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This is about my MP

Just days to go before I vote, and I still have not heard from a single one of my candidates. Whether for the Maharashtra assembly or for Parliament, I don't even know who's actually running and why they might want my vote, if they do. Not that I'm complaining, of course. I seriously doubt advance knowledge of who's on the ballot paper will make things any different. The same set of smarmy goons representing the same set of dreary parties, I am sure.

Of course, I do know who the parliamentary incumbent is, the man who represents me in the Lok Sabha today. Presumably he is running again. Let me tell you a little about him.

This is a man called Madhukar Sarpotdar, of a party called the Shiv Sena. He has some stellar qualifications to be one of our 540 plus law-makers, no doubt about it. On January 11, 1993, he was seized by the Indian army.

Yes, I'm talking about the same army that routed those intruders in the heights of Kargil not so long ago. On that January day in 1993, an army column on patrol stopped Madhukar Sarpotdar in a jeep in Nirmal Nagar, a riot-torn part of Bombay. There were six others in the jeep, including Sarpotdar's son Atul and a man called Anil Parab. Asked whether this was the same Anil Parab who was a known and wanted Dawood Ibrahim hitman, the then commissioner of police, S K Bapat, refused to answer: a refusal that was enough of an answer in itself.

In any case, Sarpotdar's jeep that night also contained two hockey sticks, two choppers and two other sticks. There were also three revolvers. Two were unlicensed.

At the time, the mere possession of an unlicensed weapon in a so-called "notified area" was an offence under Section 5 of the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act, better known as TADA. Now TADA has since gone the way of the dodo -- a demise often mourned these days, often here on Rediff. But in January 1993, it was in force. Because of the rioting, the entire city of Bombay had been declared a notified area. For just carrying those unlicensed weapons, if for nothing else, Sarpotdar should have been arrested and punished under that often-mourned TADA Act.

Needless to say, nothing like that happened. He was not punished. He is my member of Parliament today.

Still, that seizure by the army was just one episode of many involving Sarpotdar. In April 1993, he was in the news once more. The infamous bomb blasts had shaken the city in March. In the course of their investigations, the Bombay police examined various suspects. On April 12, 1993, The Afternoon reported: "The Bombay police have stumbled upon the names of several film personalities [and politicians] who owned illegal arms allegedly supplied by the underworld don Dawood Ibrahim. ... Interrogation of suspects in connection with the bomb blasts has thrown up names of film personalities such as Sanjay Dutt... The suspects have also named Shiv Sena MLA Madhukar Sarpotdar among nine politicians who acquired arms from the D-gang or its henchmen. The arms were mainly sophisticated revolvers, valued at Rs 150,000 each, according to police sources."

On April 19, Sanjay Dutt was arrested under TADA for having bought a gun from two bomb blast suspects. The same day, then chief minister Sharad Pawar broke the news of Dutt's arrest in the Maharashtra assembly. "The suspect who named Sanjay," the Indian Express (April 20, 1993) quoted Pawar telling his colleagues in the assembly, "had during the interrogation revealed several other names including that of Madhukar Sarpotdar."

The Times of India put it this way: "Those who were arrested earlier had mentioned various names in their statements, including that of Mr Madhukar Sarpotdar, Mr Pawar said [in the assembly]."

[Aside: Appearing before the Srikrishna inquiry into the riots, Sarpotdar himself had something to say about matters discussed in the assembly. I quote from Srikrishna's report: "[Sarpotdar] claims that once [an issue] was raised on the floor [of the assembly] there was no need to give any evidence as it is considered to be authentic." Thus it would seem that by his own submission, we must accept as authentic what Pawar had to say about him in April 1993.]

Dutt's house was searched and he was arrested. Neither happened to Sarpotdar. He is my member of Parliament today.

Indeed, he won from the Bombay Northwest constituency, where I am lucky enough to live, in both the 1996 and 1998 general elections. In 1998, his campaign leaflet told me that he is "an erudite politician, a forceful orator and indeed a multi-faceted personality." What's more, "his soft demeanour was disarming even to his detractors. In Parliament, he always stood for healthy traditions and conventions and made a major contribution in upholding the dignity and decorum of the House. ... He is no doubt a Leader with a national vision and stature."

This soft, disarming man's leaflet made no mention of the time the army disarmed him, back in 1993. Nor did it mention how this Leader of vision and stature saw his name popping up in the bomb blast investigations. Imagine: even though it overlooked those fine achievements, this man was elected as my MP.

Now election-time rhetoric, whichever the party, is always and uniformly nauseating. Still, the cake must be taken by the parties that are loudest today about national security and the danger of turning our country over to a "foreigner." Our prime minister told an election meeting in Bellary that he himself has nothing against a certain Italian-turned-Indian woman, "but people think the nation's security is under threat if any foreigner becomes a prime minister." (In other words, our dear PM wants to put thoughts in our little heads, but does not want to take responsibility for them. Please vote for this forthright man, won't you?). In an election advertisement, his party calls him a "Democrat committed to respecting institutions ... a Visionary."

Yet this democrat's respect for institutions apparently extends to allowing into Parliament, to counting on the support of, a man whose deeds TADA was written to punish. This visionary worries about people worrying about the nation's security under a "foreigner", but seems unworried about the effect on the nation's security of installing lawbreakers as law-makers. He and his party talk the talk of integrity and vision and respect, but walk the walk of turning rioters into our elected representatives.

Ah, his admirers might say to me, get lost! Every party does the same, the Congress most of all. They all give us thugs to vote for, so why do you pick on the BJP and its allies?

Precisely because the Congress gave us thugs to vote for. That's why people began looking for alternatives to the Congress. And in Northwest Bombay, in 1996 and 1998, what did they get? My representative in Parliament. In 1999, running again for election.

The threat to us all of putting violators of the law in power, the BJP appears to believe, is best answered by giving us more such violators of the law to vote for. Across your country, that threat translates into reality in myriad ways: from shoddy services to lousy roads, from nonexistent primary schools to unstaffed primary health centres, from massacres in rural Bihar to mafia rule in Bombay. The BJP only says: "But the Congress does it too!"

Curious, don't you think? The army was pressed into action a few months ago to rid the Kargil heights of Pakistani intruders. It was a job they did to much applause, a job that is being systematically used to ask for votes for the parties that form our ruling coalition.

And yet there is a member of that very same ruling coalition, Sarpotdar, whom that very same Army once seized for rioting in Bombay.

Tailpiece

The Wadhwa Commission report on the murder of Graham Staines, versus the Srikrishna Commission report on the 1992-93 riots in Bombay. The comparison was inevitable, and why not? So I say: make the findings of both Justices, of every inquiry commission instituted, binding on our governments. Accept all their conclusions and recommendations. Let's apply one standard to all inquiries: that they will be not mere fact-finding bodies, but courts of law.

If that means the members of the Sangh Parivar were not involved in the Staines murder, as Wadhwa found -- fine, they are innocent. If that means Thackeray and company, Sarpotdar included, were the instigators of the Bombay riots, as Srikrishna found -- punish them.

This is the only reasonable way to treat inquiry commissions, as far as I'm concerned. What do you think? You, who are inclined to scorn Justice Wadhwa's report? You, who are inclined to scorn Justice Srikrishna's report?

Tailpiece 2

After my last column here, I got notes from several people asking me to provide translations when I use phrases in Hindi. Apologies. I should have done just that at the time. Here are the phrases with the translations:

Hamare khaandaan mein yeh love-marriage sab nahin chalta hai.

Translation: "In our community, we don't tolerate this love-marriage stuff."

When we find them, unko maar daalenge.

Translation: "When we find them, we will kill them."

Yeh hamare khaandaan ki izzat ka savaal hai.

Translation: "This is a question of the (self) respect of our community."

Unko maar daalne se kya tumhare khaandaan ki izzat badh jayegi?

Translation: "By killing them, are you going to increase the (self) respect of your community?"

Dilip D'Souza