What transformations politics and public life can bring about! And in democracies particularly. Leaders once reviled, jeered at and abused become heroes and icons. Leaders once hero-worshipped end up defamed, defiled and denigrated. Some rare souls have the privilege of being a pendulum swinging from one side to another, and getting away with it!
We have many examples in world history and in our own. Quick-change artists have, of course, met with ridicule for their opportunism and even unprincipled behavior and melted into obscurity. Others have risen from the dumps.
In the past few weeks we have witnessed the remarkable conversion or change-over not by the regeneration or transfiguration of a person but by the overwhelming popular appreciation of an unhindered, free and fair expression, preceded by a stick-at-nothing campaign reaching to pretty low depths of conduct and speech. And that person was Narendra Modi who wore a coat of many colours – ruthless communalist who carried out pogroms, caring democrat who took his people through pride towards a paradise of prosperity. It all depended how you looked at him.
And now Modiphobia has turned to Modiphoria – an incredible euphoria, from horror to honour. Well might he now swagger but being what he is, expect him to show unexpected humility. “I will be CM and only CM forever!” The broad hint was that he had no ambition higher – not for instance to be PM. Well, our history in recent times shows us that a self-proclaimed “pooor farmer” has become Prime Minister, a minor Raja has become PM, a small time “Turk” has become PM. Surely Modi stands head and shoulders above them!
But there is a thing called “hubris” – a false sense of self-confidence and assumption that one is indestructible that leads from hubris to debris – the garbage dump. Time alone will tell, what the future is going to be. Modi as PM or only CM.
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When the idealistic, visionary but innocent souls who had successfully won the freedom of India, though at the bitter and horrifying cost of Partition, set about to fashion a new land they had little idea of how the world would change beyond the most fantastic imagination of science fiction writers and other more practical persons grounded on what they thought was practical reality. There was, of course, even then the early sprouting of the roots of renewed conflict and new forms of terror and aggression, and the assertion of hegemony in the name of idealism and ideology.
And so our founding brothers and sisters sought the most dynamic, and to a large extent a breath-taking, astonishing decision to create a democracy in which the voice of every adult person would be sought and accepted in governance and the formation of a civil society based on equality, equitability and justice.
Democracy, proudly a daring Indian democracy, came into being. And the first years were imbued with the highest exhilaration, dedication and optimism. But as we know, to our sorrow, here in India, as in history, when a high-water mark is being reached, an undertow starts to bring about a down-slide driving down from the peak of the shallows and below. And this is what we have been witnessing, especially those who have had the privilege and pathos to live through these exciting and saddening times beyond a half-century.
Democracy has suffered the world over the most punishing blows even in its so-called citadels. It has been mangled out of shape. Terrorism has evolved into hideous, horrifying, senseless shape beyond logical understanding. And technology instead of serving humanity has made it its slave, through human willingness itself. Has humanity come to the end of its limits?
Has Gujarat brought us Indians to the lowest depths? No! We have the strength, dedication, generosity of mind and heart and the broadest horizon to create a new world of our own. We must will ourselves with determination not to enter the dustbin of history.
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Relations with China have always been at the forefront of our foreign policy. No need to emphasise that they have had highs and lows. But in the overall course they have fluctuated between friendship (rather exaggerated) and hostility (not less exaggerated). In recent times they have had an eerie inexplicable zig-zag path – inscrutable, yet very scrutable. There will always be differences but we can and should say as in French, “Vive la difference!” (long live the difference !). And why ? Because the difference is fundamental, and never can be bridged. It is the most realistic and most painless position.
The Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh, (a friend and person of integrity) held up a recent speech of the Chinese Prime Minister, Wen Jiabao, as worthy of our notice. The Prime Minister could not have expected us to learn lessons from the Chinese in the conduct of our drive towards a new progressive, dynamic, society and world power. The Chinese claim to be socialist but what kind of socialist one cannot fathom – but this much is certain: they have renounced the excesses of Mao Tse-tong, overturning the Communist concepts of his, and opted for an “Open and Inclusive Nation” based on accepting reforms in economic development to the extent of inviting foreign capital and technologies and innovating them for Chinese use, and at the same time being inclusive which calls for respect for different cultures. The question of democracy as we know it, including dissent does not arise in this context, unless it has a Chinese meaning which is beyond our understanding.
The fundamental difference between India and China is most striking. China has renounced its past heritage and culture. It takes no pride in its ancient wisdom in its contemporary pragmatism. But, on the contrary, India cherishes its tradition, culture and heritage going back into thousands of years. Even in its drive towards modernity and contemporary participation in world affairs at their highest level, it has a lively sense of its throbbing history, its freedom, democracy and constructive, even at times destructive, dissent. India has its own special spectacularity.
India and China? Vive la difference!
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If there is one thing that is painfully obvious it is that coalition dharma is nothing but drama – in fact, just empty, negative melodrama. When people talk of the coalition era which has come to stay in India’s politics and polity they are talking too hastily on ill-founded presumptions and suppositions. These are compounded by the torrent of misleading opinion surveys and forecasts which only reveal contradictions and off-the-mark results.
History shows, not only in other countries and regimes, and notably in our own, that coalitions never succeed for long and their course is fraught always with dispute, dissension, discord, intrigues, one-upmanship and final dissolution.
We do not have to look far back in our past when the coalition era was supposed to have arrived in our midst. Indira Gandhi’s defeat in the 1977 elections threw up the hastily quick-fixed Janata party which was the first coalition in India. It was appropriately named a “khichdi” and its tenure was marked by such spasms of infighting and personal rivalries that it could not last very long, and brought Indira Gandhi back. Afterwards many opportunist coalitions came and went like a passing parade. Even the much praised and admired NDA, the coalition led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee came to an inglorious end, through over-confidence. The present coalition, United Progressive Alliance is a remarkable architecture that is living on a tight-rope on a loose-end!
This sorry state of affairs needs a thorough examination of our own history to realise that within the confines of democracy which India will not abandon there has to be discipline, dynamism, devotion, dedication in party and in national affairs to the people. There can be discipline without democracy but there can be no democracy without discipline. These are the lessons which Congress learnt in its glorious days. And that is what Sonia Gandhi correctly emphasised in the just concluded AICC meeting.
When the people said, “I’m for Congress because Congress is for me”, the Congress won hands down. Now it remains to be seen whether that spirit will be engendered and revived. Otherwise it will be fragile coalitions or plain defeat. In our contemporary history no other party, alas, has offered and worked for so broad a national life and living uncluttered by discrimination in some form or other, as the Indian National Congress.
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The certainty of the weather man is well-known and consequently as uncertain as the weather itself. The vagueness of the meteorologist is as vague as the astrologist. When the meteorologist says it is likely to be overcast and rainy in some area, you can be sure it will be clear and sunny. And vice-verse. Like when the astrologist says don’t be surprised to run into a romantic fling, you can be sure to be surprised to run into an unromantic sting. Both meteorologist and astrologist look at the heavens to seek the inspiration for their predictions. Or they look into their mumbo-jumbo books to arrive at their forecasts. But have you noticed that they are both never specific? It is always either/or and never neither/nor. That is their uncertain certainty or their certain uncertainty.
The met man warns of a tsunami and everyone runs for cover after one bad experience when they were not warned and are fortunate to be alive. But now there’s no tsunami, only a calm, gentle, undulating ocean. And everyone feels foolish. Or when an earthquake is predicted, and there’s not even a shake or tremor. Or a volcano does not ever rumble except when you are assured it is dormant or extinct and suddenly it erupts spewing fire and brimstone and lava running all over overwhelming people. Not for me to tell you how often you are told that the end of the world has come, and you wake up next morning to the twitter of birds and you know, as the poet Browning said, “God’s in his heaven and all’s right with the world.”
Recently, we were told in a blazing headline “Met Predicts Wet Diwali.” Next day Diwali was dry and sunny and everyone had a happy noisy time.
As far as I know there was one absolutely trustworthy forecaster. She was one of Adolph Hitler’s Secretaries – Miss Heidi Durchsichtigkeit (meaning Heidi Seethroughness, or transparent). Every morning Hitler would ask, “Heidi, how is the weather going to be today?” And Heidi would look out of the window, inspect the sky and say, “Mein Führer, it may rain; on the other hand, it may not rain”. And everyone said, “Heidi is always right!”.
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