OPED | Thursday, September 24, 2009 | Email | Print |  | Back
Mockery of austerity
Sandeep B
It’s an attempt to cover up Government’s failures
Our dharmashastras prohibit hoarding of food, or acquiring material possessions, beyond the bare minimum as one of the qualities of an ideal Brahmin. The reason: The more you possess, the farther those possessions divert you from the path of self-study (swadhyaya), penance, and spiritual realisation.
A few thousand years later, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi wore just a loin cloth to cover his modesty because he was appalled by the swarming millions of poor people in India. The third Prime Minister of India, Lal Bahadur Shastri, forbade his family from using his official car for personal purposes, and his position to get jobs for his sons.
These are straightforward and everlasting examples of austerity.
Cut to today. A few weeks ago, Minister for External Affairs, Mr SM Krishna, and Minister of State for External Affairs, Mr Shashi Tharoor, famously declared that they wouldn’t move out of the five-star hotels they were staying in. They reasoned it was fine because they paid for it from their personal accounts. This was just the whiff of opportunity that the ruckus-rakers within the Congress were waiting for. It was time for a fresh internal boxing match to ‘show’ who was closer to the throne.
Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee chided his two colleagues for their vulgar extravagance at a time of rising food prices and assorted economic horrors. Expectedly, Congress president Sonia Gandhi stepped in and agreed with Mr Mukherjee that prices were indeed spiralling through the roof. Post-haste, she laid the foundation stone for the ‘austerity’ show that followed.
Massive retinues of various hues of specialisation — commandos, cops, friskers, mediapersons — accompanied the austerity awareness tours that Ms Gandhi and her son Mr Rahul Gandhi embarked upon. While the mother travelled in economy class by flight, the son preferred the Shatabdi chair car. Congressmen cutting across positions had to grudgingly follow the example. The picture-and-sound-starved media celebrated this show of simplicity with childlike wonder. But the message had reached the intended ears much before this awareness drive. Mr Krishna and Mr Tharoor had ‘seen’ the light and by then had vacated their five-star lodgings.
But the austerity train took a new turn when Mr Tharoor posted a message (or Tweet) about travelling in economy class on Twitter (http://twitter.com/home), a hugely popular micro-blogging Web service. His tweet, “Absolutely, in cattle class out of solidarity with all our holy cows!” in response to a query started ‘Bout 2’ of the boxing match almost immediately. The omnipotent Congress ‘high command’ slammed Mr Tharoor’s tweet and obtained a “clarification” (read apology) from him. A news report quoting Congress sources said that this was the high command’s way of sending a “message” to all “new entrants” that they should “learn the language and culture of this historic party.”
While there’s some truth in the oft-repeated quote from Sarojini Naidu about the cost of keeping Mahatma Gandhi poor, it is undeniable that Gandhi personally led an austere life and inspired millions of Indians to follow it. Lal Bahadur Shastri is remembered with respect bordering on reverence for exactly this reason. However, the politics and character of the Nehruvian Congress stands at the other pole. While Jawaharlal Nehru was quite ostentatious about his extravagance and his contempt for the ‘lower class’ is well-known, the Congress , beginning with the other Gandhi (Mrs Indira Gandhi), very austerely institutionalised corruption, nepotism and intrigue. Little surprise that Shastri is a complete misfit in the ‘language’ and ‘culture’ of this historic party. But today’s avatar of the Congress wants us to actually believe that its ‘spread austerity’ programme is concordant with Mahatma Gandhi’s austerity.
Besides, it is even wasteful to talk about this mindless hysteria, which is nothing beyond a neat attempt to divert our attention from the UPA’s 100-plus days of non-governance. On the food shortage problem and the general wretchedness of the economy, Shastri told a journalist that he would ask the Planning Commission to “have one more column in their charts to show (me) how many jobs will be created after spending thousands of crores of rupees.” He didn’t take his sons, hangers-on, and fellow travellers on austerity train rides.
A truly austere person doesn’t hold Press conferences about it. Austerity is a cultivated trait of character. Enough said.
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