Commentary/Mani Shankar Aiyar
The Bhagavad Gita has more to teach failed politicians
than Seshan's Code of Conduct
Also, panchayat elections are (allegedly) around the corner. No
one is willing to hazard even one district panchayat presidentship
for my party; no one is able to name a panchayat union where we
can be certain of victory. Is it time, therefore, to pack one's
bags and go?
Certainly not. On any rational calculation, an election held tomorrow
would bring the TMC an even more overwhelming victory than it
received a hundred days ago. On the same basis of rationality,
it would be impossible to forecast the conditions in which the
next elections would be held or when, and, therefore, what its
outcome will be. There is, therefore, no alternative to struggle
-- while leaving it to the future to take care of the outcome.
The Bhagavad Gita has more to teach failed politicians
than Seshan's Code of Conduct.
The panchayat elections -- if held --- would, in fact, be an opportunity
for renaissance rather than a confirmation of the drubbing we
so recently received. Not because candidates standing on our symbol
are going to fare particularly well but because the overwhelming
majority of panchayat seats -- those at the village level -- are
being contested on a non-party basis: the law says so.
The best
reputed of these candidates, in terms of acknowledged integrity,
are likely to be those least associated as party activist with
village-level development over the last several years. Those most
actively associated with the ruling party-bureaucracy nexus that
goes by the name of grassroots development, are the ones most
universally recognised as venal.
The DMK-TMC being now the ruling alliance, and the AIADMK having
most recently been the ruling party, it is those untainted with
such associations who are likely to start with the least handicap.
The Indian National Congress, not having been the ruling party
for three uninterrupted decades, is undoubtedly the party with
the least stain on its name --- it has had little opportunity,
in Tamil Nadu at any rate, of tainting itself over the last three
decades! If therefore, a sizeable number of elected gram panchayat
panches belong to, or can be enticed into the Indian National
Congress, we could begin worming our way back into business.
This, at any rate, is a line I plug as I try to rally round the
remnants of my troops. What is gratifying is that so few of those
who have really been associated with me have defected to the other
side. It is not the Congress that has moved over to the TMC, it
is the Moopanar faction that has done so.
That is a much more
sizeable chunk of the Congress, with a much more sizeable public
following, than I had earlier given them credit for. On that,
I confess, I have had to eat crow. But that has not left me alone
on the burning deck. There are others prepared to be signed with
me. That is reassuring, even heart-warming. For comradeship in
reverses is more valuable --- because it is more genuine --- than
comradeship when the good times roll.
The month of August is the month when the Cauvery is brimful.
As a child, I remember, August used to be the month of the floods.
It is the month in which the 18th day of the Tamil month of Adi
falls, the day of a universal picnic by all at the riverside,
one of the most charming festivals in the country.
As I cross
and criss-cross the Cauvery, I do not recollect ever having seen
the Cauvery in this month running so low. But while there is some
expression of concern when asked, I am somewhat taken aback to
find there is no palpable anger over the immediate threat to the
summer crop and the imminent threat to the second winter crop
in a row.
I ask my colleagues: Is anger over the Cauvery waters a simulated
row of political parties -- or something really affecting the
economic lifeline of the people?
One colleague hazards the hypothesis that so much of the land
having been switched to sugarcane, the problem is not as acute
as it was when rice alone was the staple crop. Another suggests
that since paddy cultivation is such back-breaking work, many
who formerly had no option but to be farm workers are now relieved
to find other avenues of work -- manual labour, true, but less
tiring, more certain and more remunerative than farm work.
The alternative work opportunities are not in the same area and could
be as far away as Kerala or Andhra Pradesh, but geographic mobility
as the route to economic betterment has long been ingrained in
the people of these parts. So, I am told, if Karnataka will not
send us water, our people will go to Karnataka in search of work.
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