After a lonely day in the City and passing through Fleet Street, a homesick WB Yeats wrote in The Lake of Innisfree:
I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee;
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet’s wings.
I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.”
I’ve never been to Ireland. So I have no idea now what Innifree looks like. But I can understand what made Yeats, in a burst of poetic inspiration, come up with those evocative lines or why he wanted to escape to his beloved Ireland. The Lake of Innisfree was like a utopia for the great Irish poet where he wanted to escape the hustle and bustle of the city life and find his own space, away from the world.
Iqbal voiced a similar urge when he wrote:
Dunya Ki Mehfilon Se Ukta Gya Hun Ya Rab!
Kya Lutf Anjuman Ka Jab Dil Hi Bujh Gya Ho
(O Lord! I have become weary of human assemblages! When the heart is sad no pleasure in assemblages can be)
Merta Hoon Khamoshi Par, Ye Arzoo Hai Meri
Daman Mein Koh ke Ek Chota Sa Jhonpra Ho
(I vehemently desire silence, I strongly long that A small hut in the mountain’s side may there be)
All of us at some time or the other would like to drop it all and escape to our own Innisfree. In the past few months, I’ve been driven by the same overwhelming longing. To drop it all and escape somewhere — to my own Innisfree.
In the past fortnight or so when I was back home in India, this urge to break free was at its wildest. I was weighed down by a foreboding sense of doom and gloom, as though something terrible was going to happen. Amid all the fun and games and at times sheer madness, the hallmark of an Indian election, one kept asking oneself – Is it really happening? India has never seen an election like this before.
This is not an election. It’s been more like a deluge — a tsunami, in the words of the BJP’s prime ministerial contender. It’s Modi, Modi and Modi everywhere. You can’t escape his face and hard, admonishing stare wherever you go.
This may well be the most defining election yet, changing the direction and very nature of the polity. It has already changed and transformed India in profound, irreversible ways. Year 2014 may go down in history as the year that changed Gandhi’s and Nehru’s India forever — giving it a 360 degree turn. One has never seen such toxic, bitter political campaigning. Cutthroat battles are being waged for every single seat. Tension everywhere is so thick you could slice it with a knife. Of course, caste and communal equations have always played a role in India. But what one sees today is something unprecedented – not witnessed even during and after the Ayodhya upheavals in 1990s.
India has never been more polarized and split along communal lines. While BJP’s sister outfits like VHP and its chief Praveen Togadias are known to play a loony side tune spreading sweetness and good cheer all around, it did not touch a deafening crescendo as it has today.
It’s as if 2014 is not about electing a new government. It is a referendum on one man and his view of India. And the whole nation – political establishment, all arms of the state, mighty corporates, media and middle classes – appears to be driven by one single mission to enthrone the man who already acts like the emperor.
How did we end up here? How can the famously sensible, savvy Indian voters shut their eyes to all that has been going on in plain sight – injustice, murder, rape and persecution – in the past 12 years to choose someone who has presided over all this?
Is this really what a proud nation of one billion people with 5000-year old history, deserves? Is this what the blessed democracy deserves?
The Congress is guilty of a great deal and is responsible for many of our woes. But is the alterative, being thrust in our face, really the idea that will deliver the nation?
In the end when the history of this extraordinary election is written, it will not be about how one man and his Parivar, determined, calculating and leaving nothing to chance, clinched it but how another one simply threw it away.
Rahul Gandhi had everything going for him – his youth, the most celebrated name and brand in Indian politics and a powerful organization with pan-India presence. Above all, after 10 years in power, the Congress-led UPA can claim some formidable achievements.
During the past 10 years, India has not just maintained its steady economic growth rate in the face of global recession, it has lifted nearly 150 million people out of poverty. Yet, the Congress appears set for the most humiliating drubbing in its history.
One wouldn’t care two hoots if it was merely a loss for the grand old party. What worries one sick is the inevitable alternative. And everyone who cares for India should be worried, very worried about the future.
Many of us still can’t believe our worst fears may be coming true. My harried wife and friends keep saying from time to time: “Looks like he’s coming after all. What will happen? What will happen to India? What will happen to us?”
What is the way out indeed? What is the alternative? There appears to be none. Seems one can stop the saffron juggernaut. The Congress has left the field wide open, virtually rolling out the red carpet for our new ‘Dear Leader.’
As Advani recently wrote, if the BJP wins this election, it should be “grateful to the Congress for working systematically and steadfastly to ensure that.”
In the face of BJP’s Rs.5000-crore, 24x7 propaganda blitz, the Congress campaign is nowhere to be seen. An ailing Sonia’s campaigning has understandably been limited yet brave. Rahul has finally found his voice but it’s clearly too little too late. One of the party’s strategic blunders has been the decision to not deploy its most lethal weapon in this election. Look at the impact Priyanka Gandhi has created with her limited campaigning in the constituencies of Sonia and Rahul Gandhi.
Two of her short speeches have set the cat among the saffron pigeons. With her charisma, affability and easy connect with people, she is a natural leader and should have been campaigning across the length and breadth of India. But then the Congress never had the will to win this battle. And it’s just not the Congress that threw in the towel long before the gong went off. All those who never tire of championing the secular and democratic traditions of the country have been of little help. With their endless feuds and turf wars, they’ve been paving the way for ‘Modi sarkar.’
While an aggressive BJP is scouring the country making friends and winning allies, Congress and secular parties are locked in bitter, multi-cornered battles everywhere directly helping you know who.
Instead of cobbling together an effective alliance to confront a resurgent BJP, trust Congress to lose allies like DMK, Paswan and TRS despite delivering Telangana. Similar disarray has been seen among Muslims, the so-called vote bank which has often played an influential role in battleground states such as Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.
The Muslim electorate has been thoroughly confused by the pulls and pressures of various ‘secular’ parties and appeals of ‘community leaders’ like Delhi Jama Masjid Imam Bukhari, whose appeal endorsing Congress may have singlehandedly delivered millions of Hindu votes to BJP. With friends like these, who needs enemies?
There has been a great deal of enthusiasm among Muslims for the Aam Aadmi Party, with Mushawarat, an umbrella body of Muslim organizations, endorsing Arvind Kejriwal. Frustrated with the Congress and fearful of BJP, Muslims, like millions of other Indians, see hope in the AAP. Given the party’s limited footprint though, it could end up eating into the Congress’ vote share. AAP as a healthy alternative to Congress and BJP is a great idea. But its time is yet to come.
This is a serious do-or-die battle for the future and very idea of India. 2014 may very well determine the future and fate of the world’s greatest democracy. This is no time for fun and games.
- Aijaz Zaka Syed is a Gulf based writer.
Email: [email protected]
