Congress’ both barrels blazing attack on its onetime beloved blue-eyed boy Shashi Tharoor reminds one of the old story about crabs packed in a deep basket. If one fellow creature somehow manages to claw his way to the top to escape the claustrophobic prison, others forgetting their quarrels gang up to pull him down back to environs resembling the overcrowded death row in a Tihar-like prison.
Make no mistake, Dr Tharoor, the super wizard with words—and recalling another modern fable of forever young Dorian Gray—still appears much younger than his 69 years. He is a seasoned diplomat, making his colleagues in the Congress envious of his dizzying rise in the UN hierarchy before the hard heartbreaking descent. Well, the party and the country hasn’t treated him badly at all. He was handpicked by RaGa-cum-Sonia to be paradropped in Kerala politics. The whizz kid didn’t disappoint; his charisma and exceptional articulation are unmatched. He has won Lok Sabha elections many times with ease even when the going was tough in the state. Tharoor was also not shy about playing the caste or the soft religious card, if necessary. He was ‘rewarded’, as we are being reminded these days, by the self-styled High Command with a ministership in MEA till he courted controversy by criticising travel in “cattle class”, constantly cribbed about official accommodation, and unfortunately mixed up his personal and public life. All that is past. One thought that he had paid a price and was rehabilitated. Little did we know that film abhi bahut baaki hai!
Enough about the man in the cross wires. His detractors deserve equal space. The erudite and tri-lingually eloquent Jairam Ramesh has lost his credibility by becoming his master’s voice. Loyalty is a rare virtue these days, but to shut one’s mind, eyes and ears to open the mouth wide trying to tear a (not yet former) colleague doesn’t behove him. Jealousy, the Green-Eyed Monster, seems to be stalking the Congress Camp. There is no prospect of Congress returning to power any where with RaGa at the helm. The matriarch, the siblings, and the next generation waiting in the wings, have converted a political party with democratic traditions to a petty family enterprise whose priorities are to somehow retain a few pocket boroughs. A feudal mindset prevails and the sense of entitlement is nauseating.
The heirs don’t tire of reminding what sacrifices generations of this dynasty have made to liberate India. With all due respect to the first visionary Prime Minister, JLN, the strong-willed Indira Gandhi, and the ‘good man in bad company’ Rajiv, one is duty-bound to tell these people living in echo chambers or soap bubbles that it wasn’t just three or four members of the clan who laid down their lives or renounced the riches and comforts to serve the impoverished masses. The list of martyrs is long and includes people who had done so even before the advent of MK Gandhi, the Father of the Nation. This isn’t the place to remind our compatriots of the blunders and failures of the founding fathers—in domestic and foreign policy. This job is being done in the blunderbuss-welding motor mouths of the BJP.
Tharoor may yet pip the RaGa favourite to the post of CM in Kerala and steal his remaining thunder if any residue has survived after repeated dismal failures and flounders. Congress may expel the forever dissenting delinquent from the party who has already shrugged his shoulders and said he has better things to do than respond to critics in the party and trolls.
The issue is much larger than Tharoor’s future. Congress has repeated ad nauseam in recent days that the BJP lacks spokespersons that’s why it has had to press Dr T into the job. The fact is that it’s the Congress party that with the exception of Jairam Ramesh has no one who can perform the job to convince the general public that the party still matters. The hauteur and hubris of RaGa, and Sonia ailing but pulling the strings from the wings, have reduced people like Pawan Khera and guest artistes who put up cameo appearances to fumbling puppets.
Congress’ ire is engendered by the fact that Tharoor’s name hadn’t been recommended to be included in the all-party diplomatic delegation to communicate to the world India’s position on terrorism after Operation Sindoor. Playing games to keep favourites in the coterie guessing may be good ‘palace politics’; but it certainly doesn’t serve national interest.
It’s true that the exercise by the government appears to be electorally timed more for domestic constituency than any foreign audience. The air raid sirens and blackouts in border states continue. This is not the time to ask inconvenient questions. Are we at peace or at war? What about dissent, disagreement and fundamental rights and freedom of speech?