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Bring Back Untouchability

While we all wait for whatever bizarre combination of scummy politicians will join hands to misrule us next, there's time for a thought: What the hell difference will it make? When we are so miserably unfortunate as to have our fortunes governed by Swamys, Mayawatis, Thackerays, Jayalalithas, Sonias, Joshis, Chautalas -- I mean, really, what the hell difference will it make?

None, of course. So there's also time to sit back and enjoy the show: it's happening, after all. And whichever vantage point you pick, political theatre as scripted by Tamil Nadu's wonderful Amma is most amusing to watch. These days, she has the Congress foolishly cozying up to her, forgetting that only a year ago, she was abusing that party's president. She herself has snuggled up to Subramanian Swamy; both are amnesic about how viciously they described each other -- and the cases he filed against her -- till two years ago. "I'll send him to his Waterloo," she once said of him. "I'll send her to the loo without water," was his charming reply.

Theatre of the absurd, I think they call this.

Strange bedfellows, of course. You find them in politics. But the icing on this dubious cake, let's have no doubt, comes from none other than the BJP. Its faithful are going simply ballistic over the blockbuster demolition job Jayalalitha has set off. As if it is aaj ki taaza khabar, they are suddenly, loudly, and angrily aware of the charges of corruption against Amma. They have kept busy denigrating the unholy alliances she has forged to dislodge Atalji (always "ji").

For a random example, take this very corner of the Web and the faithful you find here. Pritish Nandy of the Shiv Sena thinks that Sonia has proved to be "just another unscrupulous politician." This, because she might team up with India's "two most disgraced politicians," Jayalalitha and Laloo Prasad Yadav. To Arvind Lavakare, Amma is nothing but "a grotesque hunk of flesh ... enmeshed in several legal cases of corruption." Varsha Bhosle pronounces: "It's plain that [Sonia] can form a new government if only she keeps [Jayalalitha] happy. And for power, the Congress can sell anything." And TVR Shenoy's considered opinion is that the large Amma is "India's most despised politician."

Much truth in all this, certainly. But in their clear-eyed commentary, the faithful overlook definite irony. Who rode to power last year on the broad back of Jayalalitha's support? Who sent a defence minister scurrying to Poes Garden after every imperious tantrum thrown there, so often that RK Laxman even produced a cartoon suggesting that the defence minister set up office at that blissful spot? Who has tried hard to scuttle or delay cases against Jayalalitha, to the point of attempting to subvert the special courts set up to hear them?

And while I'm on a roll: who restored respectability to a man who stored rupees by the crore in his bedsheets, one Sukh Ram? Who is locked in firm embrace with a man Justice Srikrishna found had instigated murderous riots in Mumbai, a man to whom patriotism means destroying cricket trophies, one Bal Thackeray? Who formed a government with the help of the man who caused mayhem in Meham, one Om Parkash Chautala, as also the man with the most to answer for from the Emergency, one Bansi Lal?

Who else, but the BJP? So how seriously must we take this tide of anger about the possible link between two powerful women? Answer: About as seriously as you can take the possibility of a lasting link between those two women.

The contention is often made that whatever else you might accuse them of, you cannot call the men of the BJP unprincipled or corrupt. No charges taint the Advanis and Vajpayees and Murli Manohar Joshis, as they do the Raos, the Jayalalithas, the Thackerays, the Sonias, the Yadavs.

I'm not so sure, but fine, let's accept that contention for now. Let's ask, though: what virtue does it bestow, if those it applies to ally themselves with others far less sparkly-clean? What use applauding Atalji's honesty if he sups with a galaxy of murky individuals? What happens to lofty principles when in search of numbers to climb into power and stay there?

Think how much more meaningful the BJP's claims to stature and principles would have been if it had not taken Jayalalitha's support to start with. But the BJP did take it. Consider how much more respect Atalji would have commanded had he responded thus to her tantrums: "I will not run my government on the whims of a woman being tried for corruption; I would rather resign." But he never did that.

Why, in his eagerness to stay put in his prime ministerial chair, Atalji had counted on the abstentious support of a woman who is possibly even less reliable -- if you can believe it -- than Jayalalitha: delightful Mayawati. Sure enough, when it came time to vote, she pulled the wool over his eyes to spectacular effect.

So when the BJP and its supporters are scornful of sneaky Congress manipulations to come to power, when they suddenly fuss about Amma's corruption, what stands out in stark bas-relief is the egg on the BJP's own face.

What I am really making a case for here is a return of that distasteful word: untouchability. If we truly want values in politics, an end to crime in politics, there must be certain lines not to be crossed solely because of who stands beyond them. Principles mean something not when you simply spout them, but when you take a stand for them. It would have been edifying to see Atalji refuse the support of a man accused of fomenting riots, of another man and his cash-strapped bedsheets, of an Amma desperately seeking to escape the glare of the courts.

Had Atalji done these things and denied these people the respectability they crave, even if that had not got him his seat to begin with, we would have known that his principles really matter to him.

Absent that, they only taint him.

Dilip D'Souza