment
about which they can do nothing.
This is a problem of spectator expectations and typifies
the way constituents of the ruling United Front locate
themselves in relation to their leader - as outsiders
left out of the main action instead of participatory
partners. The outsider complex makes the UF partners
judgmental of the government and their 'leader,' instead
of being interventionist in their role.
At a deeper, and more important, level the Thackeray-
Gowda meeting indicates that in the ardour spawned by the
amorality of coalition politics the terms of endearment
are constantly changing. Each constituent is, even if
not explicitly, distrustful of the others and ever on the
look-out for new partners and sources of support. Since
the coalition is not held together by any ideology but
the glue of office, this sticky pursuit need not exclude
ideological foes. It is like a marriage condemned from
the beginning as one which will turn sour requiring,
therefore, the presence of hopefuls in the aisle.
Mr Deve Gowda, despite seeming to be out of his depth in
the treacherous political water., of Delhi, appears to
have grasped the benefits of charting his own course.
His partners may speculate, protest, jeer or distance
themselves from his actions but can eventually be humbled
into submission. All that he has to do to accomplish
this is tell them that he did not want this ' job; that
he came with three bags from Karnataka; and that if they
do not want him he can pack those three pieces of baggage
and return to Karnataka. This tested mantra has not
failed so far.
The Thackeray-Gowda rendezvous has outraged and baffled
UF partners but their own history of compromises, has
made cowards of them all. Mr Gowda has yet to be openly
confronted by any of the UF constituents for
transgressing the 'secularist communal' divide to chat
with Mr Thackeray. The CPI and the Congress have been
the loudest, after Janata Dal president Laloo Prasad
Yadav, in voicing their objections, with the Tamil
Manila Congress (TMC) and the Telugu Desam Party (TDP)
taking care to record their disapproval. Mr V.P. Singh,
in his own inimitable style, sought to contain the damage
done to the 'secularist' image of the UF by flying down
to Mumbai to meet the widow of the Sena's alleged victim.
But none of them have squarely denounced Mr Gowda, and
are unlikely to do so.
Dividing Lines
Mr Gowda's advantage is that no immutable dividing lines
between `communal' and 'secular,' 'democratic' and
'fascist' have been drawn before. These lines are drawn
during the course of action, dictated by political
opportunism and incestuous possibilities of who can go
with whom for what objective. Unless such lines are
firmly drawn by principles all obligations to secularism'
will remain imagined and all duties to 'democracy' fake.
None of the UF constituents or leaders can live down the
past of association or collaboration with forces that
would fit the definition of 'communal' and 'fascist'.
The Congress party harbours in its ranks leaders who have
not only made peace with the Shiv Sena but even struck
covert deals with it. Mr Bachchan's association with Mr
Thackeray has never been a secret and neither Rajiv
Gandhi nor his widow let this fact sully their friendship
with the Big B. His being embraced by the first family'
of dynastic politics has never been considered an odious
liability by Congressmen who are today berating Mr Gowda
for meeting Mr Thackeray. There is nothing t(; suggest
that Ms Sonia Gandhi has renounced her friendship with
the Bachchan family, yet Congress leaders continue to be
enamoured of her as a potential 'saviour' of the party
and the country.
The CPI, which was virtually a Congress poodle during the
authoritarian years of Indira Gandhi and gleefully joined
in the repression of Jayaprakash Narayan's movement and
the terror regime of the Emergency, betrays all the
evangelical ardour of the new convert.
This was the same CPI which had joined the Congress in
mounting an ,,anti-fascist" conference to discredit the
rising democratic tide against Indira Gandhi's
absolutism. Mr Laloo Yadav, who now coddles the CPI, was
an activist in JP's movement. Today the 'anti-fascists'
of yore have joined the very "fascist vermin" they
scorned in the seventies.
Advance Alibi
Fearful at the BJP having come within striking distance
of power, the DMK has been proclaiming that it does not
believe in "political untouchability". This is an
advance alibi in the event of the party having to keep on
the right side of one that may come to rule at the
Centre. Despite the repression of its leaders and cadres
after the dismissal of its ministry during the Emergency,
the DMK embraced the Congress in 1980 and was willing to
do so again in 1996. Instead it settled for Congressmen
who, though they had left the parent party, had been
inveterate foes of the DMK.
The TMC leaders who flaunt their secularist credentials
as part of the UF coalition were not averse to keeping
their lines open to the BJP. And Mr P. Chidambaram's
admiration for Rajiv Gandhi was never affected by the
latter's friendship with Mr Bachchan. Mr Chidambaram's
valuation of freedom can be measured by the fact that he
felt `suffocated' in the Congress of Mr Narasimha Rao but
not in the party's authoritarian structure commanded by
Indira Gandhi or her two sons.
Mr N. Chandrababu Naidu's TDP has ceaselessly accused the
Congress of being "undemocratic" and "communal". But
when Mr Naidu finds himself in a bind over the Alamatti
dam, he takes refuge in the company of Mr Narasimha Rao.
With so much being said against Mr Gowda during his 100
days at the helm, one wonders what virtue the 13 luckless
constituents found in him to field him as the Prime
Minister. Even an omnibus entity like the UF can
accommodate only one person in the driver's seat. There
cannot be a driver and a committee assigned to the task
of steering unless all on board are prepared for the
dangers and opportunities en route.
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