What I would say to Mr.
Bal Thackeray
anent his quoted remarks – “Who is this Rahul
Gandhi ? What is there in him? Tomorrow any
school kid will rise and ask to be made the prime minister.” – TOI, October 21, 2011 , pg. 16, if I
could, and I wasn’t interrupted.
Mr. Thackeray, sir, as usual your reported questions
and comments give me much to think about, They, your questions, are, and I must
admit to a degree of surprise at this, valid and pithy. Your comments, however,
quite often leave me puzzled and discombobulated. I find myself trying to parse
those comments to get them to fit into the world in which I live. A world, I
hasten to add, very removed from the one in which you do, which may of course
explain my perplexity.
For instance – Your question on the ‘is-ness’
of young Mr. Gandhi .
Valid and pithy. There is rightness to wanting to know about the reality of a
potential prime minister; about the reality of anyone who aspires to leadership
of the political kind, really. “Are you for real?” you, we, the people, can
ask, with full justification. “Do you know how to separate the personal from
the important?” you, we, can wonder, recognizing as we do, that a leader better
know the difference. After all, we wouldn’t want to be led by someone who is,
say, perpetually squabbling, in an unseemly manner, with a sibling.
Then there’s the question on Mr.
R. Gandhi ’s
substance. “What is there in him?” you ask. Valid and pithy.. You, we, have
every right to ask that of a leader. What are you made of? Is your substance
corrodible? Is there enough mass to withstand the erosions of governance and
political expediencies? Is your substance brittle, frangible? Prone to slight
and sensitive (some might say hyper-sensitive) to slander? Is lashing out still
part of your political armamentarium? “Mr.
Gandhi ”, we want to be able to say to him, “our
leader needs to be a person who considers the destructive capabilities of his
power in his leadership. Or are you prone to releasing your myrmidons and then
regretting, but understanding, the collateral damage? ” We can justifiably, and
honorably, ask of our waiting in the wings 2nd level leaders whether
they understand that a criterion for a democracy is the freedom of opinion;
that there is no hierarchy to belief. We can suggest that things like banning
the publishing of opinions on heritage, culture, or, for that matter, your
opinion, is just not a sustainable component of substance.
See how my thoughts are informed by your
pithy validity? See how you have me looking at all aspiring leaders, on all levels
of governance with more educated eyes?
So then we come to the comment, and my
discombobulation.
See, Mr. T, if any school kid cannot rise up
and aspire to prime ministership, then what is the point of a democracy? Why
bother paying lip service to a classless, casteless society with equality as a
birth right? Why not just keep it in the family and leave governance to the
ones born to... Oh, wait, I just realized you don’t like Rahul
Gandhi ’s family either, do you? All that
foreign blood mucking up the purity. Unconscionable.
See, all I had to do is think about your
comment, and it all became clear.
Thank you, sir.