The rightward lurch of India’s Congress party
IN GEORGE ORWELL’S fable about the dissipation of the Bolshevik revolution, pigs play the role of ideological rabble-rousers. By the time the book ends the pigs, however, acquire the deportment of the very human beings they had once exhorted the other animals living on The Animal Farm to overthrow.
“No question, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”
The drift in India’s mainstream politics today smacks of similar betrayals. When everyone’s thoughts were riveted to the defeat of Lalu Prasad Yadav in Bihar last week, a momentous change took place in the western state of Maharashtra. A turncoat leader of the Hindu fascist Shiv Sena was leading the Congress party, which he had joined, to a surprise triumph in a state by-election.
Narayan Rane, who till early 2005 was the leader of the opposition in Maharashtra and a prominent Shiv Sena leader, took a dig at Sena chief Bal Thackeray, saying “his presence in Malvan for campaigning increased my vote share by 10 to 15 per cent and their candidate had to forfeit his deposit”.
Once a blue-eyed boy of Thackeray, Rane claimed Shiv Sena chief was doing a ‘fine job’ of winding up the organization which is fast on the wane. He said Congress president Sonia Gandhi was happy with the victory and had promised to visit his constituency in Konkan in February next year.
Earlier, the Congress party had inducted a powerful rightarm of Tahckeray, Chhagan Bhujbal. More recently Sanjay Nirupam, another Shiv Sena rebel, joined the Congress amid fanfare despite opposition from secular aides of Sonia Gandhi, including the late movie star and sports minister Sunil Dutt.
A couple of years ago, the Congress split the Bharartiya Janata Party in Gujarat. Former Gujarat chief minister Shankar Singh Vaghela, schooled all his life with the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh, was made in charge of the Congress party in the state. He has remained president of the Gujarat Congress ever since.
Only a few years ago, the right-wing Hindu BJP had split a weak and vulnerable Congress in Uttar Pradesh, using the breakaway legislators to shore up a wafer-thin majority in the state assembly. Of course, many Indians do not see much difference between the Congress party and the BJP. Actually, a senior member of BJP’s think tank confessed to me recently that on foreign policy and economic issue the two parties held almost identical views.
In fact, if the Congress and BJP join hands in parliament today they would have a thin majority with 280 seats, seven more than needed.
This majority may not of course hold in the next elections as regional parties assert their role even more forcefully. A recent village-level panchayat election in Uttar Pradesh saw the Dalit party of former chief minister Maywati making a clean sweep, leaving both the BJP and the Congress quite pulverized.
For the moment at the federal level, the Congress is leaning on the support of the communist-led Left Front to run a ragtag alliance of convenience. But it is simultaneously playing footsy with its traditional right-wing flank, which now includes former rabble-rousers of the Hindu communalist groups.
However, communalism does not seem to be the immediate objective for the Congress. A right-wing consolidation has industrial applications too. Shiv Sena was founded and used by the Congress in the 1960s to break up communist trade unions in Mumbai.
The spadework for the formation of the Shiv Sena had started with the launching of the Marathi weekly Marmik by Bal Thackeray on August 13, 1960, just three months after the formation of the state of Maharashtra on May 1, 1960. The publication of the first issue of Marmik, significantly, took place at the hands of the first chief minister of Maharashtra and a top Congress leader, Y. B. Chavan.
Since then the Shiv Sena has systematically targeted different sections of minorities in a cynical attempt to build its mass support. Such minority targets have included non-Maharashtrians, Muslims and Dalits.
However, anti-Communism has been the most consistent plank of the Shiv Sena ever since its inception. It is this aspect that has ensured it the firm support of big business. One of the defining moments of the Sena’s ideological thrust came in 1975 when it wholeheartedly supported Indira Gandhi’s emergency rule.
The induction of Shiv Sena and BJP politicians, not necessarily bereft of their ideological baggage, into the Congress appears to be of a piece with the rightward drift of India’s oldest secular party. Is it preparing to eject the leftist baggage, perhaps to recast itself into a new ideology in the manner of the Labour Party of Britain? The likeness in domestic and foreign policies of both compels a comparison.
The Shiv Sena has always been under the authoritarian grip of its demagogic chief who has never disguised his contempt for democracy and adulation of dictatorship. Thackeray has publicly glorified Adolf Hitler and Mahatma Gandhi’s assassin Nathuram Godse. There must be something seriously compelling for Sonia Gandhi to welcome its most rabid rightwing leaders into the Congress fold. We’ll reserve judgment and watch the happenings in parliament and outside, hoping that the denouement of our fable doesn’t turn into a catastrophe.
ACCORDING TO one version of reports from Kolkata, Australian cricket coach Greg Chappell made an obscene gesture with his fingers to the crowd when they booed him for not including former skipper Saurav Gangully in the one-day team. The other version, put out by a spokesman for India’s cricket body, says Chappell was merely nursing his injured finger which was caught by TV cameras in a kind of optical trick.
But Kolkota’s Telegraph newspaper gave the only first-hand account of the incident, in which Chappell admitted he made the gesture.
“It was 4.45am at the front desk of Taj Bengal when Chappell arrived to sign out and head for the airport. He was button-holed there.
The Telegraph: Mr Chappell, did you make that gesture with your finger?
Chappell: Yes, I did.
TT: You mean to say the image is not doctored?
Chappell: No, it is not doctored.
TT: Was it made at the media?
Chappell: No, never. It was not aimed at the media.
TT: Was it towards the crowd? Would you please specify?
Chappell: I do not think I need to specify the reason to you.
TT: Has the behaviour of the Calcutta crowd disappointed you?
Chappell: It was bizarre.”
jawednaqvi@gmail.com
What do striking doctors, teachers symbolize?
And at Karachi University, the manhandling of a geology teacher by a student that made the teachers go on strike and incidents of similar nature from some other local colleges only reminded one of the unhappy state of affairs that prevail in the world of education.
Of course, there is reason to be depressed at all that we have been reading about students and teachers in town.
For all the success stories that are floated and inflated about the health and education sectors, the long standing neglect as well as the nonchalance of society and officialdom both remains. There is nothing really new about the beating up of a teacher or a doctor, for that matter. We have heard these stories earlier as well. There is always a sharp reaction from the teachers and doctors. Protests, strikes, hunger strikes, and more, but then it subsides. It was the attitude and the infrastructure that didn’t appear to change, remarked a citizen.
He went on with his observations about the education sector and cited the example of the ongoing issue of the implementation of the Sindhi Language Act, which was raised in the Sindh Assembly on Tuesday.
According to press report, the issue dominated the day’s proceedings, and in the second half, the House witnessed a “rumpus that heightened gradually to the extent that Speaker Syed Muzaffar Hussain Shah had to warn the opposition of adjourning the deliberations for the day.”
Another colleague referred to the uncertainty that has lingered on about the examinations at the matriculation level. Whether there should be one exam or whether it should spread over two years? This reminds me of a newspaper advertisement asking for public opinion whether there should be examinations at all. Add to it the on-going debate about English becoming a compulsory subject or medium of instruction from class one. Basic issues remain a bone of contention with us, all the time. So we remain trapped in the past, observes one Karachiite, who believes that this is prevalent on the national level as well. In passing, I would like to mention that a young man appearing for his Masters examination said that his economics paper had been postponed due to the teachers strike. These are little signs of a stagnation of sorts.
Similarly, there are many disturbing signs and signals coming out of the death of Yusra Afaq. More than 400 doctors at the Civil Hospital, Karachi, who went on strike after Yusra died of a “haemorrhagic fever”, were on the fourth day of their strike still “asking the authorities concerned to provide them adequate facility and precautionary apparatus, including gloves and masks”. They were adamant, and understandably so, that they would not resume their duties until the precautionary measures against the viral fever were taken and isolated wards for such patients were established. Now doctors want protection for themselves; such is the extent of the fear emanating from the unhygienic conditions prevailing in the government hospitals. These conditions are well known is something that we repeat here with good intent.
Even the Sindh Assembly on Thursday urged the government to take immediate preventive measures, as the treasury and opposition benches expressed their concern over the death of Dr Yusra Afaq. The assembly members advocated the immediate need to protect doctors and stressed that public must be informed about what the government was doing to “check such mysterious diseases.”
Commenting on the lady doctor’s death and the state of affairs in government hospitals, a young citizen said that such incidents not only reflected the inefficiency of the Civil Hospital Karachi but also the health department. He wondered whether the “politics and power tussles” in our educational institutions and government hospitals was the cause of much of the malaise. He said that it seemed that the government, as well as the international donors were content with the anti-polio campaigns, where needless media campaigns and a waste of resources were so apparent.
It is relevant to mention here in the case of Dr Yusra Afaq what her family members have said. Her sister-in-law Mrs Almas Shahzad has dispelled the impression ‘deliberately created by the authorities of the health department’ that Dr Yusra had contracted the viral infection in Malaysia. She referred to Yusra’s passport which showed that she had returned home on Aug 25, contracted the virus at least a month after that date, and contracted the viral infection at the Civil Hospital.
It is significant to note that according to the Aga Khan University Hospital, 41 patients with viral haemorrhagic fever were admitted to the hospital between Oct 2 and Nov 23. Of these 41 patients, 34 were from Karachi, and the others from the interior of Sindh and Balochistan. This makes many citizens wonder whether there is a viral fever that is prevalent here. And as one contemplates this dreadful prospect, a thought goes out to the perceptions that the public has about the hygienic conditions of our private and public hospitals, and about the complete absence of effort to educate the public about this viral fever. Are there any dos and don’ts? Can one comfort the questioning, troubled public mind?
What Sindh Health Minister Shabbir Ahmed Qaimkhani has asked EDO Health Dr Khalid Sheikh is important and reflects on the Civil Hospital. He has directed that DDT should be sprayed and other steps be taken to ensure that there is no outbreak of any epidemic.
Meanwhile, the Sindh health department has appointed a committee to look into the cause of the lady doctor’s death and submit a report within 10 days. Not just Yusra’s tormented colleagues would want to know the cause, so would the public.
In fact the public would want concrete steps to get the Civil Hospital cleaned on a permanent basis even if the authorities concerned want or need to approach international donors and then launch a media campaign to trumpet what they have done.