This piece was first published on The India Cable – a premium newsletter from The Wire & Galileo Ideas – and has been republished here. To subscribe to The India Cable, click here.
Rahul Gandhi is often derided, indeed mocked, for absenting himself, off and on, from political duty at home.
Note that he is not a part of government, not yet, and has a family abroad too. Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam zindabad.
But do observe that top guns of government can be in India and still be unforgivably absent from duty.
Do you believe that a Jawaharlal Nehru or a Sardar Patel would have been busy holding roadshows for an assembly election in faraway Karnataka while Manipur was ablaze?
To date, dozens of citizens there have lost their lives in the violence. Now, we are told, the Union government has imposed Article 355 of the constitution on Manipur, meaning it believes the BJP-run government of N. Biren Singh is not capable of running the state “in accordance with the provisions of [the] constitution”.
As Aakar Patel has joked on Twitter, this is “the BJP saving Manipur from BJP”. So much for the bogus “double engine ki sarkar” ruse, which has sadly befooled many.
And, even if a Nehru or a Patel had made a visit to poll-bound Karnataka, it is much to be doubted that they would have instructed their supporters to chant “Jai Bajrang Bali” while pressing the electoral button on the EVM.
Imagine if Manipur had had a non-BJP government; god knows what imprecations would have issued from the likes of Sambit Patra or Smriti Irani on behalf of the impeccably dedicated Union government and its canny political masters.
Kudos to Rajnath Singhji that he is on site in Rajouri, where now no less than 10 Indian soldiers have fallen to terrorists’ bullets and bombs in a so-fast-normalising Jammu and Kashmir.
But then that may be because he was not called upon to campaign in Karnataka; you see, if victory comes to the BJP there, it must be understood to have resulted exclusively from the shrill and constitutionally questionable labours of the duo that constitutes the government, and, if you like, the state for all practical purposes.
Remember when Narendra Modi raised the slogan “Beti bachao, beti padhao” (protect and educate daughters)?
Well, a gathering of India’s most decorated daughters awaits his intervention, if not his fatherly presence, as they continue their protest on a pavement in the national capital against, as they have stated in writing, the lascivious oppression wrought upon them by the president of the Wrestling Federation of India – a six-time strongman BJP member of Parliament.
Far from being on duty with these shamefully wronged daughters, the prime minister and the home minister of the republic are off duty, securing polarised votes for a triumph in a southern state, and, no doubt, expressing great concern for the welfare of women in Karnataka.
That is in stark and greedy contrast to the times when these top guns of government go out of their schedules to greet these outstanding women when they return from abroad with medals.
So, the citizen may well ask: Who is the guilty party – a missing-from-the-action Rahul Gandhi who bears no responsibility for governing the country, or a prime minister and a home minister who, having appropriated both government and state to themselves, remain truant from responsibilities which scream for their due accountability?
And, just to note, Manipur and Jantar Mantar are not the only burning venues from whence these worthies are absent; the number is legion indeed.