During the all-party prayer meet to mourn Atal Bihari Vajpayee, leaders from various parties spoke moving words in memory of him. They all shared personal experiences and anecdotes with Vajpayee or something they have heard or read about him. When the turn of Trinamool Congress (TMC) came, member of Rajya Sabha from the party Derek O’Brien appeared to speak. Mamata Banerjee, the leader of TMC and chief minister of West Bengal did not come despite the fact that she had worked as Railway minister in Vajpayee government. Derek O’Brien began his speech saying that he was there on behalf of Mamata ‘didi’. In one of the most inane, emotionless speeches that seemed less about the departed soul and more about how glorious Mamata ‘didi’ is, Derek O’Brien crossed all limits of common courtesy and sycophancy. In his short speech, he mentioned Mamata Banerjee almost equal number of times, if not more, than remembering the departed soul.
O’Brien started his speech with the introduction of Mamata Banerjee and then shared an anecdote about how Vajpayee did not ask a question in the parliament on China because prime minister has requested him not to do so. The question could have hurt the national interest of India and personal standing of prime minister because Chinese premier was in India at that. O’Brien said that all parliamentarians and leaders should learn a lesson from this behavior of Vajpayee ji. However, he forgot the fact his party created obstruction in functioning of parliament on almost every major issue of national interest, be it the release of National Registrar of Citizens (NRC) in Assam to identify and deport illegal immigrant or implementation of GST. His party’s position on illegal Bangladeshi immigrants or Rohingya issue is nowhere in tandem with national interest. So, O’Brien should first counsel his party’s parliamentarians and leaders about standing for national interest.
Then his speech took a weird turn.
He recounted an anecdote regarding Atalji’s visit to Kolkata and his visit to Mamata’s ‘modest house’. Adding a heap of extra sycophancy, Derek O’Brien said “In one of the most famous photographs of modern Indian history, Atal ji is doing ‘pranam’, bending down to Mamata ji’s mother.” If Derek wanted to recount Atal ji’s greatness or humility, there are number of instances and anecdotes about it but his sycophantic vision could only see Atal ji’s greatness in ‘bending down to Mamata ji’s mother.’ It seems, for O’Brien, Atal ji’s famous photograph after Pokhran II tests, his photograph delivering a speech in Hindi at UNGA, his iconic photograph boarding the bus to Lahore were not ‘iconic’ enough and could not be called ‘greatest photograph in modern Indian history’ because there was no connection to ‘Mamata ji’ in other photographs.
While Ram Vilas Paswan recounted the first instance when he saw Atal ji during a rally, Farooq Abdullah talked about the vision of Atal ji for India and Mehbooba Mufti talked about Atal ji’s tireless efforts to bring peace in the valley and how he was loved by Kashmiris, Derek O’Brien could only recount an anecdote which was solely to score sycophantic browny points with his dictatorial leader.
The sycophancy of O’Brien crosses all the levels of dignity and self respect. He has worked as an adman earlier, so perhaps this level of sycophancy is due to his previous job where you convince people for purchasing a product even if it is not worthwhile by praising the product markedly. The level of sycophancy Derek displayed in his speech is something that even Rahul Gandhi’s sycophants can only aspire to reach.