Catastrophe unravels character

Very often, a catastrophe unfolds the character of a person. It is during the troubled times, the innate character prevails. The past decade happened to be the incubating exercise for Congress to culminate into the choicest disaster of all time. It is now working overtime to ripen its fruits. And the fruits are falling to the ground on each passing day.

Deserting an ‘institution’ where nothing can be salvaged from it is an animal instinct. An animal deserts the parent source when it has nothing to draw from. Only one animal, however, is an exception-a dog. Its weakness, unfortunately, is its faithfulness to its master and loyalty. A dog, by name, Abbott died in the process of saving its master when bandits attacked him and the master was grateful to it and created a memorial in its name and called it ‘Abbottsbury’ in Chennai. And then there is yet another bird--which displays its empathy by joining its community when one of its members is hurt or in a crisis--the crow. But this instinctive virtue of an animal is far too complicated and alien to emulate by that animal called man.

There are yet few other creatures which survive on the decomposing carcass. We have both the versions today in Indian politics. Politicians who desert the parent body when it is useless for their purposes and others who try to exploit the spoils.

While the temptation is insurmountable to quote the names of those leaders who switched sides and parties - four times, three times, two times, returning to the same party like a prodigal, embracing the very leader about whom he had spared no words to condemn only the other day - it is startling to see the leader of the party has no qualms whatsoever and can gulp the shame for the sake of enriching his chances at the coming elections with one-upmanship while the faithful cadre crying foul for staying with the defunct party for ten years only to be sidelined by the gate crashers. The shibboleths we hear from these leaders are mindboggling to say the least.

How much shame each of them can gulp and how much civility they can decorate on their faces is something which even the so called experienced actors like us are put to shame. Nobody seem to be caring for the parent body, Congress, thanks to their mindless, autocratic, arrogant, irresponsible, wily maneuvers in surgically cutting the geographical and cultural ethos of a region, trying miserably to court the approval of their party cadres in each dismantled region to usurp power in the ensuing elections. It is an indecent, sick and crooked act with both the regions unhappy for their own reasons. The ‘leftovers’ started reacting not because they are interested in dealing with the calamity but trying to meet their selfish ends consequently. It is a sick, farcical scene watched by the people day in and day out. Do these leaders speak of welfare of the community? Social justice? Glory of their respective constituencies? Are they aware of their existence at all?

It is a mad, nervous charade to come back to power, saving their businesses or their ill-gotten earnings. There was humorous news the other day in the press. Congress- we are told – is fielding 75 new faces in Seemandhra. There was a joke more in bad taste. A man fell from a height on the ground and broke his nose. He is profusely bleeding. He explained to his sympathisers saying that he is merely testing the strength of the ground. It is like a man claiming that he is on fast for a greater cause while he is actually starving for a morsel of food. Giving an opportunity to 75 new faces would have gained credence had these so-called senior and great leaders are in the party and generously gave way to the new faces to take over. Here is a mass exodus and the ‘residual’ leadership who are still clinging on to their posts hoping to enjoy the spoils taking high moral ground of auguring a new era in their party politics. Their posturing resembles that person who broke his nose and talk about his sacrifice with a bleeding nose.

Robinson Crusoe was not a king in an island, but an unfortunate sailor isolated in a place from where he has no means to escape. However, the Seemandra voter is enjoying the tamasha with a wry humour only waiting to spell out his cruel and unequivocal message when he walks into the polling booth. It is said by the great writer Somerset Maugham that ‘hypocrisy is a full time job’. Congress has mastered the art and it took ten long years for the voter to make this fact known to him in full measure.