Ramdev factor and the crisis of ideas

All the above statements are made by the man of the moment— RamKishan Yadav aka Baba Ramdev.

Here is the man whose views on issues from homosexuality to private enterprise are so retrograde that even his followers would find it horrifying. But all of them seem to have taken a deep breath and preferred to overlook his retrograde views and concentrate on his present obsession, fighting against black money and corruption.

Is there anyone in this country or anywhere else who dare say, we are for black money and corruption? But despite no one being in favour of it, why has this practice not stopped or rather escalated over the years? Simple. Greed. Greed is the root-cause of corruption which in turn generates black money, which lands up in foreign banks and surely in Haridwar also. And does Ramkishan Yadav have a cure for it, from any of the asanas he purveys?

He obviously doesn’t have a miracle cure tucked away even in his tens of crores worth Ashram in Haridwar or any of the multi-crore Food Parks. So what does he do? He decides to sit on a fast unto death in the nation’s capital. But then he does not say when he seeks permission, that he is going to do it. He says he will hold a Yoga camp and therefore needs the Ramlila grounds. Police and authorities are foxed, they know his real intentions, but can’t presume anything and have to give him permission when the official reason he gives is a Yoga camp. If they had presumed and denied permission, he and the media would have bludgeoned the authorities for denying permission for a perfectly legitimate activity.

The UPA Government is flummoxed. After the badgering they got when Kisan Baburao Hazare aka Anna Hazare and his bandwagon had held the fast a few weeks back in the capital, they did not want to be seen as indifferent again. So what do they do? They go overboard. They rush four ministers and the Cabinet Secretary and his appointed successor to the airport to hold talks. Apparently the plan was to hold talks there and if they don’t succeed in convincing Ramdev aka Ramkishan Yadav to withdraw his plans for a fast, they would pack him off from the airport. But despite him not agreeing to them, they lose the nerve to pack him off, and in the bargain come out looking like a bunch of defeated soldiers from a war. They also in turn earn all kinds of sobriquets, none of which any of them would even like to remember in their wildest nightmare. The Government also comes out it in poor light and rightly so.

Having been subjected to such an extra-ordinary treatment at the airport, remember not even the US President or the Queen of England gets four senior Cabinet ministers welcoming them at the airport, Ramdev aka Ramkishan Yadav thinks he can play around with the Government now. As his followers troop in from different parts of the country and start gathering at the Ramlila Maidan, he starts feeling that he has already conquered the Capital, his ultimate aim incidentally.

The Government however does not give up. It molly coddles him with responses which even an MP cannot expect on the floor of the parliament, with such alacrity. They bring out a laundry list of issues raised by him and agree to most of it. The political juvenility of it is evident to all, but the Government. The Ministers and those advising them think that they can turn the tables on the physically dexterous Ramdev aka Ramkishan Yadav, with their politically dexterous moves.

They even get him to give them a shabbily hand-written letter promising to end the so-called fast unto death. Ramdev aka Ramkishan Yadav drunk with the media-glare he has been enjoying for last 48 hours, thinks he can hoodwink the Government for some more time and enjoy the national media attention he is getting. He gets exposed, as by then the Government had enough of mollycoddling him and decides to be tough. One mistake has led to another, and late in the night it leads to one more.

Troops of security forces troop into Ramlila Maidan declares the permission granted is revoked and asks Ramdev aka Ramkishan Yadav to vacate. They resist. He even shows his simian abilities when he jumps from the stage and disappears into a mass of women and then tries to escape disguised as one of them. Though how he thought he could hide his beard in that white salwar and kurta, one can only guess. He is discovered and hustled off to the airport. Meanwhile his enraged supporters indulge in brickbats with police and women even assault policemen. Like all police forces all over do, they employ rough tactics to clear them, and even fire teargas shells. But unlike what happened in Nandigram or in many other places, they display restraint, and cause minimum harm, despite the potential for larger damage.

BJP and some other parties as well as many other people with new found fame, clog the traditional media as well as the social media with chants evoking memories of Jalianwala Bagh and Emergency. They start smelling an issue which they have been desperately searching for long. All hell breaks loose and sense of proportion seems to have become a major casualty.

Meanwhile the femininely attired Ramdev aka Ramkishan Yadav who is safely escorted back to his five-star ashram in Haridwar is found in a daze and later breaks down several times as he addresses his followers and the media, but later recovers to declare that his fast will continue, although in the safer confines of his ashram. We are all left to wait for some more melodrama and pious proclamations in the coming days.

Meanwhile, the Congress party goes into a huddle. It is sad to see that though Congress is only one, though the leading party, in the UPA Government, it has decided to handle both the Hazare and Ramdev issue as if it is only a Congress issue. Such seasoned politicians in the alliance like Sharad Pawar, M.Karunanidhi, even Lalu Yadav(who supports the government officially) are kept away and are not even consulted. Even seasoned politicians within the Congress party are kept at bay.  All wisdom to handle such issues seems to be the sole prerogative of a few in the Congress party. And the results are there for all to see.

As for the question why people like Ramdev aka Ramkishan Yadav with rather dubious reputations and the rather naïve Anna aka Kisan Baburao Hazare, have gained such unprecedented civil society approval is concerned, the answer is simple— the failure of the politicians of all hue and colours to respond to the aspirations and frustrations of the common man. The sooner the politicians realize this and make amends, the better it is for a parliamentary democracy. Otherwise what we will have is autocracy of the newly discovered heroes, with questionable understanding, retrograde ideas and worse impatient agendas and ambitions, encouraged by a breathless media unable to fathom the long-term damage it is causing to the description politic of this country.