Because, we could not (or we
did not) hear him when his Congress party led UPA government, in collusion with
other political parties, brought the amendment to the Right to Information
(RTI) Act to kill the spirit of a landmark judgement by the Central Information
Commission (CIC).
The decision by the CIC putting the
political parties considerably funded by public money under the purview of the
RTI Act treating them as public authorities was a historically important
empowering step needed desperately to help cleanse the polluted Indian polity.
But this history-making decision soon saw its nemesis and is under imminent
threat now.
Within days of the CIC decision, the
government under Manmohan Singh brought the Right to Information (Amendment)
Bill 2013 to shield all and sundry of the political class by changing the
definition of public authority to keep the political parties insulated from the
RTI Act and so from the public scrutiny. After having its Parliament stint, the
amendment bill is now with a standing committee of Parliament.
If the political parties claim to
represent the people, and if the politicians need to go back to the people to
continue to be in power, they need to be answerable to the people.
Will Rahul Gandhi mend for his mistake
then and would push for the withdrawal of the RTI Act amendment bill now?
Because, Kalawati, the Rahul
Gandhi metaphor, has been reduced to look and sound like a sorry figure. She
symbolises the charade of life, of hope being a mere flicker and of unending
run of despair. And there are countless Kalawatis like Rahul Gandhi’s Kalawati.
This Kalawati metaphor has become like the countless failed assurances that, in
turn, represent the millions of other Kalawatis, the Indians struggling somehow
to manage their lives.
Kalawati and Rahul are inseparable because
she, once, symbolised the raw energy of a young politician who was beginning
his active career in politics, a politician who sent a message that he intended
to be the politician with a difference, a politician who spoke his mind
honestly.
Kalawati - Rahul Gandhi repeatedly
tries to sound pro-people by using real life examples and anecdotes. But the
ground reality of the real life metaphors that Rahul tries to convey and
symbolise through his speeches fails the very intent like it happened in
Kalawati’s case.
The ground reality of the metaphor
Kalawati fails Rahul.
India is dotted with millions of
Kalawatis – living in poverty, burdened, miserable, vulnerable.
And, the Kalawati Rahul Gandhi made the
major theme of his 2008 Parliament speech could have evolved as the champion of
the cause bringing qualitative changes to the lives of the millions of
Kalawatis thus symbolising a young politician’s resolve to change the face of
this ‘miserable’ India.
Yet, Kalawati remains, after five
years, just one of the millions of Kalawatis – miserable and burdened. She
still works as a contract labourer and finds it hard to feed the family of
eight. Had Kalawati thought of this sort of immortalization?
Millions still languish. Thousands
still die. There are many ‘Attapadis’, ‘Kalahandis’ and ‘Bidars’ in India and
no one is ready to listen to their cries.
There are millions of Kalawatis looking
for someone to come and help them win over the many deaths they live, day after
day.
Assurances were always there. Promises
will fly even higher with elections around the corner.
We need to wait to see if it is going
to be different in future because we can say it is not going to be so this time.
But, there is more to reason why taking
Rahul Gandhi’s voice of conscience as ‘a genuine voice of concern of an
outsider politician’ needs much more than ‘public’ outburst of his anger on an
ordinance to shield the convicted politicians from disqualification?
©/IPR: Santosh Chaubey - http://severallyalone.blogspot.com/
