HVK Archives: The devil's advocate
The devil's advocate - The Observer
Editorial
()
3 May 1997
Title : The devil's advocate
Author : Editorial
Publication : The Observer
Date : May 3, 1997
Somnath Chatterjee, veteran parliamentarian, dyed-in-red communist
and unflinching social crusader is an angry man today. Since
Communism is said to have been born out of anger against all social
evils, his anger, one would presume, must fit in with his role.
But not this time however. This time around the lawyer
parliamentarian is holding a brief for the devil. He is angry that
the government, the political system and, through them, the people
of this country should put a nice guy like Laloo Prasad Yadav on
trial in the name of fodder seam.
His ire is particularly directed against CBI chief Joginder Singh
and the Bharatiya Janata Party leader, Atal Behari Vajpayee.
Somnath Chatterjee is fuming because the CBI chief has nailed the
Bihar chief minister and 'messiah of the poor' in the fodder seam
and Vajpayee, instead of standing by the 'innocent' Laloo Prasad
Yadav, has chosen to live up to the upper caste bias of his party.
Atal Behari Vajpayee did the unpardonable thing when he asked Prime
Minister I K Gujral to ensure that the guilty in the Rs 950 crore
seam are not let off. The BJP leader, according to the communist
veteran, seems obsessed with bourgeois values like probity in
public life, instead of standing by the downtrodden sections of the
society. Comrade Somnath Chatterjee's outburst is understandable.
His anguish on behalf of the Bihar chief minister is very much in
tune with the time-tested praxis of the communist movement in this
country.
When Red China invaded India way back in 1962, the communists did
not find fault with Mao's regime. The resolution, they passed, had
no words against the aggressor. Instead, they came down heavily on
the domestic bourgeois parties such as Jan Sangh which, the
communists felt, were using the occasion to raise jingoistic
sentiments against the working classes of China. You cannot let
down socialism for few thousand kilometre of land and the lives of
those who die while defending it.
In the seventies when Emergency was promulgated in the country
followed by draconian measures such as press censorship and arrests
under MISA, the communists, especially the Communist Party of India
(CPI), loyally stood by Mrs Gandhi. On the other hand, they held
the victims (the opposition parties and the people at large)
responsible for bringing upon themselves the Emergency-related
excesses by their 'irresponsible' behaviour.
It's a different matter that when late Sanjay Gandhi started
hounding them out of positions of privilege, the comrades saw in
him a danger to civil society and democracy. By the time elections
came, the anti-Emergency wave was sweeping the country. The
communists were pragmatic enough to change sides immediately.
It is, therefore, not surprising that the fodder seam does not seem
to be worrying comrade Somnath Chatterjee. His prime concern is how
Vajpayee managed to get the fodder for the missive to the Prime
Minister on CBI's findings about the shady deal. Who gave him the
details? Why? When?
But then Atal Behari Vajpayee was once a journalist. So he will
not reveal the source. Somnathji, on the other hand, is more of a
lawyer than a revolutionary. A lawyer who had had no time to read
the Lok Sabha proceedings of the 50s. If he had, he would have
learnt that when H V Kamath and Feroz Gandhi had tabled some
uncomfortable reports in Parliament, no one not even the communists
- had asked them the source. But, for Somnath Chatterjee, facts do
not matter: who leaks them is the most important thing.
Comrade Somnath Chatterjee is also appalled that CBI chief Joginder
Singh shares his findings with the media. What a lack of
understanding on the comrade's part that he should think
transparency in the functioning of the government, promised by
Prime Minister Inder Kumar Gujral, should not be used in exposing
chinks in the armour of secular battalions and their chief As the
comrade looks at it, it's really distressing that the country's top
sleuth does not know how to keep his secrets and bury them deep, if
need be. In his reckoning, CBI chief Joginder Singh deserves to be
tried under the 'Official Secrets Act'. Of course, in comrade
Chatterjee's utopian socialist state, all time-wasting legal
niceties that characterise a democracy could have been dispensed
with. The erring official should have been summarily tried and
sent to the deserts of Rajasthan for 'education', a la the Gulags
of Siberia.
In the larger interests of 'higher values', one can surely overlook
mundane matters which involve both men and cattle. And, in any
case, why should he worry about the four-legged species, when human
beings are in no better condition in Bihar? What if little Robin
Hoods loot trains passing through the state or the entire treasury
is emptied by those who preside over the government? All these
should be swept under the carpet in order to save the 'forces of
secularism and social justice', read 'Congress, JD and communists'.
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