Jyotiraditya's 'new' start: Moderate voices aren't heard, post-truth rules the roost

Jyotiraditya Scindia with Amit Shah

By Salman Khurshid*
It is sad to say goodbye as I do today to Bal, Jyotiraditya Scindia, as he sets off to a new start in a new world. I had bid farewell to his father 18 years ago when the plane carrying him to Kanpur crashed in my constituency. Losing Madhavrao, Rajesh Pilot and Jitendra Prasada changed our politics irreversibly. Today a surviving link get snapped or at least suspended.
Hopefully personal contacts will survive but in this divided world of politics of winner takes all feelings will perhaps never be allowed to be the same. Of course in many ways it is a goodbye not of my making, and certainly without a parting word or gesture to preserve as memory for old times’ sake.
Suddenly amongst colleagues awe and admiration has turned to despise and rancour. Politics, at least in contemporary India, is with a few constants and who knows what tomorrow will bring. But the barrage of clips being shown on TV and posted on social media of Jyotiraditya’s stirring speeches against the BJP and Prime Minister Modi makes one wonder if all political speeches are really without feeling.
What is condemned as bad or evil is not really so but it serves the moment to say that. Equally all good and praiseworthy is but lip service for convenience or advancement. Who then and when does speak eternal truth? There is only longevity, no permanence in our thoughts and words. One knew some politics is theatre but that there is only theatre including of the absurd is becoming apparent in these times of stress.

Jyotiraditya’s stirring speeches against the BJP and Prime Minister Modi makes one wonder if all political speeches are really without feeling

Even many hate speeches that hurt seem calculated attention seeking rather than real malice. But the damage is done and sometimes as in the recent Delhi riots leading to loss of lives and property. In Parliament the structure of the riots and pre-planned nature was clear to all Members but divergence on perpetrators and victims leaves one wondering if the human cost matters at all. It is just about scoring points, like all politics.

Salman Khurshid

Gandhiji told us to hate the sin, not the sinner. We now use our hate for the ‘other’ to dub him sinner and use our sin to show our hate for him. In the process we have no problem turning truth into hate. Yet politics persuades us to embrace hate and obfuscate it before endorsing it.
Meanwhile yesterday’s faithful becomes today’s betrayer even as yesterday’s betrayer protests the latest betrayal. Moderate voices are not heard anymore and post-truth rules the world. Like fatalists we just ask, ‘who next?’ and wait…
Dagh-e-firaq-e-shab ki jali hui,
Ik shama rehgayee hai so vo bhi khamosh hai
Aate hai ghaib se ye mazamim khayal mein
Ghalib sarir-e-khama nava-e-sarosh hai
(Of the spotted night of separation
One candle that survives too is silent,
From the unknown come these thoughts,
The sound of Ghalib’s pen is blessed by voice of divinity)
Apni gali mein mujh ko na kar dafn bad-e-qatl
Mere pate se khalq ko kyun tera ghar mile
(Bury me not in your street after murdering me
Lest my address leads people to your home.)
Those two couplets of Mirza Ghalib sum up our times and our condition. But as the casualties mount of loved ones will the tears dry up and make us stoic? Or take solace in Mohammed Ali Jauhar’s ‘Islam zinda hota hai har Karbala ke baad’ with the hope and prayer that this too will not be added to the annals of hate speech.
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*Former foreign minister, Supreme Court advocate, senior Congress leader. Source: Facebook timeline