:: Inder Malhotra

Is stooping the only way to conquer?

Inder Malhotra

July.22 : OVER the years, the standards of public discourse in this country have been so low as to be appalling. Last week’s sordid events in Uttar Pradesh, the most populous state of the republic — involving two women political leaders, the president of the Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee, Rita Bahuguna Joshi, and the state chief minister, Mayawati — have dragged them down to shockingly lower depths. One hesitates to use the expression lowest depths because no one knows what else might be in store.

The disgusting late-night drama began with a conspicuously angry speech by Ms Joshi in which she denounced the paltriness of the compensation — ranging from Rs 25,000 to Rs 75,000 — given, under a Central law passed in 1989 by the government of her own party, to dalit victims of rape. She particularly condemned Ms Mayawati’s decision to send her director-general of police by helicopter to distribute the "measly" compensation to rape victims, and exhorted these women to "throw the cash at Mayawati’s face". Despite a touch of hysteria, there was nothing wrong so far. But then came her peroration climaxed by a rhetorical question, which, depending on how it is translated from Hindi, could be either "if" or "when" Ms Mayawati "is raped, would Rs 1 crore do?" Ms Joshi did add that if this remark hurts the chief minister, she would offer her "regret".

Almost immediately, despite the lateness of the hour, all hell broke loose. On her way to Delhi, Ms Joshi was arrested, taken to the lock up at Moradabad where a magistrate remanded her to 14 days’ judicial custody. The Uttar Pradesh government, obviously at the instance of the chief minister — who is nothing if not imperious and stoutly jealous when it comes to the rights of the dalit community of which she is the supreme leader — had invoked against the Congress leader both the Indian Penal Code and the Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities Act). The latter provides for severe punishment for not only atrocities on SC/STs but also humiliation of and insults to them.

It is surely debatable whether Ms Mayawati’s legal action against Ms Joshi was warranted or excessive. But even before this question could be asked it became irrelevant as an enraged mob of the chief minister’s supporters burnt down Ms Joshi’s house in Lucknow, as also the four cars parked in its compound. At the same time Congress crowds were out on the streets in Lucknow, Moradabad and other towns, vigorously to protest against their leader’s arrest. The Congress alleges that Ms Mayawati had instigated the arson. Her rejoinder is that the Congress deliberately engineered the blaze. Only an independent inquiry, which requires a less inflamed atmosphere, can settle the matter.

Legal issues are best left to the courts, but the real problem here lies in the political culture and social mores of the country that breed the kind of conflicts that now afflict UP and can erupt anywhere anytime. Sadly, the Congress leadership has been remiss — to put it no more strongly than that — on two counts. First, it should have removed Ms Joshi from the party office she holds immediately after her reprehensible speech. It did not. Expectations that it might do so belatedly are receding because the Central Congress leaders’ defence of her is becoming more and more aggressive and less and less understandable. She herself, after being released on interim bail, has declared that she would "regret" her remarks but not offer any "apology".

Both, the All-India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary in charge of Uttar Pradesh Digvijay Singh, and Union minister for minority affairs Salman Khurshid have said that since Mrs Joshi as well as the Congress Party have regretted the incident this should be the end of the matter and the focus should shift to the arson at Ms Joshi’s home that should be investigated by the Central Bureau of Investigation.

When Mr Khurshid asked, during a TV discussion, whether Ms Joshi’s critics want her "dragged by her hair", he got an appropriate reply from Shekhar Gupta, editor-in-chief of Indian Express, "No, but she can be sacked".

Congress president Sonia Gandhi had at least expressed "pain and anguish" over Ms Joshi’s fulmination. But curiously, party AICC general secretary Rahul Gandhi, speaking at Amethi, declared that Ms Joshi’s choice of words was "unfortunate" but her anger was "justified".

What she had said was not "unfortunate" but venomous, disgraceful and unacceptable, besides being in violation of the law. No amount of anger could justify it.

Secondly, instead of raising the issue of Ms Joshi’s arrest in Parliament with requisite dignity and decorum, the Congress MPs took recourse to the kind of mayhem that had disrupted parliamentary proceedings almost on a daily basis during the preceding five years. Is this what the core of the ruling coalition wants during the coming five years too?

Two other dismal trends call for attention and remedial action. One, women politicians across the political spectrum, instead of uniting in support of women’s empowerment and gender justice, seem to be more eager than their male opposite numbers to run one another down. The saas-bahu syndrome seems operational in politics too.

Ms Joshi is not the only woman leader to be abusive of Ms Mayawati. The Bharatiya Janata Party MP, Maneka Gandhi, had also attacked the Uttar Pradesh chief minister in ugly and personal terms. This she did in the cause of her son, Varun Gandhi, then imprisoned under the National Security Act and now being prosecuted for his "hate speech" at Pilibhit. She targeted Ms Mayawati’s single and spinster status and said that were the chief minister a mother, she would have understood her (Maneka’s) agony over Varun Gandhi. Remarkably, Ms Mayawati, who apparently loves to flaunt her dalit identity rather than her record of governance, has drawn a parallel between the case against Varun and that against Ms Joshi.

Two, more and more politicians are becoming obstreperous, obstructive and a law unto themselves because this brings them the oxygen of publicity. Just imagine if Ms Joshi had chosen to attack the Uttar Pradesh chief minister in civilised terms. Would she have got even a fraction of the splash she is getting day after day in the print media and every hour on the hour on TV channels?