Author:
Publication: www.vigilonline.com
Date: May 25, 2004
URL: http://www.vigilonline.com/reference/columns/columnsList.asp?columnist_id=1
Thoughts on issues of current interest
[my comments - as an Indian citizen - within square brackets], including
instances of some double standards of our public figures, especially in
the construction of Indian identity (all those Macaulayan myths, and the
hypocrisy that is Nehruvian secularism) - Krishen Kak
[Italy is most definitely the flavour
of the season, so excuse me while I practise my Tamil of the West!
Ah, quel caro Raul! Quel giovane
dolce! Tanto piacevole! Tanto grazioso! Tanto gentile! Tanto bello, innocente,
coi capelli ricciuti e le fossette profonde!
E e tanto chiaro!
La Gran Speranza Bianca!
And if you, being ignorant, brown
and native, thought that by Bianca I was referring to Priyanka, you'd better
think again!
Ah, quel caro Raul!
V'mala 59 showed the sham of the
media-projected innocence of Maino Gandhi's children. Moreover, "The Marxists
do not believe that Sonia Gandhi was solely guided by her "inner voice"
in declining to accept the post.....[Jyoti] Basu has described her stand
as "funny"....."We have also seen how her son and newly elected MP Rahul
Gandhi offered her flowers in the Parliament to congratulate her after
being elected leader of the Congress Parliamentary party. Had Rahul and
his sister Priyanka any objection to their mother becoming the prime minister,
why did not they say so in the beginning? Why did they raise objections
at the eleventh hour?" the CPM leaders ask" (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/685929.cms
). Why indeed?
In V'mala 59 I pointed out that
the Congress Parliamentary Party meeting was pure naatakbazi. A hagiographical
myth was in active creation, scripted by Maino Gandhi and her children.
As Prabhu Chawla writes of that commedia dell'arte that was the Congress
Parliamentary Party meeting on May 18 in the Central Hall of Parliament,
"On one side...were over 200 Congress leaders, a wailing legion of the
suddenly orphaned pleading to the Leader...on the other side. All the while,
she maintained eye contact only with the family - son Rahul, daughter Priyanka
and son-in-law Robert Vadra - who sat in the first row. Never before had
family members of a prospective prime minister attended such a meeting...the
privileged three were the only ones she completely trusted" (India Today,
May 31, 2004).
And in The Pioneer, May 23, 2004,
chatterqueen Devi Cherian through her weekly space-waster enriched the
myth by adding another layer to it. According to her, "Indians have given
their mandate to Sonia Gandhi, the bahu of the Nehru Gandhi clan, along
with her two charismatic children" (May 23, 2004).
The first half of that claim we've
been hearing ad nauseam from Nehru-Gandhi mythomaniacs and their fellow-travellers,
but the latter half of that claim, arising from the former, is a fabrication
of such stunning mythicality that it is well worth expending a little effort
over examining both of them:
1) The Indian mandate, aka
the people's mandate, aka the people's verdict. Here the chatterati echo
caro Raul's "The country has given the mandate to the Congress and to Sonia
Gandhi" ( http://in.rediff.com/election/2004/may/13rahul.htm ).
But what is the fact?
"The Congress, on its own, fought
on 417 seats, out of which it won only 145; a poor success rate of 35 per
cent. Can't we then conclude that 65 per cent of people also rejected Ms
Gandhi? With 145 seats on its own, a wafer-thin margin separates the Congress
from the BJP which won 138 seats. Moreover, as a senior television journalist
recently put it: "Congress with 141 seats should realise that no revolution
has taken place in the country".....The Left's support is critical to it.
Herein lies the biggest deception played on the electorate. Such unprincipled
alliances make a mockery of democracy. The bulk of seats won by the Left
came from defeating Congress in two-cornered contest......The so-called
mandate in Ms Gandhi' s favour is nothing but post-poll manipulation" (BK
Punj, "Hearing aid for her inner voice", The Pioneer, May 21, 2004).
"...the Congress was rejected in
65% of the seats in which it contested by itself. No single party, including
the BJP which fought 364 seats and won 138, faced a higher failure rate
than our very own GOP" (Udayan Namboodiri, "Questioning shibboleths", The
Pioneer, May 22, 2004).
"Apart from the fact that the Congress
failed to win even a third of the Lok Sabha seats that went to polls, its
actual voting percentage has come down compared to its vote share in the
1999 elections" (Ajoy Bose, "Mythology in 2004", The Pioneer, May 17, 2004).
And, remember, Maino Gandhi was
never projected as the prime ministerial candidate. So, given these irrefutable
facts, how can any rational person claim that the people's verdict was
for Maino Gandhi?
2) That the mandate
was for Maino Gandhi is clearly Goebbelsian disinformation, but that it
was so also for her "charismatic" children is (excuse again my Tamil of
the West) merda of the toro.
Priyanka Vadra did not even stand
for election. That leaves caro Raul. Let us examine his credentials for
this alleged mandate.
As Ajoy Bose said elsewhere in his
analysis, "Quite apart from the fact that Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi hardly
campaigned except in select areas of Uttar Pradesh, they do not seem have
cast any particular spell on even the two constituencies adjoining Amethi
and Rae Bareli. The Congress lost in both Sultanpur and Pratapgarh." And
Gandhi Jr himself managed to poll only 66.18% of the vote. In other words,
one-third of those who voted in the family's own pocket borough voted against
him! So much for the Indian mandate for caro Raul. But he did win in and
so, now, as an officially public figure, merits further attention.
First, under Italian law, Rahul
Gandhi is as Italian as his mother. Moreover, it is a matter of public
record that his mother enrolled herself as an Indian voter without being
an Indian citizen. Therefore, given the family record, the Indian electorate
has a right to know the details of his citizenship and whether or not the
stipulation of reciprocity under Indian law applies to him.
Then again, his mother lied in her
cv as an MP about her educational qualifications. Given the family history,
the Indian electorate has a right to know whether Rahul Gandhi has a BA
and an MA. In which subjects and from where? Does he have an M.Phil.too?
And if he was awarded the M.Phil. without the two earlier degrees, how
so?
Gandhi's own party workers twice
went to court making allegations about election candidate Dharmendra's
religious status. By the same token and, since Gandhi has chosen to be
a public figure, the Indian electorate has a right to know whether Rahul
Gandhi was baptised a Christian. If yes, when, where, and his baptismal
name? If not, to which religion does he formally subscribe?
Rahul Gandhi is the "charming" young
man who, in one interview, declined to badmouth politicians because he
wanted to be different. He is the "charming" young man who said he would
not make personal attacks. He is the "charming" young man who said he respected
Mr Vajpayee and wished him well. He is the "charming" young man who accepted
that he is a child in politics and promised he would grow up and become
a man ( http://in.rediff.com/election/2004/may/13rahul.htm ).
This is the young man, "so much
like his father", who said the value that he'd uphold in politics is "Truth.
I have seen that in politics, especially in our country, truth has been
the first casualty." This is the young man, "so much like his father",
who said of the BJP that "They use all kinds of language against us. We
keep quiet because we never descend to such low levels in politics." This
is the young man, "so much like his father", who said, of his own mission
as a politician, that "I will create a new brand of politics in India.
Just wait and see." ( http://www.rediff.com/election/2004/apr/23einter.htm
)
Reversing the story of the ugly
duckling becoming a swan, our Italian pulcino has grown up very rapidly
into a punchinello. He's already shown he's no different from the politicians
from whom he'd so superciliously distinguished himself. He's already badmouthed
the BJP, implicitly badmouthing its leader Mr Vajpayee, and all those Indians
too who'd voted for it: "For us the BJP is a sad joke. We are not afraid
of them and we pity them.....BJP ne kaha mere pita ek chor the, BJP ne
Gandhiji ko mara hai, personal humle kiye hain, karte rahain. BJP ek sad
joke hai" ( http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/002200405192133.htm ).
As for the Truth, our caro Raul
(like the Pinocchio of his natal tradition) is quite elastic about it.
How conveniently he forgets that
his own mother called Prime Minister Vajpayee "a liar" ( http://www.hvk.org/articles/0698/0094.html
).
How conveniently he forgets that
the BJP was not in existence when Gandhi was assassinated, and that The
Statesman, Mar 3, 2002, unconditionally and abjectly apologised for implicating
the RSS in the assassination ( http://www.media-watch.org/responses/0602/1.html
).
How conveniently he forgets that
his own great-grandfather Prime Minister Nehru honoured the RSS by inviting
it to march in the Republic Day Parade 1963, and that it did so with 3,000
uniformed swayamsevaks (MS Prabhakara, "Tell no lies, claim no easy victories",
The Hindu, May 17, 2004).
How conveniently he forgets that
Nathuram Godse had been a member of the Congress Party too and that, at
the time of the assassination, Godse's connection to both the RSS and the
Congress was identical - he was a member of neither (http://www.media-watch.org/responses/0602/1.html
).
But such convenience of memory,
telling of lies, arrogant disregard of empirical evidence, and demonisation
of its nonbelievers is characteristic of Nehruvian secularism. Rahul Gandhi,
Congress MP, shows that he's firmly within his family tradition.
And in caro Raul's case, his mannerism
of a long look-away-as-if-thinking pause before he answers reminds me irresistably
of that hoary college chestnut of hearing the rusty gears clank away in
the speaker's head as he painfully thinks out what to say! No "burst of
articulation, only rehearsed lines", in Sevanti Ninan's phrase for him
(The Hindu, Apr 25, 2004).
Ah, that dear Rahul, the Great White
Hope - of his family, of his family's political party, of their fellow-travellers,
the future of all of these for our country! Yet, after all, it is he who
may turn out to be the "sad joke".
Aspettiamo e vediamo (in the Tamil
of the West or, in the original made famous by K Kamaraj), paarkalaam!]
