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Riding a dead horse

Unusually, most of my recent mail has stemmed from that nebulous area between Go-babe-I'm-with-you and Shut-up-I-detest-you. For instance, "Your arguments against the BJP seem correct, but give us an alternative" or "If you have a damn solution to Kashmir let us hear it now."

Then, something similar was expressed on this website: "We have been using words like impotent and eunuchs to describe our politicians... It is very easy to say that. Only arm-chair critics do that, people who can't do anything themselves... If columnists are vastly involved in the affairs of the nation, if they play a role, have an argument with the powers-that-be and tell them what they think of them, then I can understand because you are participating. I would then endorse words like eunuch and halwai... There are columnists and columnists. There are three professions in the world that do not need any qualification. One is journalism... The other two are prostitution and politics."

I was perplexed by R V Pandit's dicta since I'd always believed that a columnist's involvement in national affairs lies in informing people about ground realities and building opinions about issues -- independently, untouched by popular trends, and without buckling under pressure. Writers with personal integrity, such as Mr Arun Shourie, halt their column when they start participating in governance, not because they lack the time, but because they have moved from one area of political involvement to another and want to avoid any ensuing conflict of interest. For a mere writer, his column IS the argument he's having with the Establishment. His weapon is the public opinion he's forming, and a government, if it's upright, responds via public rebuttals or a change in policies. It does not befit a government to express its displeasure -- however privately or subtly -- to owners/editors of publications carrying "errant" views.

None of it shocked me. Such aberrations are to be expected from businessmen because, unlike journalists, the success of their occupation lies in shimmying up to and deriving sops from whoever controls fiscal policies. More than journalism, it's the world of business that's closer to the give-and-take of prostitution.

R V Pandit quoth, "I know more about this present Union Cabinet than many other critics. I also understand what is happening in Kashmir, how Indians are getting killed at the hands of Pakistanis, why our prime minister still talks of peace, talks even as pilgrims and defence forces get killed in Amarnath and other places." Hmm... if his understanding of Kashmir is anything like what he paid to project about Punjab, Kashmir is gone! For Pandit is known to have the PM's ear. Do you remember his 1996 National Award-winning film Maachis...? Let me refresh your memories in two paragraphs:

Two police inspectors pick up the hero's innocent friend for questioning and return him mauled. The incensed hero shoots one of the inspectors and becomes an aatankwadi. He then disowns his fiancée and toddles off on a secret mission to so blessed a locale that it soon has the terrorists singing and dancing around campfires while waiting for a mystery accomplice to arrive. And who else can that be but the hero's disowned fiancée? With her, there dawns much merry-making and romancing in the snow. But just when you're beginning to think that it's only Dr Zhivago retold, the second inspector-villain pops up. Our hero tries to off him, fails, and is nabbed. The terrorist-veerjis turn against the terrorist-bhabhi and so she kills some and the mission finishes the rest. The woman delivers cyanide to the jailed hero and takes some herself.

Bizarrely, not a *single* character in the movie mentioned Sikh nationhood or separatism. In the world according to producer R V Pandit and director Gulzar, there was no such thing as "Khalistan." The gamut of Sikh extremism arose from police atrocities alone, and every Sikh terrorist committed murder out of personal revenge, and that, too, only against evil policemen and politicos, who committed all the outrages possible. There was no allusion to the fountainhead of the problem, no mention of the nexus between Mrs G and Bhindaranwale. In the entire film, there were precisely three short ideological expositions, none of which reflected the realities leading to Sikh extremism, and no attempt was made to show its heinous side. The theme of the film -- youth disillusioned with the crashed machinery of Law and thus turning to crime -- was exploited to whitewash the essence of terrorism while vilifying the security forces. In the end, Maachis trifled with the most serious part of the post-Partition history of India and set back the chronicle of societal and political cause-and-effect some hundred years.

A man is known by the company he keeps... Maachis was R V Pandit's understanding of Punjab; the release of Masood Azhar and the cease-fire orders given to the Army for the benefit of the Hizbul Mujahideen, manifest Hajpayee's understanding of Kashmir. Both reap their benefits by pandering to pacifists. Both reap while standing on the fallen of the security forces. Both reject the steely policies of men like Mr K P S Gill, who dragged Punjab back into India. Both should urgently be avoided.

Which brings me back to the refrain of "give us an alternative." If not Hajpayee and his Bandar BJP, then who? Well, I'm not the least surprised that you ask that of me. You want a solution. You want to be guided. I understand your predicament, really. For, how can a nation of the slavish think for itself? Why would you exert your brains? I know it's not in your temperament. But the day you break out of the shackles of being led -- of accepting every ignominy that falls in your way -- is the day when a leader will arise out of you. YOU are the option, don't you realise that?! This is a republic, a gantantra, and we do not require Hajpayee and Party to fight battles for us. The people have to fight it out themselves. The people have to awaken to their Dharma.

A solution CAN be found for any problem -- if the existence of the problem is accepted. If people refuse to recognise that there's a problem, whither solution? I am NOT a leader; at best, I'm only a catalyst -- a person who precipitates a change, who increases the rate of reaction. My job, my urgency, is to pin-point a problem to you as often as possible till you accept its existence. For that, I have committed myself politically once again; in Marathi, parat vida uchal-la; in Urdu, phir-se sar pey kafan baandh liya. By the laws of probability, at least one reader should break out; at least one should go beyond just reading and nodding his head; at least one should go beyond writing encouraging mail. By the laws of probability, one man, woman or child in one billion should wake up and break free of the Mary's-little-lamb syndrome. For that, I have pledged myself against Bandaru's BJP. For it used voters as a stepping stone to Delhi and, once there, reneged from all the promises it had been making since its inception. Every BJP member -- including Hajpayee, Advani and Jaswant Singh -- is dishonest.

Kashmir? Militants roam freely and strike at will. The complete collapse of the security environment is manifest in, to name just two incidents, the massacre of the Amarnath yatris and the easy targeting of Brigadier B S Shergill and Colonel Rajinder Chauhan. Truth, I have stopped collecting clippings of terrorist attacks -- so daily is their occurrence.

Nationalism? Bandaru says to the media: "Please do not term BJP as a Hindu nationalist party or a right-wing party..." This, from a party that urged the people to choose "between nationalism and a foreign hand."

Terrorism? I'd like to know what the Supreme Court -- which blasted the Karnataka government with "What have you done for the past eight years to apprehend [Veerappan]? If you cannot do it, then quit and make way for somebody else who can" -- would have said to the Government of India, had Hajpayee given time to the thousands of fathers to file PILs avenging the deaths of their soldier-sons.

The shape of the State? A poll conducted by Zee Prime Time -- not via the Internet -- revealed that 84 per cent Indians believe that ours is a "soft State" while 16 per cent say it's not. Point to note: not even a .05 per cent "cannot say." Where else in the world can you find a parallel with a country, 8 times the size of its neighbour, held hostage to the hostile designs of the rogue neighbour?

The state of the BJP? Its resolution unanimously endorsed every decision taken by the government. L K Advani cautioned that it wouldn't be proper for members to "discuss publicly the flaws and limitations of family members." Does anybody recall what "family" used to denote when the Congress was alive...? Does anybody remember what the BJP said when Sharadrao left the Congress...? Doesn't anybody notice the deification of Hajpayee along the lines of Sonia's?

Character of BJP cadre? Last week, a BJP working committee member, with two friends, drugged a disabled woman, gang raped her in a moving car, from which they then pushed her out.

Diplomatic success? Michael Sheehan, co-coordinator of counter-terrorism at the US State Department, on September 1: "Pakistan is not a terrorist state."

Appeasement? The BJP is set to distribute "millions of copies" of Bandaru's speech, in which he called for "reworking" ties with Muslims. To understand this "reworking," see The Jaziya that Hindus yet pay. Mr M J Akbar's response to Bandaru's call: "I like being wooed." Imam Bukhari's: "The world knows who demolished Babri Masjid."

Ram Janmabhoomi? A ToI headline read: "No mercy to guilty in Ayodhya case, says Laxman." If not for L K Advani's rathyatra, which dumbkoff would have trekked to Ayodhya from, say, Kerala...? Who has the moral duty to take on their chests the blows on the people they instigated to bring down the Babri...?

The tribal wisdom of the Dakota Indians, passed on from generation to generation, says that when you discover that you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount. In modern society, however, a whole range of optimistic strategies are employed, such as: buying a stronger whip, changing riders, threatening the dead horse with termination, appointing a committee to study the horse, arranging to visit other countries to see how others ride dead horses, lowering the standards so that dead horses can be included, hiring outside contractors to ride the dead horse, harnessing several dead horses together to increase the speed, providing additional funding and/or training to increase the dead horse's performance, doing a productivity study to see if lighter riders would improve the dead horse's performance, re-writing the expected performance requirements for all horses, promoting the dead horse to a supervisory position...

Fact is, you can find a living horse only after you get off the dead horse. Hajpayee's BJP is a dead horse. The choice is yours: Dismount, or despair.

Varsha Bhosle