Beyond Futility

Beyond Futility

When the Indian Government fails to govern, we find the Supreme Court taking over sternly. The Legislature and the Executive are hopelessly compromised, and some say, in collusion. The discerning public is relieved that it is getting some beneficial decisions, instead of the political coteries and cabals serving themselves, and only themselves, endlessly.

And the politician, wary of contempt of Court, is trapped into submission, but not abject surrender, like a cornered animal, yet not ashamed at the pass it has come to.

They are, some of them, unable to comprehend the ignominy of the censure, dictation and oversight brought on by their own depredations and thick-skinned unconstitutional dodges.

Many of the actors in this play are semi-literate, gauche, corrupt, and drunk on power.

And much of the judicial intervention is due to this criminal element running amuck. It is given tickets to contest election because they, these goondas, can buy, and intimidate, and even maim and kill if necessary, just in order to win.

All the political parties thrive on using this element. In cynical terms, they always deliver, like the mercenaries for hire they are.

But right now, they have infiltrated the august portals of the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha, debasing and degrading the political discourse into a thinly veiled thuggery.

They have also got into and put their repulsive stamp on all the State Legislatures around the country. The other politicians, the non-crooks, of a kind, but willing enough collaborators and accomplices, have done absolutely nothing about it.

It must suit their purposes, but it does not suit the citizens of this country to be short- changed and abused like this by our elected representatives.

It is therefore no wonder the Aam Aadmi Party is gaining a measure of traction, at least in Delhi. It is also apt that they have adopted a broom for their symbol! If they don’t win it will be a failure of money power, not of eligibility and being deserving.

The Supreme Court is and will be the unlikely Galahad. After all, the abuse of power and pelf grown to monumental proportions must be checked by someone, when the House fails to do anything about it.

 These criminal types are not people who know or respect limits. They go for the jugular, for the kill, for self- interest. They actually know of no other interest!

And it is indeed fortunate that the higher, actually the highest judiciary in the land, amongst all our failed institutions, has decided to stand up and be counted.

So, sad as it is, this state of affairs has been building for a long time. Mere slackness or abdication of duty did not do it. Perhaps there was a whiff of deliberate sabotage, but that of the Constitution.  It is very hard to prove.

The Judiciary meanwhile were forced to step into the breach to remind  this class of devalued elected representative, this fraudulent poseur mouthing false premises. That they were not, after all, a law unto themselves, beyond reach and reproach, felt like a revelation.

When the Government itself is the culprit, but nevertheless has been in power for two consecutive terms. When it begins to lie and cheat on an unprecedented scale- the Supreme Court, the last hope in this country, raps it on the knuckles.

When the Government tries to assert itself over and above the Judiciary, by virtue of and because it controls the Legislature, it promptly trips over its own feet.

The Supreme Court, the mother and fathers assure themselves, can/will over-turn anything already illegal or unconstitutional.

The Judiciary has chosen, for the time being, to stay empowered and use its wits for the common weal, a concept long forgotten by the politicians and people squabbling between themselves.

The greater loss in all of this is the loss of a national character. We are the “venal natives” the British called us after all. It is another matter that they were hardly morally any better off either!

But all in all incompetence and hubris make for a combustible quantity, dying to explode on the strength of its ignorance and malice, without even being aware of it.

The well- meaning co-conspirators in the way could be the lurid Ravanas that are set to burst into flame at Dussehra.

Magnificent if melodramatic as they stand, spectacular, if actually men of straw, in their fall. Which will it be?

But first, as citizens without blame for the shenanigans of our rulers, we are entitled to experience the hope and renewal of the Navratris and the Durga Puja.

And later, after Dussehra, we will take delight in Diwali. So many enactments of triumphs- of Good over Evil, all in one month presaging winter; so much dispelling of darkness, so many new resolutions and prayers to the Goddess.

This Government, now beyond redemption, is turning upon itself like Kronos, the Latinate Saturn, who ate every one of his own children. The best thing to do is let them savage each other.

The bizarre attack at the Press Club will be remembered. It was where the heir-apparent decided to insult his elders and betters.

His mother, the keeper of the dynastic flame, trying desperately to assuage and bind the wounds.

The polity, and the world, pitying and mocking. The Courtiers, reduced to embarrassment and despair.

The end- game, is playing out with a crassness all the more shocking.

Because, most of it is coming from the already powerful, the richest, the most experienced political party in the country.

Petulance and bad behaviour, however, is no less pronounced elsewhere, in other political parties, between colleagues and relatives and their discourse, all scrambling and scrabbling for purchase in election year 2014.

Perhaps, I have realised a competitive boorishness at large. None of our politicians seem to care about propriety and dignity, even aesthetics, only about how to win by hook or crook. Manners can sometimes wait, survival cannot.

But, there is a sensibility in the Government that the tide has definitely turned. There will be no UPA III and the present Government knows it. The deterioration in behaviour, the disinterest in governance, the frantic making of money, is a direct consequence.

The Congress Party is a notoriously bad loser. The BJP, the principal Opposition, must not be bitter. It must cease its residual infighting. There is every chance of winning. What must be remembered is the public’s ability to live out its fantasies and slip the coil of restrictions.

Easier said than done though. It is good to be loved said Machiavelli in The Prince… But if you can’t be loved, well then, you’d better be feared.

(1,107 words)

October 1^st, 2013

Gautam Mukherjee