Poisoned BJP political heir Rahul Mahajan being hauled
out of a hospital.
http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?NewsID=1035523
The BJP's moral science
Wednesday, June 14, 2006 ø20:50 IST
Much of the BJP's current dilemma in handling the fallout of the Rahul Mahajan scandal are a direct result of the conflict between the prissy moralistic tone adopted by the party and the sensational scams that have overcome its leaders over the past decade. (((I've got to admit that it sure attracted MY attention.)))
There is no other political group in the country as the BJP and its mentor RSS that makes such a big deal about family values or simple living and high thinking. Yet, the muck and sleaze that has engulfed a series of party leaders and their kin in the past few years takes a lot of beating.
Indeed, it is the BJP that has provided an unending kaleidoscope of the most sordid and graphic images gleefully advertised by the media. (((That colorful phrase kinda defines a modern, hypermediated, leaking-and-snooping centipede sex scandal: yeah, it's 'an unending kaleidoscope of gleefully advertised sordid imagery.')))
Consider party president Bangaru Laxman's grubby hands reaching out for a wad of currency notes,
http://www.tehelka.com/home/20041009/operation/investigation26.htm
Okay, great, let's have a look at those grubby hands, then
RSS pracharak turned party general secretary Sanjay Joshi's bedroom acrobatics in a sleazy motel,
http://www.rediff.com/news/2005/dec/28bjpspec.htm
Boy, what a shame this isn't on YouTube – so far, that is
Pramod Mahajan's brother shooting him dead in a mysterious fit of rage
http://www.rediff.com/chat/trans/mahajan.htm
Pramod in much happier days, in power and industriously chatting on-line
and now in the most telling image of his son and successor Rahul snorting heroin from a Rs 500 note. (((See picture above.))) Can usual suspects like Mayawati or Lalu Prasad, so often demonised by the saffron camp, come close to matching such gross political decadence by its own leaders?
(((Mayawati: a powerful, unmarried female politician of the untouchable caste, a woman of whom the pious and Brahmanic BJP mightily disapprove, of course)))
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/1958378.stm
Yet another enemy the BJP unnecessarily made
Lalu Prasad: a crooked populist, but at least he despises the BJP:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/3514292.stm
He despises them, because, you know, they're on his case with their noses in the air
Another paradox is the way in which the BJP has fallen victim to the trial by media – an approach that the party had heartily approved and sponsored against its own opponents.
(((Nothing "paradoxical" about that – for Indian bluenoses to
die of their own bluenosery is probably better described as
an "immune reaction.")))
As a matter of fact, the moral brigade that merrily indulged in character assassination by nudge, wink and innuendo was wildly cheered by the saffron camp not so long ago and often manipulated to denigrate the supposedly more vulnerable leaders of the Congress and caste-based regional groups. (((Scratch a bluenose, find a snob and a racist.)))
Ironically, nobody in the Sangh Parivar remembered the old adage of people in glass houses not throwing stones and the BJP now finds itself hoist by its own petard and tortured relentlessly by a Frankenstein's monster it helped to create. (((To further mix that awesome metaphor, the BJP opened their own can of whoop-ass and what goes around the wheel of karma, comes around.)))
The other intriguing aspect of the BJP's present woes is that quite a bit of the adverse publicity is being self-inflicted by people within and not outside the Sangh Parivar. After all it is an open secret that a powerful rival faction within the party fuelled the Tehelka scandal (((That may be an 'open secret,' but I have met one of the Tehelka guys and I just flat-out don't believe this))) that sunk a party president and almost did likewise to the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and his aides and foster family.
Similarly, the Sanjay Joshi tapes are well-known to be the handiwork of his rivals within the BJP and the RSS. (((I might be prepared to believe that remark, too, but I don't. The primary suspect from within the party would be firebrand "nun" Uma Bharati, who, since the fall of Joshi, has been rehabilitated and rejoined the BJP comintern. I used to think Uma Bharati did this dirty work in a fit of crazy spite. Now I think it was done by spooks. I don't think Uma's got it together to coldbloodedly tape trysts in motels and then print DVDs. Besides, if she'd done it, Uma's such a blowhard loose cannon that she'd probably be bragging by now.)))
http://www.rediff.com/news/2005/may/28uma.htm
We still don't have similar evidence for the media tirade against the Mahajan family. (((Like one needs to encourage the press to describe a powerful family suffering from fratricide and fatal heroin OD's.))) But the lobby within the BJP opposed to Pramod Mahajan and his protege Rajnath Singh, the current party president, are believed to have lost no time in staining him and his legacy through the media.
They were unable to do so immediately after his death because of the sympathy wave although the circumstances of the BJP leader's death remain mysterious. (((They sure do. I wonder why.))) But with Mahajan's secretary and son providing them with such salacious material, the rumour mills within the BJP are said to be running overtime.
It is also ironical to note that several camp followers of the BJP who during Mahajan's lifetime assiduously cultivated him for favours, have now suddenly discovered that he had bad odour after all. This despicable turnaround is all the more hypocritical since immediately after his death, Mahajan was being canonised as a saint and his son Rahul prepared to take over as his successor without a murmur of protest from those who now find him tainted. (((Nothing quite taints like heroin, eh? Oddly, it's perfectly clear that Rahul Mahajan was never looking for heroin. After firmly putting his foot on the stairway to his dad's power, Rahul wanted some coke to go with his champagne. I dunno, man – when you're uncle's in jail for whacking your dad, maybe you need a bracer.)))
All of a sudden most of the BJP despite some words of grandfatherly sympathy from Vajpayee has tacitly acquiesced in the public crucifixion of young Mahajan who has been described in all kinds of derogatory manner in the national and international media including "a lanky playboy with a face like a slapped bottom" by a writer in the Times, London. (((Actually, Rahul *is* a rather lanky playboy, and I don't see why we're dragging the British into this – it's not like the Raj sold the guy that heroin.)))
Interestingly, public angst over the scandal in the BJP and the fickle manner with which its leaders and camp followers have turned their back on the Mahajan family are in sharp contrast to the response of other political parties to similar trials and tribulations. For instance, some years ago, the bizarre suicides of a Congress leader's daughter-in-law and daughter within weeks of each other were hushed up because Congressmen, despite bitter political in-fighting, almost instinctively refused to exploit the private lives of party members. (((That was then. This is now.)))
It is an eloquent commentary on the Sangh Parivar that in its obsession with the moral dimension of politics it has dug even a bigger grave on the issue of basic and the baser instincts of its members.
(((As far as I can figure it, there's a remarkable variety of people assaulting the BJP. First, (1) the rivals within the movement itself, who were pretty ascetic when they had no other choice, but never got over their greed for the pork involved in running the Indian government. Then, (2) press stings and muckrakers like the Tehelka bunch. Then, (3) the Congress Party and its operatives, who are numerous, and clever, and really want power, and have no brakes. Then, (4) wiretappers and spooks and mysterious leakers of DVDs. Finally but not least, there seem to have been (5) some seriously disgruntled girlfriends and (6) possibly crazy and definitely murderous relatives.)))
(((That's a very broad coalition, and I'm wondering exactly how it segments and what, if anything, connects it. Whatever it
is, it sure is working. The BJP is in a horrible agony. It's been going on for years now and it just gets worse and worse.)))
(((It's pretty bad to be caught with your pants down and/or your hands in the till, but lately, members of the party have been literally dying off. I don't know why this once-resplendent political party is so thoroughly and extravagantly cursed – but I don't believe it's astrology.)))
The writer is a Delhi-based political commentator.
