Thomas Paine, philosopher and one of the United States’ founding fathers once wrote: “One of the strongest natural proofs of the folly of hereditary right in kings, is, that nature disapproves it, otherwise she would not so frequently turn it into ridicule by giving mankind an ass for a lion.” What is unfortunate is that both the world’s oldest as well as the world’s largest democracies don’t seem to catch a break. They keep coming across good-for-nothings who exercise undeserved influence by virtue of birth.
If the Congress Party ruled India for sixty years banking on one surname, the current flagbearer has turned this asset into a liability courtesy his striking incompetence. But this phenomenon plagues the right wing in India too, proving once again that some things just cannot be passed on. The most glaring example by far, is the Thackeray clan.
Let me begin by bursting the bubble of many who have followed the mainstream media religiously, and have grown up with the belief that the Thackeray clan and the political outfit the patriarch set up, is a symbol of degeneracy. I must confess that I too, much like them, lapped up this nonsense for many years. This is simply not true. As is often the case, the staunchest nationalists who dare to stand up against the country’s greatest ills often find themselves on the opposing end of the mainstream narrative.
Balasaheb Thackeray was painted as a divisive, anti-progressive, hate-mongering figure throughout his political career. But there was a time when most of Maharashtra’s political class, bureaucracy and law enforcement was directly controlled by the Islamist underworld. Had things gone the Congress Party’s way back then, perhaps Dawood Ibrahim would have seized the state’s chief ministership at some point. Balasaheb was the only one who stood up to this spectacle, and eventually put an end to it. There was a time when communist unions were bringing erstwhile Bombay to its knees. Balasaheb would have none of it, and it is entirely because of him that Mumbai continues to be India’s commercial capital. Sikhs and Kashmiri Pandits persecuted in their own country were provided a safe haven by him.
Of course, this does not mean that the outfit he achieved these ends without violence or in accordance with the law. But this was a man who loved his country deeply, and had the guts to carry out whatever it took to keep it sanctified in every respect. His son who took over the party after his passing has never shown much interest in upholding its values. Instead, the party’s legacy has been used as a vehicle for cheap political gains.
Under Uddhav, the party often takes positions which would have been unthinkable during the Balasaheb era. No wonder its core electoral base is fast eroding.
What is unfortunate is that post the emergence of Narendra Modi, the outfit could have been an asset in the right wing’s quest to change the status-quo of the last seventy years. But post the emergence of Narendra Modi, not only has the party been a liability to the right wing but to the country in general.
Uddhav’s latest salvo has once again left Balasaheb’s supporters and admirers in disbelief. Speaking about the government’s demonetization drive, Uddhav has made three points: he has told the prime minister that shedding tears is not enough when people are suffering, he has demanded a Brexit style referendum over demonetization, and he has asked people to take former prime minister Manmohan Singh’s statement on demonetization seriously.
With this stance, Uddhav has now placed himself at par with Arvind Kejriwal and Mamata Banerjee. Instead of appreciating the turn prime minister Modi’s fight against black money has taken, instead of appreciating prime minister Modi’s efforts towards creating a cashless economy, he has chosen to stand with those who are frantically attempting to salvage their ill-gotten wealth. The lacks of men and women who stood patiently in queues outside their banks will stand in queues outside their polling booths in 2019. Can Uddhav even conceive of the sheer guts it takes for a democratically elected government to carry out an exercise of this nature, irrespective of its pros and cons?
Uddhav’s demand for a Brexit style referendum a fortnight into the exercise, after lacks of crores of rupees have already been deposited in bank accounts, cannot be taken seriously. But what is an even bigger joke, is his demand that the former prime minister be taken seriously. Manmohan Singh has finally spoken, something we have hardly seen since 2004. His description of the demonetization exercise- monumental mismanagement, organized loot, legalized plunder- is reminiscent of his ten years in office. This is a man who led the most corrupt government in the country’s history. No other government has been booted out of office the way his government was in 2014, when the party bagged a dismal 44 seats. It is high time Uddhav understood, like most people have, that the way Singh is described by the mainstream media- man of high integrity, great economist- is humbug. If there’s one thing the former prime minister is good at, it is taking orders. He did it in 1991, he did it between 2004 and 2014, and he continues to do it today.
The Sena receding into insignificance more each day, is Uddhav’s own doing. Right from the start, the Thackeray scion lacked charisma and political acumen. This was evident from the way his cousin Raj, much more in sync with Balasaheb’s thinking and politics, snatched a significant portion of the Sena’s support base right from under Uddhav’s nose. It was even more evident when the Modi-Shah duo played their cards right, and relegated the Sena to playing second fiddle in the NDA even at the state level. It is most evident now, when instead of standing for national interest like Balasaheb would have, Uddhav is digging his political grave deeper every day.