Skip to main content

The Insecurity of Congressmen

The new Congress President


I longed to see Dr Shashi Tharoor as the new President of Indian National Congress [INC]. But I knew that he stood little chance to win the election. Most Congressmen, like their counterparts in the other political parties in India, are puny-minded people who won’t be able to accept the scholarliness and profundity of a man like Dr Tharoor. As Dr Samuel Johnson put it bluntly, “Politics is the last refuge of the scoundrel.” Tharoor is an odd man out in that arena.

As a Malayalam weekly [Kalakaumudi] put it rather saucily, “given a choice between a kitchen man and a global citizen, INC will choose the former merely out of jealousy.” India’s grand old party has now chosen as the president for themselves a man who cannot climb up/down steps without another person’s help. What is this grand old man expected to do to take INC beyond a rival who brings live cheetahs from Namibia and releases them personally in a national park? 


The gallantry displayed by Dr Tharoor after his defeat is admirable. He praised the winner and appreciated “the ample leadership and experience” he brought with him to head the party. He also thanked Sonia Gandhi for her contributions to the party as its president. Such courtesy is not seen generally among Indian politicians who are bundles of all possible cardinal sins.

The Congressmen of Dr Tharoor’s home state [Kerala] went out of their way to defeat him. One of these men from Kerala had declared on a social media that his love was for Tharoor but his vote was for Kharge. He was trolled by someone that it was like giving his love to his wife and his orgasm to his neighbour-woman.

Mallikarjun Kharge was the discovery of another Congressman from Kerala: A K Antony who is one year older than Kharge. The grand old party of India will continue to be led by grand old men who will remain puppets in the hands of the remaining Gandhis none of whom has the potential to take on the political acumen of Modi-Shah duo.

During Vajpayee’s time, when Dr P C Alexander’s name was suggested for the President of India, this same A K Antony pulled the strings and jettisoned Alexander’s chance merely out of jealousy. Something similar is believed to have happened with P J Kurien’s chance of becoming the Vice President during Modi’s time.

What the INC should do first of all is to clean their own hearts as far as that is possible for politicians. The kind of drama being enacted by Rahul Gandhi by undertaking a yatra with the luxury of 65 caravans escorting him for all of the 150 days will turn out to be nothing more than a proof of Rahul’s good health.

Dr Tharoor would have been the ideal successor to the legacy of Jawaharlal Nehru. In spite of the limitations they may both have as intellectuals rather than hardcore politicians. We know what shrewd politicians have done and are still doing to the country. It is high time to try out something different from shrewdness.

Comments

  1. Chandra SundeepOctober 20, 2022 at 12:41 PM

    Dr. Tharoor could have made so much of a difference. Unfortunately, the party lacks vision. Sigh!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalOctober 20, 2022 at 3:59 PM

      Sad indeed. It looks like Congress is destined to end with a whimper.

      Delete
  2. magiceyeOctober 21, 2022 at 6:22 PM

    Incidentally the present Maharashtra government is insecure too. In view of the Bharat Jodo yatra, they have declared prohibitory orders from 01nov to 15nov. 😊

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalOctober 21, 2022 at 9:27 PM

      Being scared of Rahul Gandhi does indicate an extreme level of insecurity. 😊

      Delete
  3. Rajeev MoothedathOctober 25, 2022 at 10:01 PM

    Yes, it was an opportunity lost as far as INC is concerned...

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

From a Teacher’s Diary

Henry B Adams, American historian and writer, is believed to have said that “one never knows where a teacher’s influence ends.” As a teacher, I have always striven to keep that maxim in mind while dealing with students. Even if I couldn’t wield any positive influence, I never wished to leave a scar on the psyche of any student of mine. Best of intentions notwithstanding, we make human errors and there may be students who were not quite happy with me especially since I never possessed even the lightest shade of diplomacy. Tactless though I was, I have been fortunate, as a teacher, to have a lot of good memories returning with affection from former students. Let me share the most recent experience. A former student’s WhatsApp message yesterday carried two PDF attachments. One was the dissertation she wrote for her graduation. The other was a screenshot of the Acknowledgement. “A special mention goes to Mr Tomichan Matheikal, my English teacher in higher secondary school, whose moti...
10 comments
Read more

Waiting for the Mahatma

Book Review I read this book purely by chance. R K Narayan is not a writer whom I would choose for any reason whatever. He is too simple, simplistic. I was at school on Saturday last and I suddenly found myself without anything to do though I was on duty. Some duties are like that: like a traffic policeman’s duty on a road without any traffic! So I went up to the school library and picked up a book which looked clean. It happened to be Waiting for the Mahatma by R K Narayan. A small book of 200 pages which I almost finished reading on the same day. The novel was originally published in 1955, written probably as a tribute to Mahatma Gandhi and India’s struggle for independence. The edition that I read is a later reprint by Penguin Classics. Twenty-year-old Sriram is the protagonist though Gandhi towers above everybody else in the novel just as he did in India of the independence-struggle years. Sriram who lives with his grandmother inherits significant wealth when he turns 20. Hi...
9 comments
Read more

Ram, Anandhi, and Co

Book Review Title: Ram C/o Anandhi Author: Akhil P Dharmajan Translator: Haritha C K Publisher: HarperCollins India, 2025 Pages: 303 T he author tells us in his prefatory note that “this (is) a cinematic novel.” Don’t read it as literary work but imagine it as a movie. That is exactly how this novel feels like: an action-packed thriller. The story revolves around Ram, a young man who lands in Chennai for joining a diploma course in film making, and Anandhi, receptionist of Ram’s college. Then there are their friends: Vetri and his half-sister Reshma, and Malli who is a transgender. An old woman, who is called Paatti (grandmother) by everyone and is the owner of the house where three of the characters live, has an enviably thrilling role in the plot.   In one of the first chapters, Ram and Anandhi lock horns over a trifle. That leads to some farcical action which agitates Paatti’s bees which in turn fly around stinging everyone. Malli, the aruvani (transgender), s...
8 comments
Read more

The Pope and a Prostitute

I started reading the autobiography of Pope Francis a few days back as mentioned in an earlier post that was inspired by chapter 2 of the book. I’m reading the book slowly, taking my own sweet time, because I want to savour every line of this book which carries so much superhuman tenderness. The book ennobles the reader. The fifth chapter describes a few people of his barrio that the Pope knew as a young man. Two of them are young “girls” who worked as prostitutes. “But these were high-class,” the Pope adds. “They made their appointments by telephone, arranged to be collected by automobile.” La Ciche and La Porota – that’s what they were called. “Years went by,” the Pope writes, “and one day when I was now auxiliary bishop of Buenos Aires, the telephone rang in the bishop’s palace. It was la Porota who was looking for me.” Pope Francis was meeting her after many years. “Hey, don’t you remember me? I heard they’ve made you a bishop.” She was a river in full flow, says the Pope....
8 comments
Read more

War is Stupid: Pope Francis

Image by Google Gemini I am reading Pope Franci’s autobiography, Hope . Some of his views on war and justice as expressed in the first pages [I’ve read only two chapters so far] accentuate the difference of this Pope from his predecessors. Many of his views are radical. I knew that Pope Francis was different from the other Popes, but hadn’t expected so much. The title of chapter 2 is taken from Psalm 120 : Too Long Do Live Among Those Who Hate Peace . The psalm was sung by Jewish pilgrims travelling to Jerusalem for religious festivals. It expresses a longing for deliverance from deceitful and hostile enemies. It is a prayer for divine justice. Justice is what Pope Francis seeks in the contemporary world too in chapter 2 of his autobiography. “Each day the world seems more elitist,” he writes, “and each day crueler, toward those who have been cast out and abandoned. Developing countries continue to be drained of their finest natural and human resources for the benefit of a few pr...
4 comments
Read more