For politics which runs without fear or favour
If every MP has freedom of speech, every party has well-considered patience with the MP who uses that freedom, and the public puts cynicism aside and sees democracy at work in such expressions, we would be worthy of our Republic
You are not pro-government if you appreciate a good thing done by it. You are not anti-government if you criticise a wrong committed by it. And so, I am entirely with the Congress Member of Parliament (MP) for Thiruvananthapuram when he feels inclined to praise Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi’s interactions with United States (US) President Donald Trump. His welcoming of the trade negotiations between the two leaders and their apparently beneficial (to India) outcomes is an expression of his objective appraisal. This praise was accompanied by his disquiet over the lack of any official indication of Modi having taken up with Trump, the wholly unacceptable treatment of Indians being deported by the US administration. The two expressions — appreciation of the trade segment and dismay over the deportation process — amount to the politics which runs without fear or favour.
Shashi Tharoor’s statement also included a clear disapproval of the illegal immigration into the US by misguided and misused Indians seeking a better life. No government and for that matter, no Indian can condone or explain away an illegal act by a fellow citizen. Nor object to a foreign government taking legitimate steps to correct or reverse such illegal action. Tharoor has been honest in his praise, and unambiguous in his criticism which has included disapproval of the methods employed by the US administration as well as of the errant immigration-law breakers concerned. In doing this, Tharoor has taken a risk. In fact, three. And no ordinary ones at that.
First, he has invited the risk of looking like he harbours some devious aims. “Isme chakkar kya hai?” (what is the game behind this?) is a standard reaction of the cynical Indian or the cynic in every Indian who follows political news. Is Tharoor’s praise for Modi a “job application”? Is he angling for something, some favour, some exculpation? Is he wanting to get some super-high assignment abroad, or within India, or a high award or recognition by the State? Is he seeking to obviate intimidation by the State’s agencies? Or at the very least, is he wanting the PM’s kindly eye, the external affairs minister’s benign nod, the finance minister’s approving glance?
Second, he has stoked the resentment of those within his own party’s ‘good boys and girls’ for defying the stricter codes of party norms and giving thereby a handle to the ruling dispensation to say “Look, even senior Congressmen are now coming around to accepting our leader’s supremacy”. He can be thought of — and dubbed in whispers of — betraying his “real” nature which is not “true Congress”. His DNA can be spoken of as being that of a “transplant” and an “outsider” by party loyalists who may not know the correct expansion of DNA while themselves offering a new one: Do Not Appreciate (anything outside the party).
Third, he has alienated those who are incensed at the deportations by drawing a distinction between the deportations per se and the manner of the deportations.
But Tharoor need not worry! If he has opened himself to three risks, he has rendered three distinct services to Indian democracy as well.
First, by twinning due praise to valid criticism he has told the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s diehards that they cannot assume he has joined his voice from the outside to the party’s diligent and eloquent choir or vadya vrind.
Second, he has obtained from his party’s communications chief Jairam Ramesh a description of the Congress Jawaharlal Nehru would be proud of: “The Indian National Congress is our country’s only political party where there is absolute freedom of speech as well as freedom after speech.” Ramesh has, very rightly, gone further to say that while his party recognises this freedom, its collective voice is what prevails. Fair enough.
Third, and most significantly, a member of the public in a social media response, has described Tharoor’s statement using a simple, standard, but great Hindi word: Sahi. The individual has said Tharoor’s observation is sahi. This is about the highest praise any Indian politician today can get in Hindi from an honest Indian.
Sahi means, at its first gloss, right. But it also denotes correct, true. And suggests something more. It suggests a standpoint that is objective, fair, and untainted by fear or favour. To which one might add unstained by motive or chakkar. It also suggests a certain balance in values, freedom from biases, prejudices and immunity from personal agendas. The word sahi, which has been suggested to me by Artificial Intelligence’s Meta, is of Persian origin. I am not sure of that. It has also been connected to the Sanskrit saha, meaning to be patient, to tolerate.
If every MP has the freedom of speech which Ramesh has spoken of, every party has the considered patience with the MP who uses that freedom, and we, of the general public, put cynicism aside and see democracy at work in such expressions, we would be worthy of our Republic and do sahi by our Constitution,
But I must conclude, with a word for Shashi Tharoor’s consideration. Now that he has praised and criticised sahi, and been seen as sahi, his political graph must move that much more rigorously sahi, clear of the potholes of realpolitik.
The path of the sahi MP is stony and tortuous. He or she must tread it with just the destination in mind. And that destination too must be sahi.
Gopalkrishna Gandhi, a former administrator, is a student of modern Indian history. The views expressed are personal
