Sushma the populist versus Jaitley the statesman

Commentators are already calling it a historic moment for Indian democracy, a moment when our elected leaders rose to the occasion, putting party politics aside to heed the voice of the nation. In one speech after another, the tone was lofty, as were the sentiments, with both the ruling party and the opposition urging the other to show good faith. A rare display of great statesmanship, perhaps? Or maybe it was just good politics. The two sides seem to have finally learnt the first principle of Hazare politics: the higher road leads to victory. This has always been a battle for the higher moral ground. This is the reason why Team Anna couldn’t have asked for a better opponent than the UPA government with its amazing propensity to make exactly the wrong decision at the wrong time — in every sense of the word. For the last two years, it has always been easy to make the UPA look bad. So bad, in fact, that few have paid attention to the BJP’s own flip-flops. This is the party that maintained radio silence about the Jan Lokpal bill until it was, suddenly, entirely for it. Saturday’s debate, thus, marked a critical moment for all the parties. A moment when what they said and how they said it would seal their image in the public mind. The Congress party chose to put on its most subdued face: a sombre Pranab Mukherjee who offered a sincere, plodding speech that ended with him almost begging his peers – with hands folded – to “find an objective solution within the constitution” without sacrificing “parliamentary supremacy”. [caption id=“attachment_71383” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“The parliamentary debate revealed a Janus-faced leadership, one a feisty self-made street-fighter; the other a polished, urbane lawyer. AFP Photo”]  [/caption] Isolated and pinned to the wall, the government was reduced to making its case, not so much to the people, but to the opposition, saying: if you feed us to the beast, you will be next. But it showed a rare humility, a step down from its usual blustering hubris to acknowledge that it cannot handle this crisis alone. (If latest reports are to be believed, this temporary rush of modesty may already have passed.) The stage, therefore, was already rigged in favour of Sushma Swaraj when she rose first to speak. And she opened with a flourish, unveiling her inner stateswoman to impressive effect. “Yeh ehtihasik charcha hai, aur shanti se honi chahiye (This is a historic debate and must be conducted with peace),” she said, requesting all members, including those of her own party, to show restraint and respect. “Let us show the nation that we can discuss these matters with seriousness and depth.” But she soon lapsed into her first and only error: an extended attack on Rahul Gandhi, accusing the Speaker and Rahul of misusing zero-hour on Friday. “Yeh tho rashtra ke naam sandesh de rahe the,” she complained, an unnecessary swipe that reduced the house to the usual pandemonium, breaking the momentum of her own speech. But she recovered soon enough to launch a brilliant offensive that slyly deployed Manmohan Singh as a stick to beat his own party. An oratorical sleight of hand reminiscent of Shakespeare at his best: I have come to praise Manmohanji, not to bury him… But bury him, she did, by positioning him as the good, weak man disdained by his own corrupt party. Swaraj touted his “great” speech in parliament only to slam Rahul for undermining its noble sentiment. She expressed her joy at seeing MMS in parliament, saying, “I am happy that the Prime Minister has taken the reins in his hand again.” “Your leader speaks very little, but when he does, no one listens to him,” she said to her Congress peers, “I’m telling you to listen to him, heed what he says.” Sliding the knife in, over and again, with a sweet smile on her face, even as she begged Pradhan Mantriji to “come forward and take charge”. Continues on the next page This was Sushma Swaraj at her populist, street-fighting best, breathing “fire and brimstone,” as one TV commentator put it. She was clearly playing to a bigger audience: both the Anna supporters, whose cause she championed with passionate conviction, and the BJP voters thirsting for a good old-fashioned anti-Congress smackdown. But to do so, she had to abandon the high moral position she aimed to occupy. By the end, she reverted to the Sushma we all know best. A formidable politician, yes, non-partisan stateswoman, not so much. That mantle was awarded instead to her party nemesis and Rajya Sabha member Arun Jaitley. “He elevated the parliamentary debate to another level,” gushed Loksatta President Jaiprakash Narayan, “There was no rancour, no bitterness in his speech. He has risen above everything. And hats off to him.” Jaitley played BJP’s good cop: erudite, reasonable, carefully even-handed. A man of honour and intelligence, arguing for a strong Lokpal while raising conscientious objections. There was no ‘Go Anna!’ rhetoric here. “We must be guided by two vital considerations: the need for probity, and need for constitutionalism,” he said. He seemed to speak not as a BJP man but as an august member of parliament, addressing his peers, urging them “not to be provoked” by the protesters into engineering “a confrontation between government and civil society.” He rarely attacked the ruling party, and even acknowledged the legitimacy of some of its objections. On the business of the state Lokayuktas, he said, “This is a conflict between maintaining probity and federalism, and a concern for us too. I share this concern with the Finance minister and various civil rights groups.” Jaitley played the wise King Solomon, giving every argument its due in a bravura performance that won him instant laurels. Some TV anchors were quick to credit him with “combining the best of Aruna Roy’s suggestions, the best features of the Jan Lokpal, and the reservations of the political class. This is can truly be the basis of consensus.” Or not, given the ongoing impasse. Whatever the outcome of the current crisis, the nation got a closer look at two of BJP’s strongest prospects for 2014. The parliamentary debate revealed a Janus-faced leadership, one a feisty self-made street-fighter with formidable oratorical skills and a natural affinity for a mass audience; the other a polished, urbane lawyer who can seduce the ruling political class and media elite. And yet in their political views, it is Jaitley who is closer to the party’s hardline leadership, while Swaraj is often dismissed within the party as an ideologically suspect “centrist”. Electoral politics, of course, require more than just moral authority. Seizing the higher ground may be key in a crisis of moral legitimacy, but it is rarely sufficient to win at the polls – or at least not in the past. The bigger question here is whether the Hazare protests have changed the stakes in Indian politics. Will we now look for a statesman who rises above party politics, or will we seek a populist crusader against corruption? Or do we want both? If so, to be in with a chance in 2014, BJP will need Jaitley and Swaraj, working in seamless tandem – much as they did today.