L'affaire Shashi Tharoor

Of probity and provincialism

Nobody who is caught with his hand in the till ever admits to his guilt till proven guilty in a court of law; all sense of decency and honour, dignity and respect, evaporates and yields space to belligerence followed by maudlin sentiments of hurt innocence. So also with the disgraced former Minister of State for External Affairs who once famously tweeted to me that he was proud to be associated with the Congress because of its “tolerance” and “liberal values”.

That was in response to my tweet (not the one on 'cattle class' travel which led to his first taste of controversy!) pointing out his irreverent comments about Mrs Indira Gandhi and the Congress’s first family (“Had Indira’s Parsi husband been a Toddywalla rather than so conveniently a Gandhi, I sometimes wonder, might India’s political history have been different?”) in his book India: From Midnight to the Millennium and Beyond. This was soon after Mr Jaswant Singh’s unceremonious exit from the BJP following the publication of his book Jinnah — India, Partition, Independence and Mr Tharoor was all over Twitter, patronisingly gloating over a veteran politician’s fall from grace in his party.

For all its ‘tolerance’ and ‘liberal values’, the Congress has not been particularly tolerant about Mr Tharoor’s extra-ministerial activities or liberal towards his cavalier attitude. When push came to shove, the Congress disowned him and distanced itself from his interest in promoting T20 cricket in Kochi. It would be in bad form and poor taste to gloat over Mr Tharoor’s current plight, but it would be perfectly in order to point out that arrivistes in politics should resist the temptation of excessive preening.

It is not the least surprising that Mr Tharoor, whose Dubai-based fiancée was a beneficiary by way of free ‘sweat’ equity worth Rs 70 crore from IPL’s Kochi franchise deal (hours before he was given marching orders she offered to return the shares which only served to implicate him) should have pretended outrage, flown into a temper with journalists, belligerently asserted that under no circumstances would he resign from office, only to be told to put in his papers last Sunday evening. He has now predictably resorted to mawkish claims of victimhood.

Reading out a statement in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday, Mr Tharoor declared, though not for the first time, “My conscience is clear and I know that I have done nothing improper or unethical, let alone illegal… I am deeply wounded by the fanciful and malicious charges that have been made against me.” We have heard similar remonstrations of innocence before by those accused of compromising their integrity.

He could have, however, spared us the claim that he resigned from the Union Council of Ministers to uphold the “highest moral traditions of our democratic system” and to “avoid embarrassment to the Government”. He did not resign voluntarily when unsavoury details (including those of his role which went well beyond that of a neutral ‘mentor’) of the IPL’s Kochi franchise scandal surfaced in media, which would have been the honourable thing to do; he was told to go by his party bosses. Had he resigned immediately, or at least offered to resign, rather than arrogantly cavil at the suggestion that he should do so to uphold the “highest moral traditions of our democratic system” he now cites, his reputation might have been tarred but it would not have been lying in tatters today.

Nor is any purpose served by his informing the Lok Sabha that he has “requested the Prime Minister to have these charges (against him) thoroughly investigated”. Whatever else may be the Prime Minister’s shortcomings, and he has many, he is not known to be a man who acts in haste. Neither is Mr Pranab Mukherjee known for arriving at a decision without carefully scrutinising and considering all available facts. A formal inquiry should be conducted into l’affaire Shashi Tharoor, but irrespective of its findings, which cannot possibly controvert the facts of the case, the smooth-talking former Minister would do well to bear in mind that in politics perception matters more than reality and the past is often, if not always, swamped by the present. Politics is a harsh world far removed from the rarefied confines of the UN headquarters in New York.

It would, however, be churlish to deny Mr Tharoor the right to defend himself and clear his name; others with a far lower integrity quotient have been given that opportunity. After all, as he has eloquently pointed out in his statement in the Lok Sabha, he has “a long record of public service unblemished by the slightest tint of financial irregularity”. That he served the UN under Mr Kofi Annan, who will be remembered as a Secretary-General who fetched immense disrepute to the organisation and whose son was found to have benefited from UN contracts, is inconsequential. Although it could be asked as to whether his conscience troubled him every time media reported about Mr Annan’s, or his son Kojo’s, dubious deeds. Of course, the perks of office can have a numbing effect on the conscience of the most honest person, as can the loaves and fishes of office.

What is reprehensible is Mr Tharoor’s attempt — there’s nothing covert or sly about it — to provoke provincial resentment against his sacking from the Government. No doubt he has been elected to the Lok Sabha from Thiruvananthapuram, but he was a Minister in the Government of India, not the Government of Kerala. As an MP, he is tangentially responsible for minding the interests of his constituency as his primary job is to participate in parliamentary debates on national affairs and help frame laws on national issues. As a member of the Union Council of Ministers, his remit was to mind India’s foreign affairs.

By repeatedly referring to Thiruvananthapuram and Kerala, the “ethos of Kerala”, the people of Kerala (with whom he had no association at all during his growing up years in Kolkata and Delhi and the many decades he spent at the UN) he has tried to link high issues of ministerial probity with low politics of provincial identity. The unstated though clear message he has sought to send out is that an elected representative of Kerala is being unjustly penalised. That’s balderdash and Mr Tharoor, more than anybody else, knows it.

It’s strange that a suave, accomplished person with an impressive track record of serving an international organisation with distinction, and whose last tweet sent out at 11.16 pm on April 16 reads, “U folks are the new India. We will ‘be the change’ we wish to see in our country,” should fall back on the discredited ‘old’ politics of provincial pride and prejudice in his time of trouble. That’s as distressing as his fiancée benefiting from a cricket franchise deal that he ‘mentored’.

(My blog on the mess called IPL/BCCI will appear soon. And no, I am not a fan of Lalit K Modi nor do I fly the flag for IPL.)

[This appeared as the main edit page article in The Pioneer on April 21, 2010.]

Chasing out Biharis from Mumbai

Nothing unique about Mumbai
The deplorable assault on 'North Indians' and 'South Indians' in Mumbai, Nashik, Pune and other towns of Maharashtra by hoodlums masquerading as 'political activists' has understandably fetched condemnation from saner sections of society, including in those places where hawkers, taxi drivers and labourers are being targeted because they speak a language other than Marathi. It is immaterial whether the thugs on the prowl owe allegiance to Mr Raj Thackeray, who heads the so-called Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, or to Mr Uddhav Thackeray, executive president of the Shiv Sena. If the situation so demands and the opportunity is rewarding enough, they would as well offer their services to the Congress or, for that matter, any other political organisation.
The Shiv Sena, of course, is the original sinner: 'Maharashtra for Maharashtrians' is not only a slogan for Mr Balasaheb Thackeray's sainiks, but also the raison d'être of the deeply parochial organisation he founded in 1966 to combat "Marathi marginalisation". That was six years after Maharashtra's formation following an often violent agitation by Samyukta Maharashtra Samiti, culminating in the infamous police firing on agitators at Mumbai's Flora Fountain in which 105 people were killed, forcing a cussed Morarji Desai to climb down from his high horse. Strangely though, Mr Balasaheb Thackeray did not unleash the city's lumpenproletariat on Gujarati traders and businessmen, who stayed put after Bombay State was carved into Maharashtra and Gujarat, but immigrant Tamilians and their Udupi eateries. It is the turn of 'North Indians' now.
Much has been said and written to denounce the current spate of violence against 'outsiders'; the Thackeray cousins deserve much of the castigation that has come their way. But in our haste to criticise their noxious politics of nativism, let us not forget that parochialism is the other name for regionalism. Nor should we lose sight of the fact that 'State politics' across India, as opposed to 'national politics', is largely based on pandering to parochial pride and provincial sentiments camouflaged as regional aspirations. In Tamil Nadu, the idea of a 'Dravida Desam' where Brahmins -- described as "agents of North India" in DMK pamphlets -- shall have no place, continues to titillate popular imagination. In Andhra Pradesh, NT Rama Rao made 'Telugu Desam' the platform of his politics; his political heir, Mr Chandrababu Naidu, who now heads the Telugu Desam Party, continues to build on it.
It may be entirely coincidental, but it is interesting that soon after Mr Raj Thackeray set his goons on 'North Indians' in Mumbai and elsewhere, Mr Shibu Soren, who heads the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, addressing a rally in Dumka, asserted that Jharkhand is the "sole preserve" of adivasis and moolvasis. Reminding his adivasi audience that Jharkhand was created for the "rights of tribals and not non-tribals", Mr Soren said, "What we wanted was the rapid development of Jharkhand... (for) the actual sons-of-the-soil. We (adivasis) helped create Jharkhand, but we are yet to taste its fruits."
Mr Soren cunningly stopped short of declaring that dikus, or 'outsiders', are not welcome in Jharkhand, but his message was no less unambiguous than that of the Thackeray cousins. The lib-left intelligentsia will, of course, disingenuously suggest that there is merit in pursuing a 'tribals first' policy in Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh; after all, they are the original inhabitants and have been marginalised in their own land. But shorn of shrill and crude rhetoric, this is precisely what is being claimed in Maharashtra -- 'sons-of-the-soil' have the first right to jobs, housing and amenities.
A similar sentiment is cited to justify violence against non-Assamese in Assam where migrant labourers and traders from Bihar continue to be targeted by 'sons-of-the-soil' seeking to assert their rights in their State. Many would still recall the anti-foreigners agitation that was triggered by the discovery of voters in Mongoldoi having multiplied several times over, thanks to illegal immigration from Bangladesh, when a by-election was necessitated following the death of Hiralal Patwa on March 28, 1979. Till the signing of the Assam Accord in 1985, the All-Assam Students' Union, which organised the 'Bangaal kheda' agitation, held the State, and the country, to ransom. It is another matter that despite being in power twice, the AGP has failed miserably in tracking down and deporting Bangladeshis; the IMDT Act of 1983 is not alone to blame for this failure.
But few would recall that the seeds of the anti-foreigners agitation were sown during an earlier virulently parochial agitation against 'outsiders', disparagingly referred to as "Ali-Kuli-Bangaali". Very few Bengalis now remain in Assam, most having migrated back to West Bengal, while kulis -- tribals from what was once known as Chhota Nagpur -- employed in tea gardens continue to face the wrath of the 'sons-of-the-soil', some of whom recently stripped and chased a young tribal girl in the streets of Guwahati as others gawked.
It would, however, be incorrect to believe that the perceived rights of 'sons- of-the-soil' over those of 'outsiders' followed the creation of linguistic States. TN Joseph and SN Sangita, in their research paper, Preferential Politics and Sons-of-the-Soil Demands: The Indian Experience, have pointed out how the 'sons-of-the-soil' demands were advocated by leaders of the nationalist movement. "For instance, a report prepared by Rajendra Prasad for the Working Committee of the Indian National Congress presents an extensive survey of the Bihar situation as of 1938. This report, endorsed by the Indian National Congress, uses the term provincials to refer to the sons-of-the-soil and declares that their 'desire to seek employment in their own locality is natural and not reprehensible, and rules providing for such employment to them are not inconsistent with the high ideals of the Congress.' Rajendra Prasad argued in the report that it is 'just and proper that the residents of a province should get preference in their own province in the matter of public services and educational facilities... It is neither possible nor wise to ignore these demands, and it must be recognised that in regard to services and like matters the people of a province have a certain claim which cannot be overlooked'."
Between 1938 and 2008, India has travelled a long distance and the national economy is now vastly different from what it was even a decade ago. But provincialism -- or call it what you may -- remains as deeply ingrained as ever. 'Cosmopolitan India' is a figment of South Delhi's imagination.