By Swapan Dasgupta
To be a successful politician in India, an
individual must be blessed with three attributes: the art of listening
patiently, the ability to tolerate fools and the skin of a rhinoceros. Most of
the successful practitioners of what has come to be a disreputable profession
in India normally manage the first two—witness the career graph of Manmohan
Singh. However, when it comes to the third, there are too many that falter.
Last month, Mamata Banerjee became a target of
derision because she couldn’t countenance the insolence of a farmer who heckled
her at a public meeting. He was dubbed a Maoist and spent a week or so cooling
his heels in prison.
The man was lucky. On the evening of November 1,
1975, the Government of the day had organised a reception for delegates to the
Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference in Delhi’s Red Fort. This being at the
height of the Emergency, a group of young men suddenly got up from their seats,
shouted a few slogans against the murder of democracy and threw leaflets in the
air. The police and some Congress activists rushed in and began rounding up the
demonstrators.
According to the Interim Report of the Shah
Commission of Inquiry into the Emergency’s excesses, a reporter “saw that one
of the demonstrators was caught by the wrist by a lady, who—he later came to
know—was Mrs Ambika Soni.” The journalist, in a fit of misplaced
meddlesomeness, is said to have told the all-powerful right hand woman of
Sanjay Gandhi, “to leave the job of arresting the demonstrators to the police”.
Upon seeing this exchange with Soni, “the then SP (CID) came running to the
spot and after speaking to Mrs Soni briefly ordered the policemen to arrest”
the journalist who was then led away to a police van.
It is said that Soni, on learning that the difficult
individual was from the media, asked him: “Don’t you think it was your duty to
help me arrest the boy instead of preventing me?” Pat came the reply: “…it was
none of your business when the police are there in large numbers.”
This was no way to talk to the head of the Youth
Congress. Soni’s reply was terse and to the point: “OK then you go in.” And in
he indeed went, detained under the draconian Maintenance of Internal Security
Act (MISA) for nearly nine months.
It is unlikely that the Minister of Information and
Broadcasting in Manmohan Singh’s Government would want to be reminded of this
incident today. Much has happened in India in the intervening 37 years for
anyone to seriously believe that the whimsical highhandedness of the Emergency
can ever be repeated. Media insolence has become a feature of contemporary
life, despite the consternation of the Establishment. Yet, at odd times the
ingrained imperiousness that comes with a hierarchical society resurfaces.
Last week, incensed by a report in Washington Post detailing the falling
stock of the Prime Minister, Soni flew
off the handle again. She called the report—which merely replicates what is being
said in the domestic media on a daily basis—“yellow journalism” , demanded an
abject apology and, failing that, a formal complaint to the US Government. The
Prime Minister’s media minders also plugged into the outrage and, given the
outburst of ugliness, there could even be a threat to cancel the reporter’s
visa.
There are two issues involved. First, there is an astonishing
show of prickliness over anything critical that appears overseas. This suggests
a deeply ingrained inferiority complex that most foreigners find deeply
amusing. Whereas Chinese xenophobia stems from the country’s upward climb,
India’s gripes are centred on either frustration or plain pig-headedness. Somehow
we seem to believe that the rest of the world lives to undermine India, its
beloved leaders and subvert our pre-destined journey to greatness.
Sunday Times of India, September 9, 2012
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