Mary Kom for President?

Once pugilist Mary Kom was assured of an Olympic medal, Indians were so proud (though hypocritically since most are not bothered about the misrule in Manipur and the human rights abuses there; indeed most Indians would not be able to even pinpoint Manipur on a map) that some of them declared online: “Mary Kom for President.” While we all cheer this sentiment, it makes no sense because President Pranab Mukherjee was already in place, and his election came after a boxing bout between UP Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav and West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee, in which the loser was Congress boss Sonia Gandhi. The next presidential election will take place in 2017, long after the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, which will likely give us new Olympic heroines (appalling as it may be, who cheers 2008 gold medallist Abhinav Bindra anymore?). And anyway the President of India is more like a referee for the Constitution, not a contestant for executive office. Mary Kom could not have even been a last minute draft to be Presidentda’s number two, since the political class has decided that Hamid Ansari should be Vice-President for Life. Maybe internet Indians meant that they wanted Mary Kom as Congress President. Now that would be fun, particularly if it meant that the Olympian had to punch the lights out of a blabbermouth of the stature of Digvijaya Singh.

Not that Sonia Gandhi is a pushover; if you saw her in Parliament this week, rallying her MPs against LK Advani’s charges of illegitimacy, you could see Mary Kom’s inspiration. Or perhaps she was simply tired of the emasculated manner of the Congress benches, typified by the fact that while her prime minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, sat punch-drunk through the speech by the doddering, desperate, Devendro-Singh-wannabe Advani, her home minister, Sushil Kumar Shinde, fearlessly took a potshot against Rajya Sabha MP Jaya Bachchan. Not surprisingly, Sonia Gandhi lost faith in the Leader of the House before the rest of us had a chance to.

Seeing the Congress President stand up and ward off the verbal blows also evidenced the fact that her son Rahul is missing in action. Should one sympathise with him? On the one hand, Mary Kom in her matches took blows to the chin but kept on her feet and saw the bout out. On the other hand, Rahul behaves as if he had suffered a TKO in the recent UP elections; and no amount of smelling salt has induced him to stand up and get back in the fight. Did he need more training? Undoubtedly, and his TKO is proof that mothballing him politically has harmed him more than help him grow. In boxing, you get to the top via a series of worthy opponents. Unfortunately, dynastic arrogance precludes counting anyone as a worthy opponent. And it now seems obvious that Rahul has pretty much decided to hang up his boxing gloves.

The other boxing hero, Devendro Singh Laisram, provides a metaphor for Mulayam Singh, who was exciting to watch, and who some thought might lure the UPA-2 into early elections, but who has crashed out even before the medal rounds. From his betrayal of Mamata during the presidential election we can tell his motto is “if the price is right, I’ll throw the fight”. So the chances of an early parliamentary poll have receded, no matter what he told his troops. Mamata also appears to be in regroup-mode. Ironically, Tamil Nadu CM J Jayalalithaa and Orissa CM Naveen Patnaik had hoped to turn the presidential poll into a foundation-laying exercise for future political alliances. In this case, boxing appears to have got mixed up with beach volleyball. They are all back to square one.

And if there is no early election, the chances increase of the boxer who wins without throwing a punch becoming prime minister for a third time. Of course, Finance Minister P Chidambaram is planning his coup d’état but he gambles too much on his handling of the economy, which is more dependent on Europe’s crises and on America’s political gridlock than on his own accounting wizardry. Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit has also made it clear that she will move not to North Block (home of the home ministry) but directly to South Block (home of the prime minister’s office). And there’s Shinde, who knows he can count on Maharashtra’s parties to support him as prime minister in the increasingly likely scenario that Congress again emerges the single largest party, though with reduced numbers.

All of them will be duking it out for the top prize. They should take lessons from India’s favourite mom, Mary Kom (we love the way she allows her twins’ crayon-chaos on the walls of her home). My bet, though, is Manmohan Singh, who is more a marathon runner than a boxer. Now we know that a champ like Mary Kom had to come from India’s margins, not its mainstream. Mary Kom for President, yes; but why would she want to be in charge of this banana republic?

The writer is the Editor-in-Chief, DNA,  based in Mumbai