The wise being sidelined in
the ruling party !
Hari Jaisingh
Narendra Modi and Amit Shah
The voice of dissent, whether
in the ruling party or outside
it, is the very essence of
democracy. The momentum
of democracy actually
depends on the free play of ideas and
functional freedom at all levels of the
polity. The rise of Indira Gandhi could,
in a way, be attributed to her fighting
spirit against the established clique of
what was then termed as Syndicate v.
Indicate in the Congress. It is a pity
that the reins of power made Indira
self-centred to the detriment of all
those who meant well and had a mind
of their own. Looking at today’s Modiphenomenon and the marginalization
of the BJP stalwarts from the
mainstream of the saffron party, what
is being said here is more in anguish
than in anger.
True, in politics, the two situations –
public image and private facts - hardly
agree. There are therefore, everwidening gaps between what is visible
publicly and what is practised
privately. Herein hangs a tale of
distorted functioning of our
democracy even at party levels.
It is not necessary to
discuss individual
politicians. But the
nation’s entire focus
today is on Prime
Minister Narendra Modi
and his most trusted
man from Gujarat, BJP
chief Amit Shah. They
are setting the agenda
for the battle of 2019
poll and beyond.
If jingo with a bullet is a rare
sight, as George Orwell once
stated, a clean politician is even
rarer. The question is not of who is
more corrupt or who is less
corrupt. In our vibrant polity, there
are good politicians, bad politicians
and indifferent politicians. But the
challenge before us is that our
public men’s political characters
are getting more and more sugarcoated. And this sugar-coated
rhetoric among our vulnerable
public men lead as well as mislead
us all to nowhere. Regrettably, we,
as a nation, today find ourselves at
the critical crossroads of nowhere.
No wonder, like amoebae, such
characters multiply merrily to the
advantage of the hardline
Hindutva “honourable nibblers” at
the BJP-led NDA system of
governance.
It is not necessary to discuss individual politicians. But the nation’s
entire focus today is on Prime
Minister Narendra Modi and his most
trusted man from Gujarat, BJP chief
Amit Shah. They are setting the
agenda for the battle of 2019 poll and
beyond.
The question here is not one of
survival. Nor is there any such
thing as “keeping out of politics”.
All issues are political. But, the
problem is of survival of valuebased democratic polity in the face
of inflated rhetoric and ideological
woofying which could be disastrous
in a transitional society which is
not yet quite sure of itself. Of
course, the right-thinking persons
are still fighting against the feudal
system which, in the public eye,
has become pliable to the
advantage of the Modi-Amit Shah
duo. In this growing insensitivity,
what is disquieting is the
dangerous drift of “no dissent” the
saffron party is heading to.
L K Advani
Dr Murli Manohar Joshi
I have in mind the BJP’s tall
veterans, such as L K Advani, Dr Murli
Manohar Joshi, Yashwant Sinha, cine
star Shatrughan Sinha etc. L K Advani
built the BJP. He took it from the Lok
Sabha’s two-member party to highly
respectable numbers of 198, thanks to
his Ramjanmbhoomi Rath that
changed the fortune of the saffron
party. Prime Minister Narendra Modi
should know about it since he was
very much on the Rath as “a small fry”.
Even otherwise, Advani rendered a
great help to Narendra Modi by saving
him from the wrath of P M Atal Bihari
Vajpayee when he wanted to sack him
for his failure to observe “Raj Dharma”
during the 2002 developments in
Gujarat. But then, Modi is not known
for being grateful to his “saviours” and
“builders”. L K Advani is a high class
politician who never talks of what he
did for building Modi and the party.
He belongs to the old school of valuebased politics. How could P M Modi
marginalize such a character from the
mainstream of the BJP!
Similar question can be raised
with regard to Dr Murli Manohar
Joshi, a great scholar of
international standing and a great
favourite of P M Vajpayee. Even the
RSS values him and holds him in
high esteem. He has always been
viewed as a high-profile scholar
who could adore any high office of
the Republic. How come this great
scholar does not figure in Modi’s
reckoning? Is he afraid of his high
scholarly traits and independent
mind of thinking?
The only question that is bothering
me is: why are Advani and Dr Joshi
mum on the goings-on within the
party and the government? To
maintain silence on harsh realities
even as “Marg Darshak” is not a virtue
since it does not serve public interests.
Yashwant Sinha
Shatrughan Sinha
Equally relevant is the
marginalisation of Yashwant Sinha
whose politico-economic narratives
speak loud. I would also like to put
Shatrughan Sinha on the high
pedestal of the Sangh Parivar
platform. But this youthful brilliant
Bihari is marginalized simply because
he is vocal on matters of public
concern. He is reportedly all set to join
the Congress.
The moot point is: Can’t the Sangh Parivar leadership view
things in a larger perspective?
Merit must finally click every issue
and not someone’s ability to pull
the right strings at the right
moment. A bit of soul-searching
can help P M Modi & Co. to
appreciate the changing global
setting as well as larger needs of
our all-inclusive society. The
ultimate goal of any society has to
be one of understanding the
“whys” and “hows” of stability and
changes required for every
segment of the polity.
In his high-powered “The Idea of
History, the late R G Collingwood, a
distinguished British philosopher of
history, tells us that history and
historical instances provide us selfknowledge. To quote him:
“History is for human selfknowledge…Knowing yourself
means knowing first, what it is to
be a man; secondly, knowing what
it is to be the kind of man you are;
and thirdly, knowing what it is to
be the man you are and nobody
else is. Knowing yourself means
what you can do, and since nobody
knows what he can do until he
tries, the only clue to what man can
do is what man has done. The value
of history, then, is that it teaches
us what man has done and thus
what man is”.
Viewed in this light, history should
be more instructive in failure than in
success. Regrettably, those in power
never seem to learn from the
experiences of other persons or from
history, with the result that they
continue to promote their own
charmed circle of favourites. And
when merit is sacrificed and voices of
dissent silenced, then democratic
institutional frameworks, alas, come
under severe strain.
Mr Prime Minister, it is time the BJP
leadership began to care for the
basics that go into the making of New
India you often talk about. This
should help it to revive the
civilisational values that have
invariably guided the destiny of our
truth-oriented liberal ancient land!
