Comment

Raj Thackeray must be laughing all the way to his party headquarters. The hitherto deserted office, (except of course, for the perennial favour seekers that throng every party office), is suddenly abuzz with activity, with televison OB vans — that ultimate symbol of success — thronging outside.

With one vicious speech, and the simultaneous unleashing of his storm-troopers, he has rescued his party from drowning in oblivion.

The rest of us will count the consequences: one more dent in Mumbai’s reputation as a cosmopolitan city; one more kick into the nearly comatose body of our liberal society; one more reason for people to feel insecure in their daily lives… That’s not all, of course.

One innocent life has been snuffed out (for which Raj Thackeray grandly ‘apologised’). Lakhs worth of property has been damaged. Multi-national companies planning to set up plants in Maharashtra have begun to have second thoughts.

But will any of this bother the young Thackeray who has now usurped the demagogue’s title which he felt was rightly his, but which hisuncle had denied him?

Of course it won’t. Because it should be clear to all of us that what is in a politician’s interest is often against the national interest. Raj Thackeray’s contribution is a mere page in a very thick dossiercompiled by countless politicians.

You don’t have to think hard to come up with examples. A few days ago, after much prevarication, the government announced a hike in petrol and diesel prices. Anyone with even the tiniest of heads on their shoulders will know that this was an inevitability once oil prices went through the roof. Anyone, that is, except our Marxists.

The CPM has decided to launch a nation-wide stir against the increases and the BJP has gleefully said it will join in. More demonstration, more violence, more losses in productivity, all so that the Marxists can claim that they are protecting the interests of the common man (in this case, the common man who drives cars).

The CPM is, of course, basking in its biggest triumph in years: it sabotaged the nuclear treaty with the United States, the kind of favourable pat we are never likely to get again.
There are individual examples too.

Narendra Modi’s reputation in the BJP, and his presence in the national consciousness was entirely due to the worst state-sponsored carnage ever in India. His ‘senior’ in the party, the man who aspires to be our next Prime Minister, LK Advani, owes his position in the party and his party’s position in the country, to his divisive Rath Yatra and to the destruction of Babri Masjid.

If you had a macabre sense of humour, you would find it amusing that these two gentlemen raise their already hoarse voices a few decibels higher when they talk of the threat of terrorism to our country. It’s amusing because these are the two men who are the root cause of terrorism in India!

There are very many more instances of this strange phenomenon of political interest being the opposite of national ones. Many of Indira Gandhi’s major decisions fall in this category. There was her decision to ban privy purses and the nationalisation of banks.

Then there was the Big Daddy of them all, the Emergency. There is obviously an element of this in all democracies, but in developed countries the quality of politicians, the strength of the opposition, and the sophistication of the electorate are a deterrent to the viciously disruptive grandstanding of the Thackeray kind.

Does this mean that we will have to live with violent confrontations for some time to come? The unequivocal answer is yes. This is especially so, because in addition to politicians inciting sectarian battles, they also provoke mayhem on so-called economic issues as well (recent examples, the Mamata Banerjee-CPM tumult in and near Nandigram).

So we are in for the long haul, where things will continue as they are till the country reaches a higher level of development. Or politicians become irrelevant. Any bets on the second option?