Turncoats

 We are still in a state of euphoria with the Pran Pratishthan (consecration) ceremony of Ram ji and guess who has stolen the thunder, our very own Sushasan Babu. His record breaking feat of switching alliances has no parallels in the annals of history. Ram jane how many times more we have to endure this or may be even Ram ji may not know, one wonders. 

There are a number of social media memes doing the rounds, one of the best is, India has moved from SIM portability to  CM portability, the CM stays the same, the service providers change. In the 60s with the frequent floor crossings by legislators, the idiom "Aya Ram Gaya Ram" was coined, as the member himself was not sure whether he was joining or leaving the political party. Such party hopping is quite common amongst the youngsters especially on weekends when they have a number of parties going on simultaneously and their absence from these dos would get noticed, so they resort to this trick. The aim being that their friends should know that the person concerned was present so just make your presence felt and then you can conveniently disappear to appear somewhere else. The politicians of course have no such compulsions, their explanations are always utopian in concept but dystopian in nature,  it ultimately boils down to their political survival. 

The old idiom of why did the chicken cross the road now can be re-framed to "Why did Nitish Kumar change his political affiliation?" The obvious answer to that would be "To Stay in power" but the variations could be "To save democracy", "For the sake of secularism", "To serve the poor", To root out corruption", "To bring an end to goonda raj" and so on...., depending on which side was he headed. His secretary could pick and choose any of the options without even bothering to refer back. 

Turncoats obviously originated in the country where they wore coats.For example, in the British Civil War during the 17th century, Cromwell's soldiers turned their coats inside out to match the colors of the Royal army. Incidentally these rolling stones are in august company as even Churchill switched sides but he is obviously not a patch on our very own, as he could do that just once and here we can boast of a record five times. May be coats are not the coutre of choice and dhotis can be worn any which way, it's identical, hence frequent changes doesn't cause any concern to anyone.  We have had late Ramvilas Paswan or currently Ramdas Athavale, both managed to be in the ruling combo be it NDA or UPA, with no qualms of ideology bothering their conscience or their electorate either.Politics is the art of the possible does not require any further proof. 

Indian democracy follows first past the post which has its own pitfalls and on top of that our caste conundrum makes our brand of democracy very different and unique. So principles and ideology are not the prime movers for allegiances to political parties, power is, and naturally politicians gravitate towards power centres. Defections surprisingly are not considered defective but is exploited rather as an effective means to the end. The Anti Defection Law which was enacted in the 80s left so many loopholes that there are only holes in it now, the loops have simply disappeared. The speaker wields enormous powers as was evident recently in Maharashtra, discard the incumbent, elect the pliant one and you have successfully trumped the system. 

I think the only way to ensure foolproof system would be to make it mandatory for the member to resign from his seat as he was elected for a different mandate and he should not be permitted to switch sides irrespective of the numbers game i.e. even if all the members belonging to the party wish to defect, they must be simply disqualified.. But mind you here we have had members resigning as they wanted to switch sides like what transpired in Karnataka some years ago, obviously not out of respect for the democratic traditions but for reasons best known to all of us. The solution obviously lies with us, the voters we must punish the turncoats, it can't be business as usual... neither forgetting nor forgiving.