A Double Albatross

RABRI Devi is by all accounts an exemplary Hindu wife. She has produced a quota of children, cooks tasty if simple meals for her master, is silent, dutiful and obedient, does not open her husband’s mail (even if she did, she would have difficulty reading it) and allows her peripatetic spouse unhindered travel from Patna to Delhi and back. But is she fit to rule India’s most turbulent and backward state? We will find out in the coming days.

In these cynical times, to express outrage and shock and shame at the induction of the new Bihar chief minister is a sign of naivety. Norms have been set by Kalpnath Rai, Kamal Nath, the BJP’s Brijbhushan Sharan Singh and many others. If you add to this the deplorable tendency in the subcontinent to anoint the wife when the husband has been terminated or is in trouble, one can understand why in certain quarters Laloo Prasad Yadav’s latest gambit is being seen as a ‘masterstroke’. Technically, he may have belatedly fulfilled a ‘moral responsibility’, but for the ‘helpless’ I.K. Gujral the ‘bloodless coup’ is a mirage. Laloo still hangs around the prime minister as an albatross—and now the weight is heavier because Mr and Mrs Laloo Yadav hang together around that burdened neck.

Few doubt Mr Gujral’s sincerity or commitment to deal with corruption. Alas, he is a good man fallen among thieves. Indeed, as the events of the last few weeks have shown, ‘neutrality’ has many perils since it invites the charge of cowardice. True or false, the ongoing L.P. Yadav drama has demonstrated once again how fundamentally decent and honourable men, through inaction or expediency or simply bad tactics, can be seen defending the indefensible. Gujral’s response on Saturday to the swearing-in of Rabri Devi—"I do not discuss family affairs"—was bad politics if nothing else. It shows how urgently our man in 7, Race Course Road needs a spin doctor.

Laloo Prasad Yadav is not a congenitally evil man. Neither is he as venal as many other politicos masquerading as ‘leaders’. That the only person he could trust to keep his seat warm from among the large flock of his followers was his wife reflects the quality of loyalty he commands. All said and done, the former chief minister deserves some sympathy. Nevertheless, he presently represents all that is crooked and dishonest in Indian public life.

A foreign journalist asked me last week why there was such a perceptible lack of domestic enthusiasm for the golden jubilee of Independence, while the rest of the world was celebrating the event with fervour. I told him to read carefully the headlines in the morning papers and he would get his answer.