Commentary/Saisuresh Sivaswamy
The UF and Congress think nothing of besmirching the nation's highest
office by ushering caste politics into Rashtrapati Bhavan
The eleventh Presidential election lacks the fire of 1969, and the inevitability of 1992. What in fact next month's
exercise will achieve is the selection of the right person for
all the wrong reasons.
The right reasons are many, and would make repetitive reading:
for one, K R Narayanan, a cinch to the Rashtrapati Bhavan
now that all the three major political combinations have decided
to back his candidature, has shown with his dexterous handling
of the Rajya Sabha that he has the necessary savvy and skill
to steer the Republic through what promises to be the most critical
phase of its evolution.
The right reason is the years he spent in the foreign service,
imbibing the important art of diplomacy. That should help him when contradictory forces begin playing on the Presidency in
their battle for supremacy.
The right reason is that he has the power to rise above the level
of party politics, for the vice-presidency has become, essentially,
a grooming ground for prospective Presidents, where one is initiated
into the administration of the democratic process. A politician,
in contrast, is a participant in this process; the President and
his deputy are on the other side of the fence, ensuring a level
playing field.
The wrong reason was stated by the United Front
convenor Nara Chandrababu Naidu in New Delhi last week, when he opened his momentous
announcement of Narayanan's candidature with the words, 'a man
from the scheduled castes'.
Naidu went on to eulogise the vice-president's other qualities,
but the opening lines made one squirm. If they caused a similar
reaction in Narayanan, he kept it well under check. But so eager
is the UF-Congress combination to assure the nation of their concern
for the underprivileged and the downtrodden, that they think nothing
of besmirching the nation's highest office by ushering caste politics
into Rashtrapati Bhavan.
For the Congress, a party which believed it had addressed
the Sikh community's wounded psyche by elevating one of its members
as the President, this is old hat. And the UF, not to be outdone
in playing the caste card, has not hesitated to underline Narayanan's birth. Even here, the concern they tout for
the downtrodden is hollow. If political parties sincerely
believed in smoothening the way for the scheduled castes and tribes,
they would not have passed up the opportunity they got to elect one to prime ministership. Not that
there is a dearth of any contenders: Kanshi Ram, his sidekick
Mayawati, Phoolan Devi.
Everybody knows the President's
post, largely and except at the time of government formation and
during crises, is an ornamental one. The people are not such fools
they will get taken in by shallow gesturing -- 50 years
of labouring under an iniquitous system has made them wiser to
the ways of the politician. And it will not take the Congress and the Front long to realise that their grand measure of elevating
One Of Them to One Of Us has not really paid the dividends they
expected.
But the smear on the Presidency, cast by a few intemperate words,
will remain. Naidu also mentioned the significance of elevating
a scheduled caste member to the Presidency in the fiftieth year
of the nation's Independence. While his intention may have been
to highlight an 'achievement', what his remark shows up is that
half-a-century after the Brits let the ungovernable govern themselves,
India is yet to rise above the quagmire of caste, religion and
community that has kept it back from taking its place among the
world's powerhouses.
It is an irony, of course, that those who cavil at the religious
bigotry of others are themselves not lagging behind in dividing
the people on caste lines. That they have managed to befuddle
the system into believing that while they are in the right, the
other side is in the wrong, is an indication of the extent of
their thought control.
Is the lot of the man who still cannot draw water from an upper-caste
well in Uttar Pradesh going to change a whit with Narayanan's
elevation? Or, even as he endures the tyranny of those who line
up above him in the pecking order, is he going to feel good at
the thought that someone like him will become the country's first
citizen?
These are not questions that Naidu and others like him who dominate
the political landscape in independent India will pause to think
about. In fact, even raising these queries is enough to get one
shouted down in the chorus of political babble that passes for
debate.
So the demand goes on. Now that a scheduled caste member is all
set to enter Rashtrapati Bhavan, can the other minority community
leaders lag behind in showing off their concern by bagging the
veep's post? Thus, a Margaret Alva is pushed forward to seek the
Christians's place under the sun, while advocates of Najma Heptulla
plan their counter-moves. In Punjab, a former chief minister
starts behaving as if he has already been elected the vice-president.
Meanwhile, spare a thought for the next incumbent of
the Rashtrapati Bhavan. It did not take him long to realise
that his proposers, even while lauding his selection in the nation's
golden jubilee, would not grant him his wish of unanimity by discussing
the matter with the Bharatiya Janata Party. (So much for their
concern for freedom's fifty!). So the poor man has to call up the
BJP leaders himself and seek their support, not unlike the sorry
spectacle of a former chief election commissioner, an Alsation
in his heyday, going around enlisting support for his doomed candidature.
What it shows up is that in reality, there is no true concern
on the part of Narayanan's proposers either for the SC/STs or
Independence. Oh, there is no dearth of tokenism on their part,
but little else. They have little hesitation in playing ducks
and drakes even with the Presidency just so that their politics
is in the clear.
Tell us what you think of this column
|
