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From Vice President To Community Spokesman: The Free Fall Of Hamid Ansari

Author: Team Khabare
Publication:  khabare.com
Date: August 12, 2017
URL:    http://www.khabare.com/politics/from-vice-president-to-community-spokesman-the-free-fall-of-hamid-ansari

In terms of protocol, the office of the vice president comes ahead of that of the prime minister. In the past, the office has been occupied by intellectual giants like Dr Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan. But in a space of 72 hours, and that too at the fag end of his 10-year tenure, Hamid Ansari reduced the high office to a community platform as he resumed a job that was more suited to the spokesman of a religious denomination.

For those in the know about Ansari, the interview he gave to Rajya Sabha TV -- a captive platform -- through journalist Karan Thapar, who is as partisan as they come and has multiple axes to grind against the government, came as no surprise. But for those who believe in the sanctity of the high office, the grievance mongering that he engaged on behalf of the community that he belongs to, his assertions have been nothing less than distressing. In the interview, Ansari said the 17.2 crore Muslims in the country constituting 14.2 per cent of India's total population are living with a feeling of unease and a sense of insecurity is creeping in among them.

Oh Really? Or was the vice president merely parroting those who have turned India-baiting into a profitable business, who selectively cite instances of violence to craft a manufactured narrative that India was turning if not already turned into an intolerant society. Of course, this narrative will have nothing about the violence against Hindus in Karnataka and West Bengal or the killing of a Dalit RSS worker Rajesh in Kerala’s in Thiruvananthapuram by a Marxist lynch mob. This is not to say that he should not have cited violence against innocent Muslims. But his voice would have carried greater weight and conviction had he spoken about the larger issues of lack of jobs, failure to provide decent health care and shelter for the poor – issues that concern all communities. But by focussing on the alleged plight of just his own community, the former vice president betrayed a mindset that at best was self-centred.

The retaliation was swift but subtle. And from none less than Prime Minister Narendra Modi who chose Ansari’s farewell meeting to remind the VP about his family’s long association with the Congress and its role in the Khilafat movement. “Your family has been in public life for almost 100 years. Your paternal grandfather as well as your maternal grandfather happened to be presidents of the Congress and also served as members of the Constituent Assembly. Your family had been associated with the Congress and the Khilafat movement,” the prime minister said.

Anyone familiar with the Khilafat movement, or the history of the sub-continent, would know that the protest campaign to influence the British government not to abolish the Ottoman Caliphate was the beginning of a separatist consensus in the country where the Muslim clergy became the ultimate arbiters of Muslim community’s concerns.

Those who have observed Modi know the prime minister as someone with a painstaking eye for detail and he is known to put to good use in circumstances such as yesterday’s farewell. He reminded the audience about how Ansari’s personality was shaped. Turning to the VP, he said, “most of your tenure as career diplomat was spent in West Asia. You spent several years in that circle. You were amidst same kind of environment, thoughts and debates of same kind of people. Even after retirement, your work involved similar issues, whether in the Minority Commission or the AMU,” the prime minister said. It was Modi’s way of telling Ansari, “I know who you are, where you came from and where you are headed for”.

In his address, the prime minister also dwelt on Ansari’s close association with the Nehru-Gandhi family. That Modi was only stating the obvious was confirmed when leader of the Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad recalled Ansari’s close proximity with the late Indira Gandhi when he served as the chief of protocol. The relationship with the erstwhile ‘First Family’ was so close that Ansari, who was to later move into vice president’s office as a Left nominee with a reputation of a political Islamist, was actually the first choice of Sonia Gandhi for the President’s post in 2012. He had almost made it as she was able to convince her partymen that he was the best bet for consolidating Muslim votes for the party. Had it not been for intervention by a powerful Mumbai corporate house and Mulayam Singh Yadav, Pranab Mukherjee would never have made it to the Rashtrapati Bhavan.

At his farewell, Modi wished the outgoing vice president warmly but told him in as many words where he expects to see him in future – as a community intervener for the grievance mongers and not as a public figure with universal and secular appeal. “You must have been restless at times, chafing at constraints. But now that you have been liberated, you will have the happy feeling of freedom and you will get an opportunity to work, think and talk according to your basic instinct,” Modi said. Indeed, even as vice president, Ansari’s basic instinct was that of a political Islamist.
 
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