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The colour gray

It was in the course of a recent beerfest that talk among the revellers turned to politics, more particularly what attraction it could have in store for someone like me who, apart from writing a weekly political column that must have very few readers judging by the sparse mail it generates, has also been doing a political chat on the Net for almost 18 months now.

After all, the argument flowed, the most colourful politico around in the country today was the earthy Laloo Prasad Yadav who, if political commentators were to be believed, is however all set to take the country down the path to perdition.

The next vote for the most colourful politico went to Jayalalitha who, again, if political writers like yours truly were to be believed, has no concern for the nation and is following an agenda of her own. Take these out, and who do you have, my pals wanted to know. An Atal Bihari Vajpayee who has perfected pausing into such a fine art that the shortest news-byte shows him for a full two minutes, of which only 10 seconds is spent in articulation and the rest goes in nodding off.

An L K Advani who was breathing fire from the Opposition benches but who, alas, seems to have lost his golden touch the minute he has moved to the treasury benches. Knock these two so-called giants, and you are left with a second string that would find it difficult to impress themselves in the mirror.

Looking back on the argument later, with a clearer head and mind, I was quite impressed by the fact that my friends could articulate so clearly despite being in their cups. It is true that Indian politics has lost its sheen, its cutting edge. It is said about Indira Gandhi that she polarised political opinion in the country, and sharpened the debate, but another way of looking at that phenomenon was that she provided colour to politics, a quality that is as essential as ajinomoto is to Chinese cuisine.

Colour, in politics at least, comes not with consensus but with confrontation. And thus, politics lost its piquancy once the era of carrying everyone along came about, courtesy that stalwart of the Congress party P V Narasimha Rao. A colourless personality himself, in the five years that he presided over the destiny of the nation he managed to remove the last vestiges of colour and character and converted politics into a drab science.

It is unfortunate that his tenure coincided with the combative T N Seshan, who set out to rid the election process of its malpractice and instead succeeded in robbing the hustings of its magic and splendour. I mean, paeans have been sung about the Great Indian Elections, and here were Don Quixotes tilting at it.

But the damage has been done.

Just contrast the post-1991 era of Indian politics with the one that immediately preceded it. Just as P V Narasimha Rao, for all his achievements, turned politics into a gray science, Rajiv Gandhi, for all his failures, at least kept public interest alive. His style was diametrically opposed to that of his illustrious mother who achieved the same result by going on the offensive while Rajiv offered himself up as a target.

The confrontation factor was there, thanks to his friend turned foe Vishwanath Pratap Singh. The encounter between the two, from the time it started till the final countdown in the 1989 elections, was full of drama, passion, betrayal... And doggerel. To be sure, we have had nothing that comes anywhere close to the rousing slogans of the 1989 electoral battle: Gully gully mein shor hai, Rajiv Gandhi chhor hai, to name just one. Or, Takht badal do, taj badal do, beimaanon ka raj badal do... As I said, Rajiv Gandhi laid himself open to vitriol, with Mani Shankar Aiyar-inspired gems like Naani yaad dila denge .

Anything Rajiv Gandhi did invited condemnation. Be it his Gucci shoes, his cronies' penchant for lining their swimming pools with Italian marble, his holidays, his foreign jaunts. Like a gentleman, he took it all on his chin. He knew that despite the vituperation, the jokers who criticised were good for little beyond coining nonsense verse, and his time would come again. It is my contention that had his life not been cut short by a human bomb, Indian politics would have taken a different, I daresay better turn.

Five years of Narasimha Rao, in the end, proved too much. His passivity and lack of resistance, while reminiscent of the original Gandhi, became a burden since it lacked moral fibre as well as mass appeal. Instead the pout became his hallmark, as well as his downfall.

H D Deve Gowda provided more elan than surely did Rao, but alas his contribution was negated by his lack of mandate. He was only an interim prime minister, holding office at the pleasure of another, and hence could not command any public adulation. His exit was as unsung as was his entry, and paved the way for another gray politician, I K Gujral.

Looking back, Jayalalitha and Laloo Yadav are considered colourful, for their extreme positions, for their spirit of confrontation, which flies against the spirit of governance by coalition and consensus. Since the architect, the fountainhead of the present phase of coalition politics is V P Singh, perhaps the blame for emasculating a popular vocation should be laid at his door.

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