The Daily Times
July 29, 2004
HUM HINDUSTANI: The last resort of BJP
J Sri Raman
The point is that this pseudo-patriotism is a resort of those who also resort to campaigning against politics itself as “the last resort of the scoundrel”. The tactic of the far right is to project itself as the “patriots” and its rivals as “politicians”. In the Indian context, as perhaps in that of several other developing countries, the campaign is in a sense, against democracy
“Politics is the last resort of the scoundrel.” I suppose a computer-aided quantitative analysis can give a more precise finding; but, offhand, I will say that not a week passes without someone or the other citing this maxim in the Indian media. And, anti-political as the one-liner may sound, it is part of the verbal armoury of the far-right politics.
It is, of course, a misquotation from Samuel Johnson’s famous dictionary. Patriotism, according to Dr Johnson, had the distinction. Ambrose Bierce, author of The Devil’s Dictionary, begged to differ with the great doctor, declaring that “patriotism” was indeed “the first resort of the scoundrel”. Now I must hasten to clarify my purpose in starting with this string of quotes. Especially because readers of a certain political persuasion consider it unpatriotic for an Indian not only to write in a Pakistani newspaper but also, to voice such views as this column does.
Neither Johnson nor Bierce, obviously, was talking about patriotism of the kind that spurred the people, for example, of this subcontinent in their anti-colonial struggle. They were both expressing a sardonic cynicism about the politics of ‘patriotism’. Of a ‘patriotism’ that actually seeks to dupe and divide a people. It is precisely the kind of politics that the far right practises. The kind that India’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its ‘parviar’ practise. As do, doubtless, their counterparts in other countries.
The point is that this pseudo-patriotism is a resort of those who also resort to campaigning against politics itself as “the last resort of the scoundrel”. The tactic of the far right is to project itself as the “patriots” and its rivals as “politicians”. In the Indian context, as perhaps in that of several other developing countries, the campaign is in a sense, against democracy in that it is aimed particularly against “vote bank” politics that gives the plebian politicians an edge.
The politics of the far right itself is supposed to be “above politics”, just as their efforts to make a constituency of the majority religious community somehow don’t make them votaries of the “vote bank” idea. Politics seeking support of minorities and the marginalised is projected as populist – and worse. It is portrayed as a detriment and even a danger to democracy that should be in the hands of cleaner classes and castes. The periodical cry of “politics-crime nexus” is only a part of this campaign. It is to deflect attention from a communalism-politics nexus that the cry is raised time and again.
To coin an even more ironical maxim, ‘probity’ is the last resort of the politics of ‘patriotism’. The current BJP campaign against “tainted” ministers in the Manmohan Singh government, like every one of its past crusades against corruption and “criminalisation” of politics, is not only politics against democratic conventions but also politics of gross double standards.
The hollowness and hypocrisy of the campaign have been repeatedly pointed out. It has been recalled that the previous regime of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, too, had its share of “tainted” ministers in the sense of being “charge-sheeted”. Critics of the campaign have taken pains to stress, in particular, the fact that several ministers in the BJP-headed coalition, including former Deputy Prime Minister LK Advani, were charged in the Babri Masjid demolition case. The answer from the party and its apologists has been that the offence they were charged with amounted to political misconduct, while the ministers targeted now were charged with crimes like murder.
We have noted the obvious absurdity of this argument in an earlier column. The argument wished away the toll in human lives and suffering caused by the “strictly political” offence. The argument is all the more untenable now for the BJP insistence that the perpetrator of another “political offence” with similar consequences, Shibu Sorten, leader of the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha and Coal and Mines Minister in the Manmohan Singh Cabinet till the other day when he resigned, was a victim of the virtuous BJP campaign. He has had to pay for involvement in a case of mob violence, leading to a loss of lives, dating back to 1975 and directly linked to the movement for a separate tribal state of Jharkhand. Legitimacy of the movement is less open to question than the mosque’s demolition, as the separate state was formed indeed in November 2000.
The hypocrisy of the BJP campaign is heightened by the fact that Soren’s JMM and the BJP were staunch allies from 1998 until the eve of the general election in 2004.
Tasting blood in Soren’s case, the BJP is all set to carry forward its campaign against other “tainted” ministers. The country must brace itself for more and more “moral” sermons and mindless agitations from a party that cannot read right the lessons of its recent election debacle.
The writer is a journalist and peace activist based in Chennai, India
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