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| May 8, 2000 | ||
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| RIGHT ANGLE Page Three of Manda V.P.Singh's revolution lies in making rioters of the urban poor By Swapan Dasgupta
For a man who once said his main priority as prime minister was to manage contradictions, V.P. Singh is doing precisely that. Infused with an onrush of end-of-retirement energy, the former Raja of Manda is out to prove that revolution isn't dead; it can still be designer packaged for optimum media exposure. In a world where the page-three-people have conclusively proved that it pays to be outrageous, Singh wants to show that he can play the game better than the rest. It is about as much to do with social conscience as aids-awareness dinners and campaigning for Manmohan Singh. When it comes to publicity hogging and "changing the mosaic" of socio-political existence, V.P. Singh has few equals. The man who successfully plunged India into chaos and redefined electoral politics because he wanted to divert attention from a kisan rally organised by Devi Lal, isn't really spending sleepless nights about jhuggi dwellers in Wazirpur. Municipal issues, problems of roads, drains aren't among his known areas of specialisation. Disruption is. But if a constituency of urban underclass can be created to further this agenda, Singh is game. After all, nothing offends him more than India's orderly transition to modernity. The Wazirpur doctrine formulated by Singh is a nihilist's charter. Town planners may burn the midnight oil drawing up low-cost housing schemes for the mushrooming urban economy. To Singh these are irrelevant because they are about orderly cooption, not the reckless perpetuation of illegalities. It won't serve his interests if authorities in Delhi and Mumbai inject some order into the jhuggi sector. A skilled, secure labour force is into self-improvement. A nervous, desperate workforce, on the other hand, is naturally turbulent. Singh wants to promote that turbulence. Hence, his demand is not for a meaningful resettlement of squatters in Mumbai's Sanjay Gandhi National Park. He wants the green belt to be relocated. That's a preposterous demand. But it earns him instant notoriety among the middle classes. It also ensures Singh the right political positioning. The Raja of Manda flowers in a climate of utmost hate. That's when he is really fulfilled. Singh has always cherished his macabre knack for derailing aspiration by transforming it into envy. That's what he tried and almost succeeded with the Mandal Commission reservations. India missed being engulfed in a caste war by a whisker. And that's what he is trying now -- turning a working class into a riotous mob. No wonder his imagery is about lathis and bloody revolution. He wants to transform citizens into lumpens by preying on their insecurities and encouraging blatant disregard of the law. If globalisation permitted the free flow of skills, Singh would have been naturally at home in Rwanda or Zimbabwe. India, mercifully, hasn't offered him much more than page-three status. Hopefully, it will remain that way. |
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Sarojini
Naidu's aside on how much it cost to keep the Mahatma in poverty is
beginning to acquire contemporary relevance. For the past two months,
India has been witness to a noble soul playing the role of the ragged
trousered revolutionary. Except that his base isn't in some inaccessible
black hole of Bihar but in one of the best addresses Lutyens' Delhi can
provide. Except that the revolutionary isn't playing cat and mouse games
with police but is being protected by an elite SGP squad -- the very best
this country can provide.