If Tharoor Loses in Trivandrum....

The voters of Trivandrum have left everyone guessing as the curtains came down on the of state’s most high profile electoral battle. Why were they reluctant to use this as an opportunity for change? They had high profile candidates, P K Krishnadas of the BJP or Neelalohithadas of the BSP might have ended up being ministers of cabinet rank if their leaders landed the PM’s job. And in Shashi Tharoor they had an ideal candidate to usher in the much needed freshness they had been longing for in the political sphere. Now whoever wins, one thing is certain, he is going to Delhi with the approval of less than 25% of the voters in the constituency. Not even the glamour and glitter of an international celebrity which brought it to the limelight could boost the polling percentage in the capital. The prospects are supposed to be brighter for the left when the polling percentage is low with their committed cadre voters. But this time there could be strong undercurrents which may upset those calculations. Even the prospects of ‘national parties’ the BSP or the BJP opening their account in the state now look a distinct possibility. It appears that the people have grown disillusioned with the years of neglect and insult showered on them by the incompetent politicians who couldn’t circumvent the lobbyists from within and outside the state actively torpedoing the development initiatives and interests of this historic city. The people of Trivandrum were being taken for a ride, be it the Vizhinjam port, the High Court bench, or the subway rail systems. They were being denied even the basic infrastructure such as a railway station and central bus stand approachable by land during the monsoon seasons.   

Of the four major candidates in the fray this time, Tharoor held more promise because he stood out in the crowd. True, he had not arrived as a messenger of change from among the masses, a la Obama and descended from the top courtesy the high command. But the fact that he has a brilliant mind suited to politics is not to be suspected. He surely knows a thing or two about the lobbies and their operational mechanisms and might have taken them on in a game of their own. Remember he had won over the whole nation across the political divides when he sought to become the UN secretary general, pushing the national desire for a permanent seat in the Security Council quietly under the carpet.

Sashi Tharoor writes wonderfully in simple prose. I have been a regular reader of his columns, an ardent fan of sorts, of his writing. He did a couple of inspiring pieces on the importance of being Irfan Pathan  in the post Godhra India which was very much on the lines of what I had in mind. But often when we write, we reveal more about ourselves than perhaps what we actually desire. And at times we do get a little carried away and he is no exception as it happened with his piece on the Stephanians in Parliament which he had to retract. It can happen with anyone of us, factual errors originating from an erroneous source derailing our dissemination of information. But it couldn’t have been lost on him that some of the people whom he had incorrectly listed need not have to burn much midnight oil to sail into either the Indian Parliament or St. Stephan’s or wherever. And it is only a part of the story; some of those brilliant Stephanians he had mentioned correctly didn’t cover themselves with glory either in their political career.   

Left propaganda managers had been educating the public to the effect that as the UN Under Secretary General, Mr. Tharoor had been nothing but a glorified clerk. What of the left candidate then? Hadn’t he been one too, to leaders like PKV in the past? The leadership training in some left parties had assumed that style for quite some time now. If you listen silently to all that the leader preaches and obey him for a lifetime as an attendant, you might end up being an MP or MLA when he passes away, that is after the children orphaned by the leaders are accommodated. And look at his name, he hopes to usher in the communist revolution but couldn’t forego his casteist surname. In the 21^st century, a communist with a casteist tailpiece is no better than a   Gandhian riding on the Merc. I am unsure about Mr. Tharoor’s credentials on caste, but he too is not above the temptation to eulogize his ‘royal’ lineage from the times when the rich and the powerful landed gentry in every junction in Kerala used to call themselves kings. Added to that he traces his roots to a particular district in Kerala where the people of his community suffer from a certain superiority complex as reflected in the matrimonial ads they place on the news papers.

In spite of these, however, I had the inkling that he could have been the man of the moment for Trivandrum. We are well into the 21^st century; pragmatism should have been preferred to mere political ideologies in a flourishing democracy, especially when the gap between the certified retailers of those ideologies is fast diminishing. Tharoor had chosen to come to Trivandrum braving the heat and dust and plunged into the electoral rough ride to have the honour of representing the constituency which had a history of electing as well as dumping political stalwarts. That, remember is when our honorable Prime Minister is reluctant to face the electorate.  He too could have easily opted for the rear gate into the Upper House and ended up being a central minister. That he chose to seek the people's mandate reveals his good intentions and his faith in the democratic process. Tharoor did bring a certain aura to the electoral scene in Trivandrum. But by now, it’s more or less clear that he had failed to inspire the urban middle class voters, probably his best bet, to march up to the polling booths. If someone pips him to the post, he surely will be an international celebrity basking on the reflected glory, albeit briefly.

Selfless men can not survive in 21^st century politics, nor can selfless voters derive the best out of it. If they were smart enough, the voters of Trivandrum should have realized that all the other major contenders would have continued to work in their midst whether they win or lose in the current elections. Expecting that off Tharoor in the case of a humiliating defeat will be asking for too much. This was an opportunity for the voters of Trivandrum to tap the talents of a highly gifted freshman politician.  If they messed it up, who cares? After all, river Karamana won’t stop draining water to the Arabian Sea for some more years and Trivandrum will continue to limp ahead at its own convenient and leisurely pace. And as for Mr. Tharoor, well he may have gained plenty to add to his literary output.