Old disorder changeth, older one emergeth!

THE GREAT INDIAN CIRCUS

The country is currently being rocked by earth-shattering developments …no, not in Kargil or the stock markets…but in Janata Dal. Yes, yes, it is still around, very much alive and kicking…at itself. One of its leaders has even predicted that the momentous events happening in that great outfit is going to change the course of Indian politics itself. Towards disaster, we may add, if one is to take him seriously.

But we need not. For, we the people who have been bitten not once but several times by the Dal bug, know better what chemical reactions occur when its leaders get together to confabulate which itself is very rare as each is a law unto himself. Normally, when these stuffed titans clash, there occurs a series of explosions and the miniscule, molecular Dal splits into numerous atoms.

Some atoms go astray and vanish, while a few others regroup and form new Dals. But the beauty about the splits in the Dal is that they happen without any external provocation. Dals wither from within. And hence cause minimum impact on the political environment, thankfully.

The Janata Dal is splitting, once again. The ball has been set rolling by J.H.Patel who has suddenly shed his hangover and is reportedly working even after sundown. There is also this ominous rumour that the stray splinters emerging as a result are gearing up to regroup and revive the nightmare of Janata Party, the Janata Dal’s ancestor by blood, habit and fate. The decision to resurrect that fossil is unanimous, the leaders claim.

The project also has the blessings and support of a score of Dal alumni, it is learnt, who in fact far outnumber the present membership of the Dal. Then why should the Dal split, one may ask. Having arrived at an united decision, the Dalists are now fighting over which road to take to power- the communal one or the secular one.

The party is now all set to take both the routes and hence faces a vertical division across its being or whatever is left of it, with each part treading its own path which again will branch off into several sub Dals. You may call it diversity in unity.

With the Dal’s reproductive mechanism working to full capacity, several Dals are bound to sprout in the short run itself. We are now likely to have Paswan Dal in Bihar, Patel and Gowda Dals in Karnataka, besides the existing Laloo Dal and Biju Dal, but all Dals for sure. Predictably these will again split into even smaller particles like Pas Dal and Wan Dal or Deve Dal and Gowda Dal. Laloo Dal seems relatively insulated from further splits unless of course, Laloo divorces Rabri or vice versa.

Wait a sec…okay..fine. The Dal specialist at the desk informs me that, though my assessment of the infallibility of the Laloo Dal is true at the national level, the TN Rashtriya Janata Dal had split quite noiselessly a few days back. The breakaway faction claims a strength of nearly two lakh members leading one to speculate if they have started enlisting cattle too into the party fold. It may even go well with the party’s fodder image.

One can spot the Janata Dal in TN too if only one has the eye for it. Its leader, who also doubles up as the cadre, is in fact now in circulation after his hopes of a Lok Sabha ticket from the secular front were dashed a few days back. One can expect the party to add its ‘might’ to the emerging third force led by the TMC, which is struggling to muster the adequate numbers to call itself a Front.

Why do Dalists bicker all the time and keep splitting hairs besides their party? Their outfit’s penchant for hara kiri can be traced to its basic genetics. A brainchild of that one man suicide squad answering to the name Weepy Singh, the Dal has inherited all his qualities of self destruction and even his ‘split’ personality.

Add to it, the mentor’s ‘mental’ make up as certified by an Agra hospital and his confused, dreamy approach to issues, and you really have an off-spring that is deformed, demented and irrevocably fated to doom. The Dal can never go against its inbuilt, inborn proclivities, howsoever it tries, though there is no indication that any attempt has been made to alter its chemistry.

Little wonder that even long after the Raja of Manda has quit the political scene, his spell continues to haunt his legacy. For that matter, most of the current problems that haunt the nation itself, like Kashmir, mandal, mandir, etc etc have their genesis in the Raja’s disastrous eleven month stint. Indian politics has never been the same after that weepy touch.

Ironically, the Dal can boast of giving the nation four PMs, almost as many as the Congress did. Only that, while five Congress PMs reigned for nearly forty five years, the tenures of the foursome from the Dal do not add up to even a single term! The Dals, past, present and future ones, also contain the maximum number of PM aspirants. In fact, the current fight between ‘communalism and secularism’ raging inside the Dal is more a race among these prospective suitors for safe constituencies.

Each stal’wart’ wants to ensure his passage to Parliament, just in case it hangs again and their current actions are motivated by their perceptions about whose company would enable that to happen. With as many perceptions as there are leaders, little surprise that there are as many Dals. And little wonder that whenever we think of Dals, we get ‘splitting’ headaches!

e-mail the writer at
[email protected]