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The Patriots Are On The Loose

Hail the brave, courageous patriots! Hail their latest paean to patriotism! As you know well, it involved barging into the office of the Board of Control for Cricket in India and vandalising property there. They left glass broken, trophies smashed, telephone wiring yanked out. While they were about it, they made lewd remarks at the ladies present too.

Hail, for could service to the nation -- lewd remarks and glass-smashing, you mere would-be patriots will note -- possibly come in greater measure than this? I am sure it can, because nearly every dawn brings us some new peak of excellence from the Shiv Sena.

The time is coming -- it is now just a year away -- when we in Maharashtra will tot up just how much the rule of the Shiv Sena has done for us and stuff that total into the ballot box on election day. I say: why wait even that long? Let's take a look right now at some of the innumerable contributions to our well-being we owe to lovable men from the Sena.

One of those men, a chap named Sishir Shinde, dug up the cricket pitch at the Wankhede Stadium in 1991. This heroic addition to his resume turned him into a Member of the Legislative Council in Maharashtra. Another, a dude called Gajanan Kirtikar, rampaged through a Khadi Village & Industries Commission office some years ago, destroying all he could find there. His reward for this splendid effort? He became Maharashtra's minister of state for home. That is, a quick round of vandalism put him in charge, if you please, of law and order. Law and order!

As you splutter in wonder, here's some more to make you feel warm and fuzzy all over. Add to those episodes such other virile -- yes, virile -- expressions of patriotism as: trashing the offices of the newspapers Mahanagar and Aaj Dinank. Cracking open the head of a woman journalist named Manimala. Destroying property at theatres in Bombay and Delhi to prevent us from seeing the film Fire. Digging up another cricket pitch, in Delhi. Blackening the face of the director of the Haffkine Institute. Assaulting nuns, teachers and young schoolgirls at Bombay's Canossa Convent. Rioting on a huge scale in Bombay, 1992-93.

And now it's lewd remarks at typists and more destruction at the Brabourne Stadium. And this performance was choreographed by a man who identified himself as Shrikant Sarmalkar, Shiv Sena member of the legislative assembly in Maharashtra. And the cherry on top? They are denying it.

Boy oh boy! Denial or not, is there anything the Shiv Sena will not do to convince those of us who still think otherwise that all they are is a gang of street thugs? Street thugs who lose no chance to profess Hindutva and patriotism, but street thugs all the same?

I often find myself in a dilemma, when it comes to this party and the leader whom people love so dearly that he needs round-the-clock protection that I pay for. This is the dilemma: Should I write about every one of their wondrous deeds? But then I'll be writing 50 hours a day -- that's how thick and fast they make bad news. Or should I ignore them and the wisdom that falls from their leader's lips? But that would be such a shame, considering that the wisdom comes to us in a such a stream of choice gems.

Let me wax nostalgic about just two.

After courageous Sena patriots in Delhi dug up the Ferozeshah Kotla pitch, Prime Minister Vajpayee had the gall to ridicule them. "After all, what is brave in digging up a cricket pitch under cover of darkness?" Vajpayee wanted to know. "If these 'brave men' really want to fight terrorism," he continued, "they should go and fight on the border."

Vajpayee's efforts at ridicule only left him wide open to the Sena headman's smooth retorts. For a start, Thackeray reminded Vajpayee that "guerilla warfare" is always "carried out under cover of darkness." Oh yes, of course: a gaggle of thugs spearing spikes into a pitch at night is exactly the same as guerilla warfare. Give them Param Vir Chakras, then!

As for fighting on the border, Thackeray said Sainiks are certainly ready to do that. Only, he insists that they be provided with "ultra-modern weapons" before they head there. Hello? Last time I checked, new recruits to the armed forces do not demand "ultra-modern weapons" as a condition to join. They sign up, then they stand up and fight with what's available to them.

Then again, that's hardly good enough for Thackeray's men of steal. They cannot be expected to fall in with what mere Indians face by volunteering for duty in the forces. That's just why they are instead on duty digging up cricket pitches and calling that guerilla warfare. Give them Param Vir Chakras, didn't I say?

The trouble about writing in this semi-sarcastic vein is, anger and disgust overwhelm the sarcasm very soon. That's my problem now, several paragraphs into this column. Above all, I'm just mad about Shiv Sena vandalism that happens over and over again. Why are we dragged so deep into this mud? Why is it that men who stand for nothing but violence and vandalism are not just ruling us today -- which is bad enough -- but are also pretending that vandalism is patriotism?

The Shiv Sena was born, Thackeray tells us, to bring Maharashtrians a measure of self-respect. Nothing wrong with that as a goal: we all need self-respect. But all these years later, I want to ask Maharashtrians: is there one single constructive thing the Sena has ever done that has boosted your self-respect? Just one? I'm Maharashtrian myself, and I cannot come up with anything. Entirely to the contrary, I am fed up and ashamed of this party's rampant violence. What of the other 90 million residents of my state?

I really want to know, given that the Sena claims a definite core of support: What kind of self-respect is built on lies and hooliganism? And how do hooligans get called patriots without even a question?

In Bombay, we are increasingly worried about crime. We read about encounters, gang warfare, extortion, ordinary citizens being stabbed to death in their ordinary homes -- we read about all this and we shiver, wondering when this monster of crime is going to reach out to touch us.

We shiver, and all of us know inside exactly why we shiver: because crime begins squarely in the corridors of power. From vandalism to extortion to rioting, the whole spectrum is instigated, cheered and applauded by the very people we have elected to govern us. Arguably the country's most respected ex-cop, Julio Ribeiro, once put this in words I quote regularly, though not because I enjoy quoting them. Ribeiro sees a substantial "difficulty" for the police in their attempts to control extortion: "The people belonging to the party in power are themselves into extortion."

The truth gets no starker than that.

So as the vandalism mounts, perhaps we in Maharashtra need to ask ourselves what we have brought on our heads. Perhaps all of us Indians need to ask ourselves what we have brought on our heads. Behind all the rhetoric -- Hindutva, or patriotism, or pretty much everything these "leaders" throw at us -- there is a very simple reality. We have put in charge of the law men who know nothing but breaking it.

Until we grapple with that reality, until we take back our country from those who will destroy it, until we stand and show them our resolve -- until then, we will get vandalism, Thackeray and Sena style.

What's more, they will keep calling it patriotism. And we will know: it was not for nothing that Samuel Johnson wrote what he did. For patriotism, never forget, is certainly the last refuge of the scoundrel. The vandals and the pitch-diggers too.

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Dilip D'Souza