All of
you have probably heard of the law of unintended consequences. Well, if you
haven’t, you need to reflect on some of the things that we have been witnessing
in the recent days and months. Take Mani Shankar Aiyar’s ‘chaiwallah’ (tea boy)
jibe. Caught up in his own verbosity at a Congress conclave in January Aiyar
declaimed, “There is no way he [Narendra Modi] can be Prime Minister in the
21st century... but if he wants to come and distribute tea here we can make
some room for him.” The supercilious Aiyar was taking a dig at Modi’s origins
as the son of a tea seller.
But he
did not reckon with the consequences. This throwaway remark has formed the
cornerstone of the BJP’s strategy of wooing the Other Backward Classes (OBCs)
in Uttar Pradesh, and by all accounts it has worked brilliantly in attracting
the poorer classes of people to the party. As a result, the BJP could win 40-50
out of the 80 seats that the state has in the Lok Sabha. No doubt the
‘chaiwallah’ dig will provide the BJP payoffs elsewhere as well.
The
second instance is more recent and equally obvious. Had the Congress party
bitten the bullet and remained quiet following the release of a book, The
Accidental Prime Minister, by Sanjaya Baru, the former media adviser to the
prime minister on the functioning of UPA 1 and 2, there would have been some
immediate news interest because of it is election season, and thereafter some modest
sales.
But,
egged on by the Congress party, the Prime Minister’s Office chose to fight
dirty with an official statement on Friday, the day the book was released, by
the current media adviser Pankaj Pachauri that the book was “an attempt to
misuse a privileged position and access to high office to gain credibility and
to apparently exploit it for commercial gain. The commentary smacks of fiction
and coloured views of a former adviser.”
If
Pachauri had couched the statement in sorrow, rather than in anger, he may have
actually managed to elicit some sympathy for the government. But by coming out
in a slash and burn attack, he only provoked a storm and generated so much
interest in the media and amongst the people that the first run of 10,000
hardcover books was sold out by Friday evening.
The tenor
of party spokesman Abhishek Manu Singhvi’s remarks were even harsher: “Baru is
an out of job, disgruntled turncoat who is spreading canards to sell his book
and gain cheap publicity.” Never mind that Baru, a senior fellow at the Centre
for Policy Research, is the director for geoeconomics and strategy for the
renowned Institute for Strategic Studies London, and earns several times more
than he ever earned as the media adviser to the Prime Minister.
More
importantly, the ‘turncoat’ jibe needs comment. A week before the book hit the
market, Baru had sent a copy of the book to the prime minister who reportedly
read it and had no comment to make. Anyone who has actually read the book will
realise that more than anything else, the book is the work of someone with deep
affection for Manmohan Singh and who is keen on bringing out the achievements
of his tenure as well as the reasons why he was unable to function, as he ought
to have, in his second tenure beginning 2009. And Baru’s is no uncritical
account. He has strongly criticised Manmohan Singh for not quitting office when
it had become clear that he had lost all control over his government.
Indeed,
the sordid story he tells is of disloyalty, but not on the part of Baru, but of
those ministers and officials, including the top PMO officers, who bypassed the
PM or ignored his directives and thereby undermined his administration.
What
rattled the Congress the most was the charge that PMO files were seen by
Congress president Sonia Gandhi.
The
reason is not too hard to see. First, showing such files to non-officials, be
it Sonia or her political secretary Ahmed Patel would be a serious breach of
secrecy. Second, the people liable for action would be the officers involved.
That is why Pachauri came up with another statement declaring “The statement
being attributed to a former media adviser to the Prime Minister that PMO files
were seen by the Congress president, Smt Sonia Gandhi is completely baseless
and mischievous. It is categorically denied that any PMO file has ever been
shown to Smt Sonia Gandhi.”
The fact
of the matter, say insiders, is that officers like the Principal Secretary to
the Prime Minister T K A Nair and Pulok Chatterji were sharing the contents of
official files with Ms Gandhi and Ahmed Patel. The files related not so much to
the business of state, but to the top-level appointments in the government
which were controlled and manipulated by the ‘high command’.
Since we
are at the point of inflection where the old government is likely to be
replaced by a new one soon, many of these aberrations and illegalities could
well be exposed. If so, they will be testimony to the arrogance of the Congress
party leadership which eventually succeeded in chopping off its nose to spite
its face.
Mid Day April 15, 2014
1 comment:
You Mr. Joshi, a person paid by Pakistani giving illogical statement on Article 370. What is difference between your views and Raj thakrey. You are black English with aim of dividing Indians for sake of your pseudo intellect. Rise above and say that abrogate article 370 and become a man or you should visit pakistan... You can given any illogical logic to justify that 370 is not removed.
You are saying it is consititionally not possible, Is it commedy. There is only fundamental rights that can not be changed and that too is not sure and article 370 is small article which can be removed.
You are saying that demography should be preserved then what about kashmiri pandits.
You are saying that there is unrest. there will be always unrest, use iron hand like punjab and all these unrest will just go... You pro Pakistani person, change your name and go to pakistan because if you go without then you will be subject to 3rd rate citizen or sorry 3rd rate slave of pakistan.
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