We have gone back to the 70s and the 80s, instead of moving into the future. The national economy in a shambles is only one indicator; political skullduggery of the most cynical kind by the Congress is another
Public memory, unfortunately, is notoriously short in this wondrous land of ours. As a result, events of the past which should have served as important, indelible markers in popular discourse, thus determining the manner in which the Government, either in New Delhi or in the State capitals, conducts itself, are rapidly forgotten. The passage of time acts as an auto-delete button, erasing the collective memory of the people. This also explains why we, as a nation, have a poor, almost non-existent, sense of history. A logical extension of that reality is neither we nor those whom we elect to high office, vesting them with power and authority to preside over our destiny, have ever learned from history. Tragedy turns into farce, and farce turns into tragicomedy as history repeats itself, again and again with unerring though sickening regularity.
And so it is that the venal leaders of a politically bankrupt Congress, whose moral compass stopped working the day the party became the private property of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty, continue with their deplorable practice of abusing power and misusing agencies of the state in the pursuit of cynical politics that can only undermine, if not irreparably damage, the national interest. The despicable manner in which the CBI is being used to try and block the political rise of Gujarat’s Chief Minister Narendra Modi and prevent him from storming Delhi and seizing the masnad which the Nehru-Gandhi has come to believe is a family heirloom, only serves to underscore this fact.
There is nothing noble about the doggedness with which the Congress leaders continue to pursue the alleged ‘fake’ encounter in which four lashkar-e-Tayyeba operatives, including a 19-year-old woman called Ishrat Jahan, were killed in Ahmedabad in 2004. Nine years after that incident, an all-out effort is being made by the Congress to not only controvert the truth but manufacture a bagful of lies that, repeated again and again in the run-up to the next general election, will serve the twin evil purposes of not only maligning the principal adversary of the entrenched Delhi elite which survives on scraps from the palace high table but also polarising voters along communal lines.
Never mind what the Congress and its poodles in the media say, it is not Modi who is a polarising figure; it is the pernicious campaign of calumny and hate unleashed by the courtiers of Sonia Gandhi, either on her instruction or merely to please her, that could yet turn this election into a Muslim versus Hindu vote. Undesirable as that may be, it is undeniable that this is the sole intention of those who are now clamouring for ‘justice’ for Ishrat Jahan and her ideological compatriots — justice is the last thing on their minds; hoping to succeed in their divide-and-rule mission by instigating Muslim rancour against Hindus is uppermost.
Targeting individuals who pose a serious and credible challenge to the Congress’s presumed monopoly over power, a monopoly whose beneficiaries are inevitably the exalted members of the Nehru-Gandhi household, is a practice that has been honed to perfection since the days of Indira Gandhi. Rather than step down graciously after the Allahabad High Court held her guilty of electoral malpractices and let somebody else take charge of the Government, she hit back with blind fury, suspending civil liberties, imprisoning Opposition leaders and imposing Press censorship.
The Emergency of 1975-1977 was the first taste of what to expect if the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty’s unshakeable faith that it alone has the divine right to rule India were to be questioned.
It was the same impulse that prompted Rajiv Gandhi to try and defame and demean VP Singh when it became evident that the prince who came riding a white horse was about to be booted out of office, tarred and feathered, for running what had by then been exposed as a hugely corrupt enterprise meant to benefit palace cronies. The scandalous St Kitts affair of 1987, which saw the planting of forged documents in ‘friendly’ sections of the media, was meant to tarnish VP Singh’s image — that he too had money stashed away in an offshore Carribean account. The effort was crude, the Enforcement Directorate’s witch-hunt so glaringly obvious, that nobody bought into it. Rajiv Gandhi was defeated in the polls; his nemesis, VP Singh, came to occupy the Prime Minister’s Office. That this proved to be disastrous is an altogether different story to be told another day.
The story that needs to be told today is about another Modi — Syed Modi, badminton champion and rising sportstar, who was shot dead on July 28, 1988, as he came out of a lucknow stadium after an early morning practice session. That murder rocked the nation simply because Syed Modi was known to be a gentle person, well-liked by all and popular among the people. Coincidentally a long-time Nehru-Gandhi dynasty retainer, Sanjay Singh, had fallen out with Rajiv Gandhi months before the incident. This fact is important to understand the import of what followed Syed Modi’s murder.
A huge outcry led to the Government instituting a CBI inquiry into the murder. And that came as a boon for Rajiv Gandhi and his minions: The agency, by then long used to serving as a hand-maiden of the Congress, embarked on a ‘Slander Sanjay’ mission. Pages from the personal diary of Amita, widow of Syed Modi, were released to the media; the contents were splashed across front pages of ‘friendly’ newspapers — there were no television news channels then. It was drip-feeding of the most salacious kind; each day brought fresh revelations of her affair with Sanjay Singh, more than hinting at the scion of Amethi’s hand in Syed Modi’s murder. Elections over, the case meandered to a dead end. Sanjay Singh and Amita Modi are now happily married to each other; yesterday’s rebel has turned into a loyalist again.
looking at the CBI’s ham-handed attempt to fix Narendra Modi by hook or by crook because it has been ordered to do so by the Congress, I am reminded of the 1970s and 1980s when this was common practice. In more ways than one we have gone back to the past instead of moving into the future. The national economy in a shambles is only one indicator; political skullduggery of the most cynical kind is another.
(The writer is a senior journalist based in Delhi)