EVENTS
AND ISSUES
New Delhi, 27 March 2006
Unholy Alliances For Power
Chameleon
thy name is Politician
By Dr. Syed Ali Mujtaba
When
Gopalasamy alias Vaiko, crossed over
to the ruling AIADMK to sew an electoral alliance for the forthcoming Assembly elections, it sent shock waves across Tamil Nadu. For, his latest alliance partner had
put him behind the bars under the draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA)
on charges of sedition and he had to spend 19 months in prison. Even the ruling
dispensation, National Democratic Alliance (NDA) at the Centre of which Vaiko’s
MDMK party was a part at that time, could not get him out of the jail.
Having
come out of the prison, Vaiko formed an alliance with the Opposition in the
last Parliamentary elections in Tamil Nadu that shored up the chances of Congress-led United Progressive
Alliance to come to power at the Centre. Everything was going smooth for Vaiko
till the announcement of the Assembly
elections where differences arose over seat-sharing. This prompted the pro-LTTE
politician to go ahead to script yet another episode of unholy alliances in
Indian politics.
About two
months ago another unholy alliance was struck in Banglore where the current
Chief Minister, H D Kumaraswamy defected from Janata Dal (Secular), led by his
father H.D. Deve Gowda, to align with the BJP, a right wing Hindu party to form
the Government in Karnataka. The ideology of secularism and the family
persuasion did not move the ambitious son of the former Indian Prime Minister
to adhere to any political ethics.
It is not
only the sons who are a spoiled lot in Indian politics, the sons-in-law too
claim to have such distinctions. The infamous revolt of former Andhra Pradesh
Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu against his father-in-law in 1996 is not far
from memory. Chief Minister NT Ramachandran’s second wife Laxmi Parvati’s
growing influence in the State politics was the reason for Naidu to dump his
father-in-law in a democratic coup unprecedented in the recent history. He went
on to rule the State for next ten years and earned the accolade of hi-tech
Chief Minister in India.
The
Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) in Tamil Nadu, which champions the cause of
secularism, threw it to winds when it struck an alliance with the BJP-led NDA
at the Centre in 1999. The DMK leader, late Murasoli Maran who had earlier
mooted the formation of a Third Front Government to ward off the BJP threat,
changed his colours and went on to align with the BJP to remain in the Union
Cabinet under a new dispensation of NDA. Later, the DMK dumped the BJP once
again to align with the Congress,
which ensured a Cabinet berth for his son, Dayanidhi Maran, who is now the IT Minister
of India.
Another
name, which rings the bell, is Sanjay Nirupam, the firebrand Shiv Sena leader
of Mumbai. Nirupam’s utterances against the Muslims shot him into limelight and
in many ways he surpassed many
Hindutva hardliners who were competing for the same slot. Later his differences
with the party Chief Bal Thackeray led to his ouster from Shiv Sena and he
eventually had to wear secular cloak and take refuge in the Congress camp. The late Sunil Dutt, actor-turned-
politician, had seriously objected to Nirupam’s entry into the Congress and personally met party president Sonia Gandhi
to keep him away, but political considerations prevailed over the
ideology.
Arif
Mohammad Khan, branded as secular leader in Indian politics is another name to
recollect. He shot into limelight during the Shah Bano controversy in 1985 for
not succumbing to the pressure of
the Muslim extremists and preferred to sacrifice his Cabinet Minister’s position
rather than go with the Congress
whip in the Parliament to undo the Supreme Court judgment on the issue of providing alimony and maintenance of an old
Muslim lady. The Uttar Pradesh politician after toying with the Dalit outfit,
Bahujan Samaj Party, once again knocked the doors of the Congress but got a lukewarm response from there. He then
preferred to shelve his political ideology and aligned with the BJP, that
preach Hindutva or cultural nationalism, in the country. Arif Khan’s dreams
dashed to the ground as he badly lost the election and his party too could not
return to power.
Purno A
Sangma, former Lok Sabha Speaker and the Congress
leader from Meghalaya is another leader in the same mould. He along with Sharad
Pawar and Tariq Anwar, broke away from the Congress
on Sonia Gandhi’s foreign origin issue and formed the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). He then went on to form his own
party to espouse the cause of the north-east region. Sangma even struck an
alliance with the Trinamool Congress
of Mamata Banerjee and the two together aligned with the BJP in the hope of
ministerial berths in the future NDA Government.
However,
all his calculations failed because the NDA could not click in the hustings and
that made the north-east politician to once again join the Nationalist Congress His comrade Sharad Pawar who was not so
adventurous set aside all the ideological differences and decided to align with
the Congress for the reward of
Agriculture Minister of India. Sangma’s other chum, Tariq Anwar, a politician
from Bihar, got Rajya Sabha nomination from Maharastra.
The BJP
leader, Kalyan Singh is another shade in the same tribe of Indian politicians.
Once a champion of Hindutva ideology, he threw his saffron hat after having
differences with the BJP. The ‘Ram bhakt’ went on to align with the Bahujan
Samaj Party, an anti-BJP dalit outfit in Uttar Pradesh. The former Chief
Minister who had preferred to face a day’s sentence for the demolition of the
Babari mosque in 1992 rather than criticize that outrageous act, turned his
ears deaf when Bahujan Samaj Party leader Mayawati lampooned Hinduism for
subjugating the lower caste Hindus. However, when he found little gains from
such unholy alliance Kalyan Singh returned to the BJP. The BJP too needed him
due to its depleting political base in Uttar Pradesh. The homecoming of Kalyan
Singh was more a marriage of convenience than anything to do with political
ethics.
Another
politician to be bracketed in the chameleon club is George Fernandes. A trade
unionist leader, Fernandes was stalwart of Janata Party that replaced the Congress after emergency in 1977. He was respected for his
opposition to the rightist policies of the Congress
and for espousing the cause of the working class,
minorities and the downtrodden. He however lost all his esteem when he chose to
align with the BJP to become the Defence Minister of India. The wily socialist remained
a mute spectator to the mindless
privatization of the public sector undertakings taking place during the NDA
rule and also towards the atrocities committed during that time against the
Christian and Muslim minorities in the country.
The list
of the murkiest shade of the Indian politicians is unending. Suffices to say
that it has a pan-India character and ideology and principles are loosing sheen
in Indian politics. The maxim that politics is the survival of the fittest with
no permanent enemy or no permanent friend rules the roost.
However,
this is just one shade of the changing kaleidoscope of Indian politics. There
are many politicians who may still like to cling on to their ideology and may
not like to part with it till their death. The imponderables of Indian politics
thus remain as mysterious as ever.---INFA
(Copyright, India News and Feature
Alliance)
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