Fortunately, Mandate’99 has ensured that only one House could be held to ransom. But, unfortunately, when it comes to the crunch as regards the scores of crucial Bills awaiting clearance, the Upper House, whose ratification is deemed a legal necessity, is still a hostage to the vagaries of Parliamentary arithmetic.
And in tune with our tryst with destiny, uncertainty still dogs some of these vital reformist legislations just because a national party whose vote may prove fateful in the RS deems it fit to hold a gun to the Government’s temple. Reason: Inclusion of its long dead leader’s name in the Bofors charge-sheet. You may wonder what has that got to do with such innocuous and unrelated issues as Insurance, Companies Act , Patents and the like. Here is where an understanding of a hijacker’s mentality may come in handy.
Does our slippery brigand Veerappan nurse any grouse towards the scores of hostages that he often entertains in his jungle dens? Do the terrorists who fly away with plane loads of passengers to unplanned destinations have anything at all against their captives? For that matter, do any of the villains, ranging from petty thiefs to gangsters, have anything to offer that connects their act of terror to the victim?
The list could be stretched, but the point is none of these eminent evil men give a dime for reason for their method is blackmail and blackmail alone, to achieve their inglorious missions. They resort to such tactics because there is no other way they could logically fructify their demands which are invariably downright unreasonable.
No sane person can heed them and so it becomes necessary to test that sanity. The name of the game is arm twisting to achieve their mean ends and the plight of their victims is the last thing on the offender’s minds.
Would we, then, be wrong in concluding that the Congress of Sonia is now imitating a professional kidnapper with all its consummate skills of blackmail and bargain on display? The party obviously does not appear to feel even remotely shy of making such a spectacle of itself, it being a hostage to the self preserving ways of its leader.
The enthusiasm with which all its stalwarts and warts alike have joined the ransom chorus leaves none in doubt about where the Congress’s prime interests lie-protecting and perpetuating Sonia’s family’s hold over the party and if, possible, extending it to the nation. What is on show is just a sequel to the unseemly celebrations outside Ten, Janpath, when the leading lady jocularly remarked that she was remitting office as Congress President, feigning hurt at the ‘insinuation’ that she was a foreigner.
But Congressmen are fast learners, particularly when it comes to slavery and servility. So, this time around, despite a severe thrashing at the hustings, but even without any visible prompting from the top, they have still taken the silent cue and gone all out to immunise and insulate their beloved leader from such avoidable irritants like CBI chargesheets, investigations and so on.
It is at once, incongruent and pathetic to see even leading lights like the financial wizard Manmohan Singh and legal brains such as Kapil Sibal bidding farewell to their intellect and embracing the darkness of unmitigated sycophancy, as if the nation itself has done the family a grave injustice and therefore must make amends.
The question of whether a dead man’s name can figure in a charge-sheet has confounded both legal luminaries as well as political pundits. With charges and counter charges flying fast and thick, it is getting increasingly difficult to wade through the mire of legal and political slush to emerge with a clear conclusion on the right or wrong of the CBI action. The Bofors scandal, despite its trivialisation in monetary terms by subsequent mega scams, still remains the longest surviving mystery in recent times.
If the unsavoury deal still haunts Rajiv’s ghost as it did before he became a ghost, the Congress and its first family have only themselves to blame. They have done precious little to vindicate their stand that their leader had nothing to do with the pay-offs and on the contrary, have consistently resorted to subterfuge and evasionary tactics to ensure that the needle of suspicion is broken.
If they now want to stall Parliament on this count, the minimum that could be expected of them is a readiness on their part for a debate. But when it comes to that, they get as slippery as an eel for they know where a no-holds-barred discussion would eventually lead to.
With Sonia herself gracing Parliament, a debate may prove all too embarrassing, something the protagonists can ill afford. Not that the lady herself can put up a credible defence beyond muttering that she had never heard of Ottavio Quattrochchi. If her pleas fall on deaf ears as it will she can always opt for judicial salvation and spare the nation a prolonged Parliamentary impasse.
The moral of this very democratic Hostage-Ransom story could be enunciated thus: a) Deletion of Rajiv’s name from the Bofors charge-sheet would make the Insurance Bill more palatable to the Unions. b) It would also ensure that the Companies Bill would exactly be what the corporates wanted. c) The patents legislation would become patently free of loopholes and d)…one can go on from issues as sublime as CTBT to ones as trivial as catching stray dogs.
In short, the Congressmen seem to aver that for the country to move forward economically, socially, and what not, it is vital that Rajiv’s name should be excluded. And they would not rest till then. Ludicrous, it is, but is it not happening?
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