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Playing Judas

The hullabaloo over the sacking of Suresh Navale from the Maharashtra ministry appears to have, fortunately, ended. So has the fracas between the Shiv Sena and the BJP. Only the Congress remains watchful, hoping to break through the grey mood that prevails over Maharashtra politics.

But Prataprao Bhosle is a clever man. Cleverer, in fact, than Sharad Pawar. So he speaks less, plans his strategy more cautiously, keeps his own wisdom. The only ostensible step he has taken till now is to remove the portrait of Pawar from his office in the MPCC. Which is actually a statement, not a step. The troika of deserters who have hijacked the headlines recently -- Bhujbal, Naik and Gawande -- have no power over him and it seems unlikely that he will strike at the alliance government before he gets a more realistic feel of things. Right now, he is only groping.

He is lucky in the sense that he carries no baggage of hate. Neither is he seeking any retribution. He is part of no cabal and reports to no one but Sonia directly and, for her, Maharashtra is not a priority. Not as yet. It is only a small, critical part of her overall nationwide strategy for putting the Congress back on its feet. So she is unlikely to make the kind of enthusiastic mistakes that Pawar (by now) is famous for.

But the obsession of the media continues. For Navale and his personal security.

True, it was an ugly thing to do. To threaten a man. In fact, a state minister. But, as the media itself has been reporting of late, almost everyone in Mumbai is being threatened today. From film makers to restaurant owners to small businessmen to shakha pramukhs to builders to movie stars to reformist Muslim clergy. Some of them have even been shot. Others have been shot at. In fact, if security is any indication, the biggest threat (for years now) has been on the life of the Shiv Sena chief himself. But no one makes a fuss about it anymore.

Everyone knows how dangerous public life has become. Risk is a natural corollary of today's politics, where violence and crime breed faster than rabbits. Anyone can be killed at any time. It is called the Lennon Syndrome. By killing someone in the headlines you can hit the headlines yourself. That and the despairing hopelessness of their lives drives thousands of faceless young people to a life of cheap, easy crime. Mostly committed far away from the villages of Bihar or UP, where most of these young men come from. Lured by the big city lights.

But what makes Navale special? So special that the risk to his life -- infinitely less than the risk to the lives of far more famous Mumbaiwallahs --got so much attention in the media, the assembly, and even in Parliament. No one sheds tears for Lal Kishinchand Advani, against whom there are many more serious death threats. No one sheds tears for Farooq Abdullah, who can be blown away any moment by the terrorists in Kashmir. No one sheds tears even for Sonia, who has already lost her mother-in-law and her husband to assassins. In fact, for years now, the media has done exactly the opposite. They have demanded that security coverage for VIPs must be withdrawn or, at least, scaled down.

So why is Navale so important that everyone wants him to get Z class security?

Frankly, Navale should be worried sick. Worried that he is being used, being made a political scapegoat. Heavens forbid, should anything happen to him, the political targets have been already identified. That small, rumbustious bunch of Shiv Sainiks who gathered outside his bungalow one day before the assembly session began, to protest against his role as a dal badloo.

No one exactly knows if Navale is a dal badloo. Defectors do not hang a board around their neck saying that they are about to switch loyalties from one party to another. But their actions usually give them away. As did Navale's. And that is why some members of the party that had given him a ticket to contest the elections, the ticket on which he won and came to power and was trusted enough to be given an important ministry in the Maharashtra cabinet, decided to tell him (albeit somewhat forcefully) that they will not tolerate any disloyalty.

Perhaps they did it in an inelegant way. Perhaps they intimidated him. But angry crowds intimidate everyone. Thugs, robbers, rapists, murderers, pickpockets. Is it surprising that this angry crowd intimidated a man who they thought was disloyal to the party that had brought him into politics and given him such an important ministry? Has defection become so predictable and commonplace in Indian politics that no one, not even those who vote such people to office are expected to be angry and outraged by it?

Are we, in other words, condoning betrayal? Are you and I defending the constitutional right of dishonest, unscrupulous, dal badloo politicians to keep changing their parties, their allegiance, their convictions to suit their personal agenda?

If that is so, do not protest against corruption next time. Do not complain against the declining mores of your leaders. Do not take a high moral stand on any issue because you are ready to condone the first and most crucial act of political immorality. Switching sides. That is: Winning on the ticket of one party and then playing footsy with another.

If you believe that a politician has the inalienable right to abandon the party that brought him to power, if you are convinced that the electorate has no business to complain, to protest against this betrayal, to scold, to scare and punish the errant politician, then you must stop protesting about the decline in the quality of our public life. In that case, be ready to be ruled by chors, dacaits, dal badloos.

No, this is not to condone violence and intimidation. It is merely to make three simple, inescapable points that everyone is missing in the Navale affair.

One: If you intend to be a Judas, by all means be so. But remember one thing: Those who have brought you to power have a right to protest -- and this right, in the current environment of despair and anger -- can often lead to violence. You can condemn this violence but those who have been let down, see it as righteous punishment. Can you blame them?

Two: All public figures are vulnerable to danger. Particularly those in politics. For they live their lives in the theatre of violence where everyone risks his or her life the moment they enter the public domain. This is no longer avoidable. Even the Mahatma was murdered. So was Indira Gandhi. So was Rajiv. That has not stopped thousands of Indians from entering politics. So why shed crocodile tears for an errant Navale?

Three: You cannot have two separate codes of conduct. One for common people. One for politicians. If being a turncoat, a renegade, a defector is bad in real life, it must be bad in politics. Let us not kid ourselves. Let us not pretend that politics is above the laws of decent behaviour. Will you trust a disloyal, unreliable, unworthy man? If not, why blame the angry Sainiks who turned up outside Navale's bungalow and threatened him for playing Judas to their leader?

Thirty pieces of silver have never bought peace for anyone. They cannot buy peace for Suresh Navale.

Pritish Nandy is now a Shiv Sena member of the Rajya Sabha.

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