You have probably seen bigger outpourings of popular grief, and partymen’s sycophancy, following the deaths of many other regional or state leaders. I was once caught for hours on Christmas Eve 1987, at the peak of the IPKF’s Op Pawan, in the middle of a minefield of sorts, just a mile short of what is called Elephant Pass, connecting the Jaffna Peninsula with the rest of Sri Lanka. Across the Palk Straits, MGR had passed away and there was no way the mourning Sri Lankan Tamils would let anybody move on the road. Meanwhile, many were committing suicide in Tamil Nadu.

The deaths of N.T. Rama Rao, even Sheikh Abdullah in the rather distant past, had led to similar twin reactions: grief, and demands for the anointment of family heirs.

But when was the last time you saw that on the death of a regional Congress leader? Most of them died more or less unsung, their funerals consisting almost entirely of their family and relatives, besides some token presence from the local party and the high command.

This should put Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy in a proper perspective, in life and death. Normally, such an unexpected departure of a Congress chief minister would have resulted in routine utterances of sympathy — and then the usual jockeying to grab the space he would have vacated. But the entire Congress party, and the Telugu street, turned out to mourn as if he wasn’t just another Congress chief minister but some Southern celluloid cult-figure. Almost the entire legislature party demanded that his still wet-behind-the-ears son be made chief minister. The entire cabinet passed a resolution endorsing that. You can of course say that YSR, in his decade-long leadership of the party, had squashed all dissidence. But normally, it is precisely for that reason that you would have seen many former dissidents rise just as he died. What are they afraid of, now that the man is gone? Yet, all of them, including 77-year-old caretaker chief minister Rosaiah, are saying they would have no objection if YSR’s son steps in. This is not the way you treat a departed state leader or his family in the Congress party.

... contd.