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Tamil Nad war drums for Singh’s song
View(s):Spare a thought this Sunday morn for the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as he fidgets in his office like a blushing debutant invited for her first dance, twiddling his fingers and asking himself a million times over, ‘should I go or should I not, should I go or should I not to the Commonwealth Ball come next month.?’
Never before in his personal or political life had he been so compelled to appear so indecisive, so prevaricating and so exasperating; and he, the valiant, initiated Punjabi Sikh of the K
halsa, holding as his religion does ‘truthful living’ as the highest good, and pledged to a moral; code of conduct that demands being firm and resolute, must be beside himself with ire to find himself reduced to a quivering mass of jelly, forced to practise deceit and evasiveness, to display sheepish, girlish, puckish behaviour unbecoming of his macho race and his status as a ‘amrit khalsa’, the Sikh ‘saint soldier’.
Manmohan Singh and Jayalalithaa. Pic courtesy Hindu
Considering the enormous fuss made over this commonwealth bash, which has put on hold greater matters of State, who can blame him if he feels so positively peeved this morn to the extent of wanting to draw his kirpan and tear off his long symbolic Sikh kesh, the uncut tress that lies neatly wound beneath his urbane turban, the mandatory Sikh ‘dastar’.
Of course the gilt edged invitation had been extended impeccably. The host could not be faulted for that. Unlike the Xeroxed cards sent through ordinary post to the other 50 odd guests, a special messenger of the host, the Foreign Minister no less, had, on bended knees, delivered it to him at his feet with a fervent ‘please come, don’t break my heart’ prayer. And having being thus wooed so gallantly, chivalry demanded that he should go. But, aye, there’s the rub, for in that volatile bourn what horrors may rise when he can in his office safely stay, must give him pause and urge serious review of whether he should stay put or stray out.
As much as he would like to oblige, other factors had to be considered. For starters a trip to Lanka for foreign dignitaries was always fraught with danger. Look what happened to his own leader Sonia’s husband Rajiv Gandhi. In the salad days of his premiership of India, the young green buck had ventured forth in the manner of a conquering Alexander to that tamarind seed of an isle rife with racial strife; and, whilst inspecting a guard of honour, with the Lankan President himself beside him, almost got his head butted by a rifle crack of a soldier who thereafter feigned a faint. Didn’t he get his comeuppance that day? Didn’t the Lankans send him home with India’s mighty big head between his legs, humiliated by a mouse that suddenly roared? And that was after sending the blighters food hampers air mail.
Then the most recent case of that UN Human Rights Commissioner Navy Pillay who got her ‘kaccheras’ in a twist when some married cabinet minister fell for her sheer force of personality and domination vibes and, flinging aside his marital vows, unashamedly proposed marriage to her in public. No, not even a 72-year old woman was safe in that repressed land of the yakkos whose present behaviour added credence to the legend that the supposed founder of the Sinhala race was the issue of incestuous and bestial intercourse who had to be booted out from Indian soil for his deviant, degenerate behaviour.
No wonder the Queen, granted life tenure as the Head of the Commonwealth Club was giving a ‘miss’ attending the Ball this biennial year despite her much publicised love for the Commonwealth and her absolute delight in queening over the members as the empress of it all like her great grandma Victoria did in the days Britain was great. He had heard the rumour that only her royal upbringing and house training enabled her to keep a stiff upper lip and a poker face, when some other government hot shot made some ‘lese majeste’ gaffe on her last visit there.
And, yes, what about himself? Would he be safe? Would his turban be mistaken by the locals for a crown? Would his adorning it be taken amiss as a calculated act on his part to rival and overshadow the host’s invisible coronet? Misinterpreted as a symbol of India’s imperialistic ambitions in the region? Anything was possible in this island with a track record for human rights and demagoguery as dark as its natives’ hue and future.
But the biggest worry of all came from the harpy in his backyard. She had been emitting a whole series of unpleasant noises and expelling noxious gases against his visit to Sri Lanka ever since the commonwealth countdown began. Her threat to cast an evil spell on him and blight the fifty million roses she has in her power to bloom and deliver to blossom his victory at the general elections next year was a major cause of serious concern. His future as prime minister depended on her continued patronage for the Tamil Nad vote bank was vital to return his Congress party to power.
Then on Thursday, true to form, she had gone the whole six yards of her sari and carried out the first part of her threat. Three days ago Tamil Nad virtually declared war on Sri Lanka. A resolution sponsored by her and presented in the State Assembly was unanimously passed. Among other demands, it called for the Indian government to “completely boycott” the Commonwealth Head of Governments Meeting, not to allow even “token participation of Indian representatives”, and to take steps to suspend Sri Lanka from the Commonwealth ’till it secures rights for the Tamils on par with the Sinhalese and their independence’. It also called for an economic embargo against Sri Lanka and wanted India to abstain from using the term “friendly nation” while making any reference to Sri Lanka.
And worse. To set the mercury rising in his pressure meter, Jayalalithaa also called him to take a leaf from the Canadian Prime Minister’s book and not to participate in the Commonwealth summit on the ground that Sri Lanka had violated the basic principles of the Commonwealth.
The message from Jayalalitha was crystal clear. She would cook his goose if he dared to disobey her imperious command rammed home by the all party vote in the Assembly. Though ostensibly it appeared that the decision had been made for him and his vacillating days were over, he knew it was not. For what he faced now was not a simple question of whether to go to the ball or not but whether the foreign policy and the larger long term interest of the Indian Government could be allowed to be dictated to by a firebrand political demagogue interested only in furthering the parochial prejudices of her own pranth and self.
For this once curvaceous skirted sex siren of the sizzling Tamil silver screen now turned full bloated sari wrapped surrogate mother of the flayed Tiger she once suckled, to still continue shedding synthetic, cinematic pseudo tears over its death, beating her breasts and wailing in theatrical grief to dramatically demonstrate her spurious heartbreak over the people it left orphaned, to dare issue an ultimatum to the central government and to him as prime minister was not only the height of arrogance but if it was conceded could possibly be the beginning of the breakup of India itself. If he gave in for petty political reasons of his own would it not create the precedent to fragmentize the Indian sub continent? Open the floodgates and have India awash with ‘separatist’ mania?
With the emerging world superpower China as enemy number one on one side with fixations on using Lanka as a strategic base against India and enemy number two, the military dominated, US backed, militant riddled Pakistan on the other, what would then be the fate of India itself torn asunder over a Tea Party in Colombo? Would his sorry place in history be that as the first prime minister of India to preside over the beginning of the liquidation of the Indian Federation?
Every day that passed steadily eroded his credibility as a statesman. Furthermore he would be abdicating his responsibility of ruling India and exercising her position as the regional power if he stayed home in a huff without actively making India’s position unambiguously clear to the Lankan Government face to face. Silence and absence did not have the same effect. Calls for a boycott only came from those under the misimpression that international power politics were conducted on the same sentimental lines as private domestic quarrels where obstinate silence and non participation in family activities were considered as weapons of protests.
Common sense dictated that the ‘any excuse for a sunshine break’ British Prime Minister Cameron was correct when he rejected opposition calls for a boycott by insisting it was right for him to attend so he could have “very tough conversations” with the Sri Lankan government. In the best interest of the Lankan Tamils, India should do the same. If Jayalalitha removed her blinkers she would see how wrong she was to insist he should not go.
Sri Lanka was pathetically bending over backwards, desperately begging him on all fours to come, despite knowing full well that, if he did condescend to accept her invite and came, she would get a public caning from ‘Big Brother’. What a diplomatic coup he would pull off without even trying, what a political triumph would fall onto his lap without even praying if he takes this heaven sent opportunity and goes to Lanka not as an invading, unwelcome, boorish bully flexing India’s mighty muscles like Rajiv Gandhi did to his eternal regret, but as the much invited, much honoured, much welcomed, red carpet treatment meted, suave Sikh saint soldier and renders the flogging Tamil Nad is so eager to give and Lanka seems so keen to receive? Amen.
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