The Time is out of Joint

Reading the signs of the time one would be struck by the furor over nuclear proliferation deal and the two protests mounted by Shiv Sainiks.
George Fernandes and Bal Thackeray have had close association since their nascent political career in the erstwhile Bombay. Fernandes was a leader of workers’ union and Thackeray started drawing cartoons and then abandoning the art of caricaturing and donning the mask of the politician became grim with sordid matters of politics. Both had their origin in protests they organized and called bandhs which among other things paralyzed the financial heart of India. They were the tiger and lion of the concrete jungle of the metropolis. The Congress party tried to tame one and frequently used him to secure its own interest. But the innate ferocious nature of his came to dominate when his party mauled the tamer and came to power. He godfathered Bombay into today’s Mumbai as he roared again and again. Shiv Sena whittled the power of protests and strikes of railway workers unions as well as that of Datta Samant. George Fernandes’ hold weakened as he moved to the national politics and chose other constituencies. Shive Sena remained very much in Mumbai and Mahrashtra riveted like the limpet from the rock under the sea near Bandra.

The political discourse of the two is far from being sober. Thackeray has been fined rupees 500 for not appearing in court for a case against him filed by Munna Tripathi, a member of NCP, for his derogatory remarks about the Muslims made during 2006. There is also no sign that he would leave his rabble rousing track of humiliating the minority by unsolicited slurs heaping on their heads. Examples are galore. The track record of Fernandes since the labour unions picketing days and the Baroda conspiracy is different in form but not in substance. His roundly condemned remarks about the rape and murder of Muslim women in Gujarat pogroms as nothing new to India speaks volumes about the brazen politician ever more eager for a post of power and being ready to be in the limelight. How and with whom he hobnobs does not matter as long as he garners votes.

Of all the Independence Days, this sixtieth would be recorded for grim perturbation. Outlook Magazine caricatured Thackeray wearing military uniform of the Nazi Gestapo as Hitler and placed him in the list of villains of India like Dawood Ibrahim, et al. That I Day issue outraged the Shiv Sainiks so much that they ransacked the 10th floor office of the magazine at Nariman Point. They broke the glass frames and dashed office machines repeatedly on the floor. They demanded from the lower level staff about their seniors who were not there. Had they been there the hurricane Dean would have been more ravaging. But on the eve of the Independence Day they burnt the copies of the magazine elsewhere. Thackeray relishes passing slur on a whole community, nevertheless no one dare pay him in the same coin.. His paratroopers would naturally see to that.
As if the paratroopers were waiting for the I Day to pass, they started jail bharo agitation in Navi Mumbai on August 16. The farmers were allegedly protesting against the land acquisition of Reliance company under the SEZ. The protestors led by Manohar Joshi damaged 200 vehicles and injured dozens of people. Granting land under SEZ belongs to the revenue department of Narayan Rane currently the prime bete noir of Shiv Sena. In embarrassing him they were settling old score with him. Mumbai had seen settling old score of another type. The agitation was well organized for the police confiscated 20 vehicles from one quarry where the protesters had come in them.

Another government agreement was creating lot of fissure. This time it was the Manmohan Singh government’s ongoing negotiation for an agreement on Nuke Deal with the US. The Left, BJP and former Defence Minister George Fernandes oppose it for their different ideological reasons. But where the comrades and the saffron adherents were restrained, the radical in Fernandes came to the fore. He spoke intemperately and later put it in a written statement. “The Americans chose to make a monkey of our prime minister by using the 60 birthday of India to spill the beans and the deals. The Parliament is the place for debate but irate Fernandes said: “This is no subject for a debate. What has emerged is that the prime minister of the country has betrayed the nation by continuous bluffing, something unbecoming of the head of the government. If it were the United States, their House would have thrown out and disgraced the president if he had acted as Manmohan Singh. If it were China they would have settle it with one bullet in his head.” Suddenly the man who led India so successfully to the globalized economy and more than 8% growth rate found himself as the enemy of the people like Shakespeare’s Coriolanus. Fernandes directly accuses Dr Manmohan Singh: “No. MR Primme Minister, you have taken the country to the precipice when the nation’s security is concerned.” In other words George Fernandes wants nothing less than the head of the Prime Minister.
What defence could Singh make except reminding the noble service he did to the nation, his lion’s share in opening our market and globalizing our economy? As did Coriolanus:
If you have writ your annals rue, it is there,
That like an eagle in a dove-cote, I
Fluttered your Volscians in Corioli:
Alone I did it.

The historian who would write of these times would mention with puzzle that there was gross representation of facts even after right to information came into effect. Bal Thackeray said that President APJ Abdul Kalam fell from his eyes when he dithered with the death sentence of Afzal Guru. As if that were not enough he indulged in innuendo about who essentially the was. Let alone remorse over this kind of political discourse, many like him do not think it as a slur. This was just before the presidential election. After Kalam left office the home ministry says that the papers on Afzal Guru were not even sent to the president!