HVK Archives: Rabri is a Bihari Sonia
Rabri is a Bihari Sonia - India Today
Tavleen Singh
()
11 August 1997
Title: Rabri is a Bihari Sonia
Author: Tavleen Singh
Publication: India Today
Date: August 11, 1997
It making politics a family business Laloo only followed Congress culture
There is a funny, deeply, ironic side to the coronation of Mrs Laloo as
chief minister of Bihar which, alas, appears to have missed the attention
of most commentators on the subject. I read with great interest the many
irate editorials that attacked Laloo Prasad Yadav for anointing Rabri Devi,
his apolitical, barely literate wife, as his heir. She looked so, nervous,
poor thing, in her magnificent purple and gold Banarsi sari-Bihar's
peasantry appears to have become very rich indeed; or is it just the Laloo
family?-that she should have evoked some public sympathy. She got none. A
housewife, a mere housewife the headlines shrieked, at the helm of India's
second largest, most poverty-ridden state. How dare Laloo do this? What a
farce. What impropriety.
Yet, nobody mentioned the original example of this particular kind of
impropriety. If a mere housewife could have been chosen to rule India by
the mighty Congress, then why should it be improper for Bihar to be ruled
by someone of similar qualification? How is what Laloo did different to
what senior Congressmen did when they decided, after Rajiv Gandhi's
assassination, that the only one worthy of being made party president, and
thereby prime minister of India, was his widow, Sonia? She too was only a
housewife, she too was apolitical and she too was someone whose educational
qualifications did not extend beyond school.
One of Laloo's spokesmen, Jai Narain Nishad, when asked on Star News how a
state as large as Bihar could be ruled by someone who was just about
literate, pointed out that there was no constitutional provision that laid
down minimum educational qualifications for being chief minister. Nishad
then excused Rabri's lack of political experience in exactly the words that
most Congress leaders used to defend their choice of Sonia Gandhi. He
said, "She has lived so long with our leader, Laloo Yadav, that she has
learnt everything about politics." Sounds familiar?
So, do we hesitate to invoke comparisons because the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty
is sacrosanct? Perhaps. But I would like to suggest that we hesitate
because we are still a little afraid of the dynasty which ruled us for more
than 40 years and could rule us again, unless the Congress, by some
miracle, succeeds in transforming itself into a proper political party.
To tell you the truth, even I hesitate to take the name of the sainted
Sonia, currently head of the dynasty, because every time I do so I have a
bunch of columnists snapping at my heels like crazed terriers. Nehru-Gandhi
baiter, they yelp, Sonia-hater, Rajiv-baiter and other similar invectives.
I have never had anything personal against any member, living or dead, of
the dynasty. It is only that I object strongly to politics being turned
into a family business because I believe this automatically breeds
corruption. In Sonia Gandhi's case, there is the additional problem of
finding it deeply shaming that a subcontinent of 900 million people should
even consider choosing an Italian housewife as prime minister.
Sonia has been very wise so far to turn down the Congress' standing offer.
This is more than we can say for Rabri. But if the entire Janata Dal (JD)
and Rashtriya Janata Dal are scared of saying no to Laloo, it makes sense
that his wife would be as well.
The JD is top-heavy with leaders who like giving everyone else lectures on
morality and norms of public behaviour. There have to be norms. Prime
Minister I.K. Gujral has said over and over in the dozens of television
interviews he has given recently. Even so. he hesitates to tell us what he
thinks of the new chief minister of Bihar and the manner of her selection.
What does Gujral have to say, for instance, about Laloo having announced
publicly that all his wife needed was "two days of training" to rule Bihar?
Or about the fact that it is clearly to protect the interests of the
family business that Laloo could trust nobody else to take his place? Are
these what we should consider "norms in public life"?
Let us never forget though that the concept of politics as family business
is a gift from the Congress.
This is why it is fitting that it voted in favour of Rabri when she sought
the confidence of the Bihar Legislature on July 28. Laloo's approach to
politics is very much part of what people like Sitaram Kesri call the
"Congress culture".
In the glorious days of the dynasty, what we had in Delhi was not so much a
democratically elected government as a democratically elected durbar. As
with all courts, when a leading sycophant died or could not contest, his
feudal estate (parliamentary constituency) would be handed over to the next
of kin in the form of a party ticket for the next election. There are
Kamal Nath's wife, Dinesh Singh's daughter, Rajesh Pilot's wife and a long,
long list of others whom we have quietly accepted and even voted for. So
with what face do we tell Laloo that he was wrong to do what he did?
Indeed, we owe him a debt of gratitude for showing us exactly what can
happen when we put up with politicians who enter public life merely to set
up a family business. If Laloo's concerns were really for the "peepool" of
Bihar, as he never ceases to proclaim, then surely he would have found a
replacement who was the best political candidate. Since his concern was the
family business, he turned as any businessman would to his wife.
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