THE VINDICTIVE, THE VICIOUS
AND THE VULGAR

 Sunil Dang continues the story of an amazing Indian journal

In the beginning of the year 1990, in the January issue of the DayAfter, I had invited our readers to tell us about their hopes and fears of 1990. In my "Letter from the Publisher", I had offered that "The day after can bring hope and fulfillment of promises as well as dark days of heavy burdens, suspicious, anger and agony… Let us know what are your hopes and fears of 1990 which you may like to share with others? And now, in 2005, we, along with many other South Asian countries like Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Thailand, begin the year on a very tragic and painful note of wrath of nature which shall make our heads and hearts immersed in deep trauma and sorrow for years to come. The tsunami disaster has shatteringly pointed to the fearsome truth that if we go on exploiting the nature like we exploit the poor and deprived beasts and humans of the world, the hit-back can be cruel and deadly.

Once again, I have to invite our readers, who are among the most sensitive and forthcoming section of population to send us their views on hopes, fears and challenges to come and how we all must join hands to cope with the on, not only for India’s sake but also for the rest of the humanity’s sake, specially for the sake of our South Asian neighbours struck by human terrorism, followed by terrorism of a pained and angry nature.

Unfortunately, whenever we took a crucial look at some of our political, economic, social and environmental tragedies, we had to take a look at the deadly and despicable role of the power and money hungry politicians who always kept their cliques above their parties, their parties above their country, and themselves above everything else. In that significant "Letter from The Publisher at the beginning of the year, I had brutally posed the issue in these words, "If a politician is vindictive, vicious and vulgar, fate is bound to catch up with him as the results of the November (1989) Lok Sabha elections showed."

Once again, in 2005, with the crucial assembly elections in Bihar, Jharkhand and Haryana, poising a test for non-performing, over-promising, vindictive, vicious and vulgar politicians, I would like to remind our readers of the same old issues confronting them in newer, uglier and more unprincipled faces and words.

At that time I had said, commenting on the emergence of V.P. Singh as the Prime Minister, "The government of national reconciliation as mooted by some, may be a far dream yet, but there is need for emotional reconciliation in politics immediately. Dissent need not be a crime. Difference of opinion must not be considered meriting immediate retribution and punishment. And it must be remembered that the electorate is gathering confidence that if they do not approve the style and performance of a particular government, never mind how popular and well meaning its leader might be, they can throw out the government and the rulers in another five years if not earlier. None need take the electorate for granted any more".

I had warned the then newly installed government in the following words, "The new rulers must watch their steps. They must realise that they have come to power on the crest of a wave of negative anger and frustration against many in the erstwhile ruling Congress for non-performance in various sectors and non-fulfillment of many promises whatever the reasons might be". We had seen that out of frustration, anger and negative wrath, the electorate at that time was ready to vote for any Tom, Dick and Harry but the Congress in the so-called Hindi belt, more from emotional than rational motivation. Obviously the people had been then persuaded to have great expectations from the then new government. But I had warned that if the government got involved and engrossed in the familiar negativism and setting personal scores, then it had to run all the risks which the Janata government had run earlier.

I had raised some issues of governance and style of the rules at that time which many could see today linked with the rise and fall of the NDA Government at the Centre under the leadership of Atal Bihari Vajpayee before the UPA Government led by Dr. Manmohan Singh took over. In the context of political scenario obtaining then, I had asked, "Will the government run the country by raids, investiga-tions, wholesale shifting of bureau-crats and trying to prove that it is a collection of politicians more moral than their adversaries? Will they change policies and programmes simply because some other set of people happened to have designed and put them into force? Will they let the hot-heads rule the roast to create the vindictive, vicious and vulgar political environment which can prove costly, divisive and destabilising for the ruling group of parties, the National Front, itself before it damages other political institutions and the country? Even the most well meaning persons who might be well disposed towards the new regime, would certainly be worried by these questions." If one looks back one sees that ignoring these facts of political life proved costly and killing for men and women in power, not only of the Congress clan but all other political clans who ignored the masses and their problems and tried to make India shine with their own kind of political polish specially rubbed on their own political gangs and gang-leaders.

I cannot help but focus on what I had said then, for it is as much applicable today in our country where history has been allowed to cultivate the ancient habit of repeating itself in these so-called modern times. I had warned, "It must be realised that the losers were on trial yesterday and have appare-ntly lost and the electorate has given its judgement, at least in the North Indian states. Now the rulers are on trial. The people in the South have not given a mandate in their favour or the favour of their allies. So, it is a two-faced trial where they shall be judged by performance and not by moral pronouncements on the failures and faults of their adversaries."

Just look at the tone of the early electoral declarations and pronouncements of various national and regional parties from Chandigarh, Ranchi and Patna for the forthcoming state assembly elections and you would find that the same negativism, vulgarism and emotional blackmail are the ugly ingredients of some the incorrigible political word-warriors. It is interesting to wait and watch and see how much and how many of the electorate would they be able to hookwink through their bluffmanship?

We had also run a controversial cover story in that issue entitle ‘Will Vishwanath Last?" speculating about the prospects of the V.P. Singh Government. Apart from V.P. Singh’s own personal philosophy declaration that "Our primary and foremost task will be share everything with the Janata," we had also carried out the comments of Chaudhari Devi Lal, Arun Nehru, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, Dinesh Goswami, George Fernandez, Ajit Singh, Lal Krishna Advani, Madhu Dandavate, P. Upendra, Chandra Sekhar, Sharad Yadav and Maneka Gandhi about V.P. Singh as a political and prime minister.

That issue of the DayAfter also carried a well researched investi-gatory features about "How did the Foreigners View our Elections?" Our bunch of headliners included report on "Coup in the Phillipines", Fatal Air crash of Pak President Zia-ul-Haq and the Big Two Summit between U.S. President George Bush and Soviet President, Mikhail Gorbechov. He had carried special stories about the United States stepping up arms supplies to Afghan mujahideen, a New Deal for the Baltic Republics, about Khalistani militantism in Punjab entitled "Civil War in Punjab" and an exclusive interview with Bimal Khalsa entitled ‘No Khalistan for Us’. We also carried stories by Darshan Singh Maini and an interview with Bibi Rajinder Kaur to reflect the cross section of views on the situation in Punjab.