Angana Parekh: "Your alliance with the BJP is inconsistent with your socialist background. Why did you do it?" George Fernandes: "We are not allies. We have seat adjustments".Crafted on to this page is a slice of an interview that appeared in this very paper (Jan 27) - accompanied by all the sickly feelings associated with grafting. The alliance in question itself strikes us as a desperate act of political grafting, and there is something sickly and clinical about the firebrand socialist's attempt at a kind of euphemism. And this at a time when language experts are finding out that euphemisms are not just part of a behavioural matrix and, far otherwise, they could be deliberately callous expressions.
The important thing is that Fernandes can be taken to task for reasons other than euphemism, both trivial and grave. He reinvents the wheel: "Dialogue is the answer to all conflicts" (a solution that has been in the air ever since the time of Plato but marketable only now as Bal Thackeray endorses it).He offers an alibi in Cane style while still at the scene of crime: "I am not the keeper of the BJP's conscience" (being interested only in the spoils to be shared with the BJP). He restricts the scope of his ethical responsibility to constituencies where the ethics of the alliance is not on a hotseat: "We do not have seat adjustments in Tamil Nadu, only in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh" (evading questions on the BJP's Jayalalitha connection)...Fernandes is a person with a very long, or stretched out, track record, enviably pure silver to begin with, but one that assumed quicksilver qualities over time, to better negotiate with the lay of the land. 1 spoke about this, when Angana Parekh's piece appeared in The Indian Express, to a political commentator. I told him it was the trail-blazing activism of people like George Fernandes that allured me to politics several years ago. "That," he said acidly, "is what is wrong with your politics." Not mine alone, it seems, India's too.
Now, what kind of politicalbrew is being marketed by the jubilant Coca Cola buster? He says he would like to question those who have criticised him for joining hands with the BJP. "If working together with the RSS-led BMS has not `polluted' the leaders of the Left and JD, 1 would like to know how get polluted when 1 have seat adjustments with the BJP?" Fair enough. No kind of politically amorphous alliance is taboo, for people have already come to terms with the idea in fear of political extinction. And supporting factors follow.
It is not sure how far the country's intricate socio-religious structure could be made compatible with a two-party system. Being on a demographic diet, almost any political party looks thinned down like some Miss World contestants. And, at all costs, we should keep the President at bay. This is a knock-down lattice in which every factor is made agreeable to another. Taken as a whole, however, it collapses under the sheer weight of its ethical vacuity. But why bother about the whole when a Jayalalitha'sblemish is no skin off a Bihari's nose!
So, Fernandesji, in plain officialese, alliances per se is not the bottomline. The right national brew, if it is to be preferred to your arch-enemy Coca Cola, should follow the formula Alliance Minus Seat Adjustments. Will leaders like you ever start thinking about issue-based alliances? Never, for you know well that this is mere idealistic gossamer that will not take politicians anywhere in the realpolitik of chasing votes.
All the same, talking about Seat Adjustments Minus Alliance is real bad. Not because it is a preppy exercise in electoral bromide, but because it sounds so coldblooded and mercenary, whereas even the worst alliance imaginable could boast of a human element or two in its formation. To sum up, this Georgian beverage tastes sour and toxic. So, what's now?
Shall we clamour for Coca-Cola? -- minus multinationalism, let us hasten to add, taking our cue from the vintage socialist in matters of generating pragmatic equations.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
