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Saisuresh Sivaswamy

The impotence of being Subramanian Swamy

One rootless man, representing one constituency out of more than 540, today talks of unseating a duly elected government that is barely into its second month in office.

A sure case of megalomania? Yes, but not if the man in question is Subramanian Swamy, aka many other things in his long political career, all of which depend on which side of the political fence the caller belongs to.

Swamy, of course, does not belong to any side, for he is the supreme hit-and-run expert that the nation's skewed political system has thrown up. You could call him irrepressible, you could also call him a depressant -- as I said, his nomenclature really depends on which side you belong.

He is many things to many people. To himself, he must be the last of a species that is becoming extinct -- the one who lives by his word and maybe die by it. Vide his continuing in the Janata Party which, if he is to be believed, is in honour of the promise made to Jayaprakash Narayan at the height of the 1977 spirit. His critics, of course, could say that Swamy's perpetuation of the one-MP party has more to do with his reputation as a saboteur, the colours for which he earned right in 1977 itself and which he has no intention of giving up, going by his latest proclamations about the Vajpayee government, owing to which reputation no party wants him in. After all, when was the last time you heard of anyone embracing a viper?

Swamy is what one could call a political freelancer, his services can be had, for a price which is not calculated in monetary terms. A man of vastly catholic tastes, he has taken to heart the maxim that there are no permanent enemies or friends in politics. The only thing that endures, perhaps, is ambition.

Not for nothing is it said that there is nothing more poisonous than unrealised ambition, especially when it is accompanied by talent, intelligence, and self-belief. In any other area of human endeavour, these are the attributes that are guaranteed to take one to the top of the tree but, alas, in politics there is another important, unquantifiable element which is obviously lacking in Swamy. This is a field where untrained housewives can almost touch the stars, chargesheeted felons can manage the affairs of the nation, illiterates can command prime-time viewership -- but a Harvard professor will always belong to the lunatic fringe.

It is rather like the scenario in Punjab, Kashmir or in any of the killing fields that dot the country's landscape, where the desperado is the one who is actually sane -- his revolt is against the system that has denied him fairness, where the thanedaar rubs his nose into the dust, his labour does not get the remuneration it deserves and there is no way to earn a livelihood unless you become one of 'them'. Swamy is in a similar situation, and so accustomed is he to playing the rebel, that the bucking horse in him simply refuses to quit.

In a field that places a premium on silence and doublespeak, Swamy is a rather unusual specimen. It is owing to this trait that the nation knows that he fancied himself as prime ministerial material, never mind if the deadline he gave himself is long since gone. One of the ancient Tamil sage-poets perhaps envisioned Swamy when he cautioned that what betrays the garden toad to the rapacious snake is the noise it makes, but Swamy is in no mood to learn, from the past or the present.

Most politicians who come within Swamy's crosshairs usually end up buying their peace with him, for he has the tenacity of the pitbull and the ruthlessness of the rottweiler. Ask Jaya, in whose downfall Swamy played more than a marginal role and without whose say so he will not step out of his house today. Rew a little, and there was Swamy in the late eighties, meeting with journalists and grandly casting about Rajiv Gandhi's alleged (my word, not his) Swiss bank account number, naturally off the record. Ff a little, and here was Swamy doing his errands, building bridges between Rajiv Gandhi and the other man who burnt with prime ministerial ambition, Chandra Shekhar. Certainly Rajiv Gandhi was bad for the country, but not as bad his successor, V P Singh. Just as Jaya was bad, but not half as bad as her successor, M Karunanidhi.

Swamy keeps at his quarry, wearing them down, staying on course while the prey dissipates its energy over larger pursuers, while he remains ever the gadfly. When he moves in, it is when the quarry is so tired that the moment actually comes as deliverance. He has done it before, any number of times, and he will keep at it, so long as there is breath in his body, for a prisoner of an intelligent mind can never break free.

No one expected him to turn saffron when he became part of the All India Anna DMK front in Tamil Nadu which included the Bharatiya Janata Party. Swamy is after all, a renegade from the ranks, and he has spoilt the case against him by continuing his vituperation of the BJP's prime vote-catcher.

But Swamy knew that opening his mouth at a time when the nation was rooting for Vajpayee could cost him dear, so he bid his time, waiting to see if he would be accommodated in the new ministry. And when, despite his new-found friend Jayalalitha rooting for him, the prime minister decided to keep him out of sight, Swamy waited for the next opportunity, the indication that there was something on his mind coming from his abstaining from the confidence vote.

Obviously, Swamy was hopeful that his redemption was at hand, considering it was Jaya who was calling the shots in the new government. Naturally, when he found that his name was not among the list of BJP allies invited to next week's coordination committee meeting, he decided to cut the messy umbilical chord. The BJP could have easily bought its peace with Swamy -- he comes quite cheap actually -- by throwing a few crumbs his way, but I am glad that Vajpayee has chosen to swat him like you would a pesky fly.

But as I said, Swamy waits for the right time to strike. Right now, the BJP government is actually garnering sympathy at the way it is being bullied by its Tamil allies, and Swamy knows that any premature move at this may not work to his advantage. But when this edifice crashes, emerging unscathed from the rubble, rather like the roach he was likened to by a Union minister recently, would be none other than Swamy. Here's one man who refuses to go gently into the good night.

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