The cocktail of history and politics

Manish Anand

History or rather writing on history is in the news. History written by a politician often runs the risk of erring on prejudices. Objective history writing has been the attempt of all the famed writers but few succeed in this enterprise. Lev Tolstoy has written a long chapter on history writing in his masterpiece "War and peace" where he has explained "whys" and "whats" of history writing.

Indian history is replete with too many eulogies dished out as historical records of numerous kings by their courtiers. Though they have handed out crucial information about certain historical eras, they lacked in the art of objective history writing. Most have succumbed to their weaknesses to glorify individuals in their history writing. The people most often have been the last on the priority list of the writers.

The trend is nowhere seen changing. However, Jaswant Singh's take on the partition of India has reignited the passion of the people in the Indian subcontinent to revisit the trauma of 1947.

The people in the Indian subcontinent have more or less a collective psyche. The scar of partition of the subcontinent is far from being erased so much so that the collective Psyche could be called a prisoner of the past. As the past that is the partition is painful the collective psychological consequences might just have left the people of India and Pakistan diseased in their thoughts.

The discomfort of the people of the subcontinent leaves them to find easy targets to express their frustration on to find peace with their own failings to understand their history and move ahead in their collective lives. We need someone like Jinnah, Nehru, Patel and other characters to damn them for our failure to live with our history.

After exhaustive reading of Indian history from its ancient era to the modern, I believe that the subcontinent can take pride in the fact that it has the richest history in the world, with the civilisation having come out from innumerable traumas and tribulations. Also, the history if there for the people to understand their past so that they make a much better future. A mind which is enmeshed in the past is a diseased mind which needs psychological intervention.

Indian subcontinent is in dire needs of that psychological intervention, as the disease has take the form of bloody hatred in the form of terrorism. The intervention has to be collective and massive at much higher level, with the politicians of the subcontinent asked to behave like leaders. The leaders, however, are too few there to take on the task.

Squirming in the abyss

Manish Anand

Flogging a dead horse is the favourite time pass for many and particularly for Indians. The BJP rather its leadership appears to be the proverbial dead horse. The media ordeal for the party which began since June this year is nowhere at its end. It is to the credit of the party that the media have spent reams of papers and hours and hours of TV flogging the party.

What if the party had not lost the Lok Sabha polls. The Jaswant Singhs, Sudheendra Kulkarnis and Arun Shouri would have continued enjoying the comforts of the power. Experts are giving their advices for revival of the party, while Mr Shouri has taken inspiration from Mao Zedong (Just bombard the headquarter and bring competent leaders from the state). The saga will continue for now, as some powerful satraps are orchestrating it from inside.

Just wonder if the people could ever see the same level of mud-slinging on the top leadership of the Congress from the within. Never. So, at least we can concede that the BJP is much more democratic than any family run political enterprises.

The BJP will rise to the challenges both from the within and outside, as the party has millions of cadres. The purge has to reach to its logical conclusion. The party has just to get rid of the "fixers". The second largest political party is a dead horse now due to the "fixers" getting regularly awarded with Lok Sabha tickets, ministerships and lot more. The Congress too suffers from the fixers but this party does not make them "leaders".

The BJP had nothing to gain from the likes of Jaswant Singh, Kulkarnis and Shouris, as the folks of their likes will come with no wastage of time if the party makes a roaring comeback. But the party will suffer and has suffered due to the disconnect with the mass, who do not largely read the English newspapers or watch English news channels.

The BJP is a party which romanticises Indian Nationalism, as the cadres that it draws have the figure of mother India imprinted. The RSS as its father figure is blessed with sharp minds drawn from all walks of life, which has been a much lenient parent. It will do a much greater service to Indian polity if it becomes more proactive, which it could just to do by purging the fixers.

As the BJP squirms in its abyss, few within the party sitting on the fence must be wondering at the fate of the party, which is now reduced to the dull media getting breather at its expense. A big party like the BJP is not going to die but it is to be seen what it does while languishing in the abyss.