Commentary/Janardan Thakur
How clean are the hands of the BJP?
It is not always that you see politicians taking such a curious
position in Parliament. Consider the delight in the Bharatiya
Janata Party over Indrajit Gupta's 'anarchy, chaos and destruction'
speech. Consider how readily the saffron brigade warmed to the
Communist home minister.
Atal Bihari Vajpayee was so ecstatic
quoting Indrajit Gupta that one wondered which side he was on.
Consider also how sprightly Railway Minister Ram Vilas Paswan
looked over the spate of train robberies in Bihar. He seemed so
pleased with himself as he passed the buck to Laloo Prasad Yadav,
and reminded Parliament that the railway police was under the
state government.
For days on end there was furious sparring in Parliament about
who was responsible for all the crime in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar,
but little talk about what needed to be done. Everyone seemed
more interested in standing the others. The game, clearly, is
all about one upmanship.
For the Bharatiya Janata Party, frustrated
and stymied in Uttar Pradesh, the home minister's attack on Governor
Romesh Bhandari was a godsend. The party had
for long campaigned for
Bhandari's removal and now the Communist home minister seemed
to have taken up that responsibility. In Bihar, Laloo's fall would
call for a gala party at Paswan's Janpath residence.
Who is really bothered about crime? One man who was at least telling
the truth about Uttar Pradesh, even at the cost of creating a
crisis for the government to which he belonged, was Indrajit Gupta.
Candour and honesty have always been his strong points. He may
indeed have committed an indiscretion by lashing out at the administration
in UP, and yet the common man in Lucknow or Patna would
perhaps give him full marks for speaking out the truth.
That he
got most of his kudos from the Opposition benches of the Lok Sabha
is another matter. Forgotten in the heat of the raging controversy
was the question what is most important for the people of Uttar
Pradesh. How much difference would it make to them whether Romesh
Bhandari stays or goes? The truth, which ought to be apparent
to all, is that crime and criminals have become a part of life
in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.
Certainly if Romesh Bhandari is removed,
there would be great celebration in the BJP camp and it would
be a big setback for Mulayam Singh Yadav and the Samajwadi Party
in Uttar Pradesh. If Laloo is removed, there would be a major
crisis in the Janata Dal and greater chances of a revolt by Laloo:
A new regional party could well be born. But will crime and criminals
go away? Highly unlikely. As a commentator rightly put it, crime
did not begin with them and it will not end with them.
Make no mistake about it, the central point of all the tongue-lashing
in Parliament was not crime and corruption, but the removal of
Bhandari and Yadav, and the stage has been long past when a mere
change of faces can remedy the situation. It is, of course, difficult
to say what would end the run of crime and corruption in UP
and Bihar or for that matter in any other state. Replacing one
set of people with another would certainly not do.
One of the
most apt comments on the state of politics today is: hamam
men sab nange hain (All are naked in the bath). No political party
can claim to be much holier than the other. Crime, like corruption,
has become a convenient weapon to beat one another with. What
is most evident from the current debate is that everybody would
go on accusing the other for carrying the disease but nobody would
care to locate the germs. Perhaps they dare not do so, for if
they do, they may well find that they have done it at their own
cost.
But there is a greater problem with all this than just the misuse
and abuse of a situation for political ends. Parties are about
politics and politics is about power, and so there can be understandable
justification for what the BJP or a section of the United Front
encouraged by Ram Vilas Paswan are trying to do. What is infuriating
is the cynicism and shamelessness with which the crime and corruption
issues are being handled.
It is all too easy to pick on Mulayam Singh Yadav and Laloo Yadav
for harbouring criminals in their states. Sure enough, they have
had their part to play, or why else would Mulayam Yadav promote
so many known criminals in his party? Why would the parlours of
the Bihar chief minister bristle with criminal faces all the time?
But consider the ones making the allegations. How clean are the
hands of the BJP? True, the number of the men with criminal backgrounds
is far bigger in the Janata Dal, but can the leaders of the BJP
say that their hands are clean? Can the
party deny that some of its top leaders who go around as great
apostles of virtue and principled politics, were the most ecstatic
witnesses to that most blatant and heinous of all assaults on
law and order in the land: The demolition of the Babri Masjid
in December 1992?
Name a party and you can name a criminal -- even
the Communists have their share. Of the Congress, the less said
the better. Indeed, they are all in it.. hamam men sab....
And perhaps more to blame than all these politicians are we, the
people of India, who vote and elect them time and again, the people
who queue up at their doorsteps to seek favours, the people who
turn into casteists, regionalists, communalists and murderers
at a snap of their fingers, the people who plunder and pillage
at their command.
There has already been a lot of sound and fury over the UP governor,
and there could be more in the days to come, but does it signify
anything? Gupta is an honest and fortnight man, who started it
all by a bit of plainspeaking. But does he have it in him to
do something tangible to tackle the situation in these criminal-dominated
states?
The way things have developed during the past week or
so, it would seem that Gupta's famous outburst was simply the
result of his long stint in the Opposition. It was just that his
habit of scowling at the governments of the day got the better
of him. He had merely fluttered his wings in the cage.
Janardan Thakur is the former editor of The Free Press Journal.
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