[dropcap color=”#008040″ boxed=”yes” boxed_radius=”8px” class=”” id=””]W[/dropcap]ords retain their etymology for a long time. ‘Herd’ and ‘shepherd,’ when used as verbs, are such words. Their association with sheep and goats is known quite well, and used even by urbanites not very familiar with rural life. Urbanites like newspersons, who have rightly used the verbs to describe AIADMK general secretary V.K. Sasikala’s bid to save her MLAs from Tamil Nadu Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam.
People’s representatives, often even chief and prime ministers, have to bow to the whims and fancies of top party apparatchiks.
The AIADMK general secretary took no chances against a Panneerselvam. “After Panneerselvam’s midnight rebellion, Sasikala called a meeting of party MLAs at the AIADMK headquarters in a show of strength on Wednesday morning and later herded them in buses to undisclosed destination in a bid to keep the flock together,” reported The Times Of India (emphasis added).
The use of the “rebellion” was also exact, for rebellion is against the higher authority. Now, in a normal democracy, the chief political executive, whether a prime minister or a chief minister is the highest authority; but, in the wonder that is Indian democracy, party bosses often take over and, therefore, become the highest authority, the ‘high command.’ People’s representatives, often even chief and prime ministers, have to bow to the whims and fancies of top party apparatchiks.
[dropcap color=”#008040″ boxed=”yes” boxed_radius=”8px” class=”” id=””]T[/dropcap]echnically, in the parliamentary form of democracy, the executive is responsible to the executive; in practice, though, it is the other way around. Parliamentarians and MLAs have to obey the diktats of their respective party leaderships. Democracy stands on its head: while lawmakers are directly elected by the people and thus should be answerable to them, in practice they become answerable to, indeed servants of, party managers. And servants, like slaves and sheep, can be herded or shepherded around as per the convenience and requirements of apparatchiks.
It was an egregious arrangement: the party and the NAC had all the powers and no responsibilities, whereas it was the other way around for the government.
There are variations in situations. When the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance was in office, it was not just the party leadership that was supreme; even the circus surrounding Sonia Gandhi, called the National Advisory Council (NAC), called the shots. It was the duty of the then prime minister Manmohan Singh to pay obeisance to the NAC’s edicts which were invariably disastrous. It was an egregious arrangement: the party and the NAC had all the powers and no responsibilities, whereas it was the other way around for the government.
Today, that situation does not prevail, but it is little better than that, for now the entire system is under two men—Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Bharatiya Janata Party Amit Shah. It is the purpose of every ruling party parliamentarian to keep the duo in good humor rather than represent his constituents in Parliament.
[dropcap color=”#008040″ boxed=”yes” boxed_radius=”8px” class=”” id=””]W[/dropcap]hat is really depressing is that the taming of people’s representatives, and therefore the undermining of democracy, has been going on for decades; the language continues to betray the fact that democracy is being degraded. Such expressions as ‘the chief minister is trying to keep his flock together’, ‘MLAs have been herded to a resort,’ and ‘the party has issued whip to the MLAs’ are regularly used in political parlance.
Whoever may emerge as victorious in the fight between Sasikala and Panneerselvam, the real loser would be democracy.
Worse, the users of these expressions, including top journalists and other opinion makers, remain blissfully unaware of the subconscious acceptance of the degradation of democracy. The terms and expressions that must have been used by slavers have become part of the mainstream political discourse—and nobody is bothered. That is the real calamity.
Whoever may emerge as victorious in the fight between Sasikala and Panneerselvam, the real loser would be democracy.
Note:
1. The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of PGurus.
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