Who said three days ago,
"They may kill us!"?
Not Indian jawans keeping vigil
at LoC, thinking of Pak military and worried about their families back home. It was Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal of
AAP in a You Tube video, saying he and other leaders of his party could be killed on the orders of prime minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah. The charge really looms over Modi whose image and nationwide appeal, not Shah's, brought BJP to power at
the Centre and dashed Kejriwal's dreams of becoming prime minister through the 2014
national elections.
Kejriwal further said Modi
might get it done because of ‘frustration’ with Kejriwal, stemming from – as Kejriwal
believed these reasons existed - AAP’s victory over BJP in the 2015 Delhi assembly
elections, AAP’s present good work in Delhi and its growth in a
few other states. The charge and its
explanation are outright funny and downright silly. A newspaper which generally
applauds Modi front-paged the news saying the Delhi chief minister was
'ranting', while another one which is generally critical of Modi shunted
the news to its inside pages saying Kejriwal 'claimed' to feel threatened. This
is a sample of both supporters and opponents of Modi not taking Kejriwal's declared
apprehension seriously. That is healthy in the watching of public
affairs. What, then, is the need for
anyone to talk about this further?
Kejriwal is a chief minister functioning
from the national capital which houses the prime minister's office too.
He wants Delhi to be made a full-fledged state with greater powers of
administration. And he wants to become prime minister soonest – so he expressed doubts in
his video speech if the country was safe in Modi's hands. When that man says publicly that the country's prime minister might
get him killed out of sheer political rivalry, it needs to be discussed. Modi
may just ignore Kejriwal over this issue, in a politically wise stance.
But in the public domain Kejriwal must hear others.
Assume that Kejriwal really feels
his life could be shortened through Modi's directives. Then it means a feeling that Modi
would want it enacted before his current tenure as prime minister ends, which
is about 3 years from now. Reason: if Kejriwal lives long enough to face the
next Lok Sabha elections in 2019 Modi will fear losing out to Kejriwal in those
elections and hence he would prefer Kejriwal to be out of the scene by then – so would Kejriwal
want us to believe. Kejriwal,
who thinks his popularity is swelling, should also imagine that Modi's frustration
with Kejriwal would rise day by day, and that Modi would want his wishes
fulfilled at the earliest. All these naturally flow from Kejriwal's direct allegations. Let us go further.
Lives of elected political
leaders all over the world are rather unsafe, whatever their political
beliefs. If they are left unprotected any madman could fire a shot at
them or throw a knife or a bomb at them. The attacker may not always act
on the orders of a political rival and could himself be insane. He could also be a disgruntled member of the same
political group or party as the targeted leader. So the state machinery should monitor threats
to the lives of all political leaders and give them protection when needed,
without talking much about it. Sometimes
the best of protection by the state may not also be good enough, when it would
be a sad day for the whole country whoever the victim. Leaving all this aside, as a mortal any
leader could breathe his last owing to an organ failure or other ailment. Kejriwal wants us to believe that if he or
any of his party leaders leave this world for
any reason, in the next three years or later, Modi should
automatically become the prime suspect of a plot behind it. This is a vicious hope.
The world knows about a country where a similar charge by a chief minister of a region against a person holding
a higher rank and wielding a huge authority could be quite credible. But the man under such a death threat
will know that if he speaks about it publicly the threat could be more surely carried into effect. That is Pakistan. Kejriwal knows he lives in a far safer and
better governed India, where the judiciary functions independently, the rulers
are not oppressive and the military is not all-powerful.
Kejriwal has touched a new low from a high position. If a municipality
chairman in India makes a charge like Kejriwal has done, it is level one
low. When a chief minister in the
country does it, he reaches level two low.
If, God forbid, any prime minister of the nation will ever do it, it is
the ultimate low. The higher the
position a person occupies, a notch higher is the dignity he should assume and the
responsibility he should show in words and action. The reason is this. A person among the last ranks of an
administration and doing misdeeds at the workplace does not easily infect all
others in the set-up, unless many others do it by themselves and there is no
action to check any of them. But if the
one person who is at the top does things wrongly, irresponsibly or corruptly, though
deviously, others down the line will follow him and his clever ways. So Kejriwal has sent a wrong signal to political
leaders, established or upcoming, that the way to keep one’s place in politics
and engage with political opponents is through wickedly dramatized falsehood. What he said may be legally a non-event, but is
morally poisonous in public life. We
should hope that the public spot it.
True, Kejriwal led his AAP to
win 67 out of 70 seats in the last Delhi assembly elections. He fought against the campaign of Modi, a
serving prime minister, and won to become Delhi’s chief minister. He deserves a lot of credit for his victory. No doubt Modi should look at his defeat with
humility, and defeat also naturally helps in that. Kejriwal too should take his electoral success with humility, even more of it for the victor, but so far he has given
no proof of it.
The Delhi chief minister has
quickly given proof on one thing - that his dubious motives have begun inspiring others, at least
within his party. A day after Kejriwal
released his video speech charging Modi, Asim Ahmed Khan who is a sitting AAP lawmaker
of Delhi – who was a former minister in Kejriwal’s cabinet but dropped later on charges of corruption – told newsmen that Kejriwal and his aides
had threatened to kill Khan because, as Khan claimed, the lawmaker had
materials to ‘expose’ Kejriwal. No
prizes to anyone for guessing that Khan learnt a new trick from Kejriwal, just wished
to blacken the name of his estranged leader and so alleged that Kejriwal gave
out a death threat. Of all persons, Kejriwal knows that his troubled party man is on a calculated foul play, posing as a victim. Because Kejriwal knows himself.
* * * * *
Copyright
© R. Veera Raghavan 2016
Brilliant. Loved every sentence of it. Kejriwal is the Indian equivalent of Don Quixote of La Mancha
ReplyDeleteVery well written.
ReplyDeleteThe beginning is really good:
Who said three days ago, "They may kill us!"?
Not Indian jawans keeping vigil at LoC...
One wonders: is Kejrival the first and the most powerful rival Modi has faced so far? How many of his rivals has he got killed, if getting rivals removed from his path is his way of politicking.
I am not a politician; yet I agree with Kejarival.These dskxha,aaramaa valas are capable of doing anything to anyone. May God bless my Mother India that is Bharath.
ReplyDeleteI think Kejariwal is simply crazy and paranoid. He accused and removed his close friends and allies like Prashant Bhushan. Not only that but he also used foul language in denouncing Bhushan and others.
ReplyDeleteSir, You hit the nail on its head. Initially everybody tends to dismiss Mad Kejriwal's stupid & silly rant. But its dangerous dimensions have been brought by you lucidly. If not legal, some other methods have to be used to curb such stupidity. If "democracy" can be misused thus, there is no reason why others can also "misuse" the same democracy. This also applies very much (more so) for the terrorists, extremists, religious fanatics & all those who spread hatred in the name of "S(I)ecularism.
ReplyDeleteVery well said Veeru. Modi may choose to ignore this but the media will ask why Modi is silent.😊😊😊
ReplyDeleteVery well written sir.but th need of hr is how to stop such practices of people in power to fool public by misusing democracy. Indian vote bank public is very gullible, vulnerable and foolish to get trapped by such kind of politics being played by respected cm sahib
ReplyDeleteThe need of the hour is to question AK about how he has come to such conclusions ? he should be asked to file FIR against Modi if he is serious about the threat to his life . more over , can any example be given about BJP as a political party whether they have eliminated their political rivals by murder ??.
ReplyDeleteWell said sir,
ReplyDeleteIndia has seen great leaders who have never expressed the threat of getting killed. Infact, they would face death for a greater cause, greater service to the country and country people.
If current leaders start speaking like this What kind of leadership they exhibit. How can ordinary people of the country depend upon such Leader for solutions. Generally what i have seen and read a leader who has conviction can never be afraid or fearful of anything.
When Kejriwal won the Delhi election, my wife asked for my opinion. I said"" This is a remarkable win[verdict] but my intuition says that people will regret electing him in two years time"".
ReplyDeleteFrankly I underestimated Kejriwal; He has proved that he is not fit for public office in a year's time. He is too contentious and controversial to hold public office.
The sad truth is this: There is no goal for the country as a whole. When we are aimless, we will only lose time we will not use it effectively.
Sri Ramana Maharishi used to say, "If the Athma Vichara is not done, Loka Vichara will enter the mind".As we do not know what to do with our time/life, we do what we can: waste our time !!
I regard Mr. Chandrababu Naidu as a trend setting Chief Minister; Till he set development as an agenda for administration, all the chief ministers before that were time-passing and getting re-elected after 5 years.
ReplyDeleteOne must see what a difference people like Mr. Seshan[CHief election commissioner] and Mr. Sridharan[architect of Konkan Railway and Delhi Metro ] has brought!!. A good leader at the top makes a Huge difference. Unfortunately, leaders at the top are Time-pass characters.
Corporate world is no better; Substandard people by sycophancy achieve top level and people below them feel that that is all they have to do the reach the top.
Delhi , being a Capital-cum-Union Territory, has few constraints. But Kejriwal should have been fully aware of that. He is making noise so much that now people might feel ""He could not deliver because...."". He is , in my view, creating various scenario/lame excuses/justification for failure.