When the papers said “Manjhi on board BJP boat”, it reinforced a feeling I have had for a long time that politics is a game played independent of the day-to-day functioning of the nation. It is like some people are in politics and their full-time engagement is politics. In this brand of politics the real issues are things like who is quitting what and joining whom, destruction of the game of rivals and promotion at any cost, right or wrong, of one’s interest. As for the governance of the nation or the States, it is done by a system that functions in a parallel set-up independent of this game. There is the judiciary, the executive in the form of the bureaucracy and legions of workers at all levels whose job is to provide governance through various departments and policies.
Really uncomfortable questions are raised in private gatherings in drawing rooms and in roadside get-togethers. But the quality of politics has reached such a level that neither the media nor the people at large ask the obvious but disturbing questions. Here’s one such question. Narendra Modi was the serving Chief Minister of Gujarat when he was campaigning for Prime Minister post. He was all over the country, resplendent in crisp, well-ironed kurta after kurta. But what about GujaratIJ He should have been there, governing the State. Should not a Chief Minister be physically present in a State that has given him the mandate to rule itIJ No, because it is possible in this country for a huge bunch of people to do politics at the cost of moral and practical responsibility.
This turf of politics is fiercely guarded by politicians. They know everybody can’t be on this turf playing politics. So politicians employ every dirty and clean trick to keep the turf theirs and not allow any commoner to question or chastise them and prevent them from keeping the turf the way they want to keep it. Ultimately, if everybody dictates terms to politicians and gets on their turf, who will do the actual work of running the countryIJ So there are strict rules regarding actions, statements and stands when it comes to anybody except politicians.
I started with Manjhi because Bihar has been subjected to this game of politics for a long time, perhaps since Nitish Kumar quit the chief minister’s job to play a fresh round of the game. But it happens all the time all over India. And during such stints of intense politics like the campaigning of Modi for prime minister or Nitish and Manjhi vying to prove their majority, the stakes become so high for the politicians that all the state machinery is employed to serve conveniences like plane trips and expensive get-togethers. Whose money is it that does all thisIJ I wonder why somebody has not filed a writ petition in a court asking what is all this happeningIJ
It is true that a serving chief minister like Modi has every right to try his luck in Delhi. And that will make it necessary for him to be physically absent from his state and focus on a nation-wide campaign. But then at whose costIJ If a chief secretary does this while being in his post will it be allowedIJ Will not the state government suffer if the chief secretary becomes absent from his job to fulfil some ambitionIJ So what is the way out if a politician does thatIJ
It will sound painful but I think there is no way out at present. Politics will continue to be played by the political class and the whole country will have to serve it. That is because the rules are different for politics and any other branch of the state. Who gets political power and who loses it is a strange art in a profession that has been made the most important activity in the country and the job of everybody is to follow it like the WWF wrestling bouts and cheer and clap along.
In the din of politics, the most pertinent question remains unattended—service to the people of India. In the trips that Bihar politicians were making to and fro Delhi on flights, the question of service to the people did not come last, it just didn’t figure at all. No politician will raise the issue of Modi abdicating his Gujarat responsibility for months to run for prime minister because they have all played similar games, and know will do it whenever it pleases them.
Who, after all, is the politicianIJ He is someone who makes laws, a legislator. So how and why will the collective political class turn against itself and make laws that jeopardise its running for power even if it is wrong and hurts its subjects, the people of IndiaIJ Why will it not protect its interestsIJ And its interest is power, as robust and long-lasting as possible. So when it comes to preventing it from playing games the wrong way, the entire gamut of politicians decides to do nothing, not even have a discussion on the issue.
Somehow, after all these years of independence, the legislature has become the supreme agency of power, although the executive and judiciary try at times to make things saner. Politicians socialise with the high and mighty, eat well, wear elite clothes, have loads of money, live in AC comfort, enjoy premium means of travel. All this they have appropriated to themselves as part of service to people who pull rickshaws in 45 degrees Celsius, farmers who work in the most agonising conditions, fruit vendors who serve the local policeman by giving haftas and free fruits. This and much more like this that is India.
This game of politics is played at a high socio-economic level. And it gets dangerous in the form of the entire political class baying for the blood of any activist who tries to change it for the better by doing things as per the letter and spirit of law. So common people who are not high class politicians have decided to witness the game with admiration. That’s because most people would also play this game if given a chance.
And the game is indeed a tough one because it requires the ability and strength to violate the law openly while being serving or aspiring law-makers. Common people salute this misrule instead of correcting it. They salute something they would also like to do. India has accepted this power play as part of human nature, part of the cosmic wheel of time, part of the way things have been and will always be. This game is played by some of the smartest people in India. This kind of smartness has to be applauded in wonder, not run down and berated.