Dr Dharamvira Gandhi, for­mer Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment from Pa­tiala, Pun­jab, es­tranged from Aam Aadmi Party and known for his in­de­pen­dent stances, has now openly is­sued a clar­ion call to “the pro­gres­sives and all the sec­u­lar-mod­ernist lib­er­als” to vote for the Con­gress in the up­com­ing Pun­jab elec­tions to save democ­racy. His ar­ti­cle, “When Democ­ra­cies Com­mit Sui­cide” has been do­ing the rounds on so­cial me­dia. Se­nior Jour­nal­ist SP Singh makes a con­sid­ered in­ter­ven­tion in the de­bate, point­ing out where the good doc­tor missed cer­tain nu­ances in his line of ar­gu­ment. – Ed­i­tor, WSN.

D R DHARAMVIRA GANDHI IS AN HO­N­OURABLE MAN who ven­tured into pol­i­tics rid­ing the wave of the frus­trated in 2014 that sent him to Par­lia­ment and cat­a­pulted BJP to an un­prece­dented vic­tory —both phe­nom­ena seem­ingly un­der­lin­ing di­a­met­ri­cally op­po­site pol­i­tics.

Seven years later, Gandhi, a doc­tor by pro­fes­sion and a peo­ple’s man by na­ture, is ad­vo­cat­ing the cause of Con­gress.

A lesser man would have made that jour­ney through de­ceit or hypocrisy, or some deal, but Gandhi has trudged an hon­est path. He turned out to be a man with his own voice in the Ke­jri­wal out­fit, in in­con­gru­ous qual­ity in a party that sees the lat­ter as a vote-mag­net mes­siah.

Dharamvira Gand­hi’s pro-Pun­jab ap­proach, his caste and class analy­sis, his stance on re­gional as­pi­ra­tions and fed­er­al­ism, and his com­mit­ment to not budge from the line that came from a life­time of un­der­stand­ing Pun­jab ran into a wall. Arvind Ke­jri­wal had proven to be a good ad­min­is­tra­tor, un­scrupu­lous com­pro­miser, ca­pa­ble of cut­ting deals with the devil, and ea­ger to play the na­tion­al­ist, and dare we say, covert com­mu­nal card if it meant kow­tow­ing to the baser el­e­ments to hog more votes.

Hamid Dab­holkar, the son of renowned ra­tio­nal­ist and mar­tyr Naren­dra Dab­holkar, had once de­scribed the BJP and the Con­gress as one party be­ing pro­gram­mat­i­cally com­mu­nal, and the other be­ing prag­mat­i­cally com­mu­nal. Ke­jri­wal had lit­tle hes­i­ta­tion in fit­ting into the sec­ond slot.

Hamid Dab­holkar, the son of renowned ra­tio­nal­ist and mar­tyr Naren­dra Dab­holkar, had once de­scribed the BJP and the Con­gress as one party be­ing pro­gram­mat­i­cally com­mu­nal, and the other be­ing prag­mat­i­cally com­mu­nal. Ke­jri­wal had lit­tle hes­i­ta­tion in fit­ting into the sec­ond slot.

Gand­hi’s an­tipa­thy to the BJP is known. His frus­tra­tion with the Shi­ro­mani Akali Dal is un­der­stand­able, given his life­long flir­ta­tion with the Left that sees com­mu­nal­ism in the neigh­bour­hood Nis­han Sahib and smells mil­i­tancy in the hordes of Sikh youth rid­ing on trol­leys shout­ing Bole So Ni­hal along the way.

The fact that the Kisan An­dolan kept Gandhi at bay, scoff­ing at his pres­ence at Singhu Bor­der and re­fus­ing to al­low him to even ad­dress the gath­er­ing on the pre­text that he was as­so­ci­ated with a po­lit­i­cal party, could have not hurt Gandhi. The Sanyukt Kisan Mor­cha’s de­ci­sion to re­peal the MP on ac­count of non-ex­is­tent ties to AAP was ill-in­formed at best, malafide at worst, but it cer­tainly did not en­dear Gandhi to the farmer bod­ies’ amal­ga­ma­tion.

Gandhi, to the best of our un­der­stand­ing, re­mained sym­pa­thetic to the cause, how­ever, but he had more nu­anced views that went be­yond the three con­tro­ver­sial farm bills. An ag­gres­sive An­dolan of­ten runs roughshod over nu­ances; so Gandhi be­came a vic­tim of in­dif­fer­ence. Not every­one takes Au­den’s ad­vice -If equal af­fec­tion can­not be/​Let the more lov­ing one be me. Gandhi cer­tainly did not.

As a re­sult, when el­e­ments from the 32-mem­ber SKM formed a po­lit­i­cal party with the clev­erly con­trived name of Sanyukt Samaj Mor­cha, it broke the camel’s back for Gandhi. He could no more re­main silent, watch­ing the arena and still re­main­ing aloof.

That’s not Dharamvira Gandhi.

Gandhi is a man of words – some­one who for­mu­lates his stances, gives words to his thoughts, writes an ar­ti­cle.

This time, Gandhi has writ­ten a mis­sive. He did not want to be seen as a man who kept mum when Pun­jab was drown­ing in a clan­gourous clam­our of the self-pro­claimed right­eous.

Among the avail­able choices — a Dalit CM-led gag­gle; a Navjot Singh Sidhu-led throng of the chal­lengers; a Ke­jri­wal-led guar­an­tee-dish­ing swarm; a clow­der of Amarinder Singh-Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa-Amit Shah pol­i­tics; a Shi­ro­mani Akali Dal that has moulded the en­tire party into the su­per­im­posed im­ages of Parkash Singh-Sukhbir-Har­sim­rat-Bikram Ma­jithia; and lastly, the gag­gle that thinks it needs a ran­dom word sand­wiched be­tween “Sanyukt” and “Mor­cha” to be­come ac­cept­able to the peo­ple of Pun­jab — Gandhi needed to cast his vote and weight.

Dharamvira Gandhi has gone out on a limb and cho­sen the Con­gress.

In his “The Early His­tory of the Type­writer,” Charles E. Weller de­scribes the stan­dard typ­ing drill phrase: “Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party.”  World­wide, wire news agen­cies use the phrase to open their ser­vices in the morn­ing.

Pun­jab is drown­ing in a clan­gourous clam­our of the self-pro­claimed right­eous, and Dharamvira Gandhi needed to cast his vote and weight.

The good Gandhi has opened his cards by com­ing to the aid of his newly-cho­sen party. Whether he will even­tu­ally join it is his choice, and he has every de­mo­c­ra­tic right to opt for that. As of now, he has thrown his weight be­hind it, telling the peo­ple of Pun­jab to save democ­racy by vot­ing for Con­gress that, he thinks, “is try­ing to emerge un­der the lead­er­ship of the young brigade.”

His ap­peal is aimed at “all the pro­gres­sives and all the sec­u­lar-mod­ernist lib­er­als”. Clearly, Gandhi, in re­al­is­ing “the epochal im­por­tance” of this strug­gle to save democ­racy from an on­slaught by the Hin­dutva forces, has con­vinced him­self that Con­gress is the an­swer.

Gandhi seem­ingly does ac­knowl­edge that the party of the free­dom strug­gle had been de­cay­ing and was full of un­scrupu­lous politi­cians, but opines that its one part “is fight­ing against an­other part.”

He teaches Pun­jabis who to vote for, be­cause he says he knows. “I am say­ing all this be­cause I should know.” He talks about how the cur­rent rulers have mopped up “lakhs of crores”, prices of petrol, diesel and gas, the cor­po­rate cap­i­tal loot, bank frauds, and says, “We are all to blame.”

His ad­vo­cacy of the Con­gress comes from an un­der­stand­ing that within the Grand Old Party, “a young brigade is try­ing to oc­cupy the left-of-cen­tre space in the main­stream po­lit­i­cal spec­trum.”

It is not with­out de­lib­er­ate ap­pli­ca­tion of mind that Dharamvira Gand­hi’s force­ful mis­sive does not even once use the word “Sikh” or “caste”. The first one would have os­ten­si­bly ren­dered tainted his ar­gu­ment as “com­mu­nal” and the sec­ond would have made him “parochial”.

It is not with­out de­lib­er­ate ap­pli­ca­tion of mind that Dharamvira Gand­hi’s force­ful mis­sive does not even once use the word “Sikh” or “caste”. The first one would have ren­dered tainted his ar­gu­ment as “com­mu­nal” and the sec­ond would have made him “parochial”.

But the more crim­i­nal omis­sion is Gand­hi’s con­sid­ered de­ci­sion of not putting any onus upon the Con­gress to grap­ple with its hor­ren­dous past. Gandhi omits to ques­tion Con­gress on why it has failed to squarely re­spond to the pub­lic dis­course on two ma­jor crimes in his­tory: the im­po­si­tion of Emer­gency and the at­tack on Sri Dar­bar Sahib.

Dharamvira Gandhi is cre­at­ing a nar­ra­tive: Democ­racy is un­der at­tack. The BJP is a dan­ger­ous force that will sink In­dian democ­racy. AAP is in ca­hoots with ul­tra­na­tion­al­ists. Farmer out­fits have a poor un­der­stand­ing of pol­i­tics and are even lesser in­formed by his­tory. Con­gress has a com­mit­ment to fight against hege­monic, cor­po­rate, Hin­dutva and anti-de­mo­c­ra­tic forces. So, vote Con­gress. This is your sole left-of-Cen­tre choice.

Yet, Gandhi fails to har­monise his nar­ra­tive with some­what tougher ques­tions. He avoids putting Con­gress in the dock for the very same crimes that he wants/​ex­pects it to fight: fan­ning hege­monic, cor­po­rate, Hin­dutva and anti-de­mo­c­ra­tic forces.

In a nut­shell, is Gandhi telling us to vote for the prag­mat­i­cally com­mu­nal to de­feat the pro­gram­mat­i­cally com­mu­nal? Is he ask­ing us to choose the small loot­ers over more ef­fi­cient rob­bers? Is he plead­ing for the cause of those who im­pose a de­clared Emer­gency apro­pos those who en­gulf the coun­try with an un­de­clared one?

Is that all a good man com­ing to the aid of a party has to of­fer Pun­jab?

Gandhi, I be­lieve, is a good man. He means well. Per­haps it is his des­per­a­tion that he is seem­ingly forced to choose a lesser evil. But what is pre­vent­ing him from putting some pres­sure on his choice to do some self-ac­count­ing?

In a nut­shell, is Gandhi telling us to vote for the prag­mat­i­cally com­mu­nal to de­feat the pro­gram­mat­i­cally com­mu­nal? Is he ask­ing us to choose the small loot­ers over more ef­fi­cient rob­bers? Is he plead­ing for the cause of those who im­pose a de­clared Emer­gency apro­pos those who en­gulf the coun­try with an un­de­clared one?

The logic of moral dis­course can­not shun moral­ity for prac­ti­cal­ity. The idea that all the sins of one side be called out and the un­eth­i­cal acts of the other be over­looked is a worn-out one.

Spare me the lec­ture about So­nia Gandhi had said some rec­on­cil­ia­tory words about Op­er­a­tion Blues­tar, and Man­mo­han Singh ut­ter­ing some touch­ing words about anti-Sikh pogroms. I would not feel very com­fort­able in re­mind­ing you that Naren­dra Modi, too, came fairly close to re­gret­ting what hap­pened on his watch in Gu­jarat.

Vac­u­ous nar­ra­tives are no re­place­ment for the much more se­ri­ous task of set­ting the record straight, join­ing a pub­lic dis­course, ap­ply­ing cor­rec­tives, and ex­e­cut­ing jus­tice. Con­gress has not done that with the coun­try, and cer­tainly not with Pun­jabis, least of all with the Sikhs.

Dharamvira Gandhi does­n’t want to weigh down his new party of choice with such an oner­ous bur­den. His love for the “young brigade” reeks of ado­les­cent in­no­cence — and I mean it in the purest sense of ado­les­cent love.

If the fu­ture of Pun­jab de­pends on Channi-Sidhu, and In­dian democ­racy is to be saved by free­ing these men from the bur­den of their and their par­ty’s past, then, pray, what is it that we are sav­ing?

A “young brigade” that can­not ques­tion a Ravneet Singh Bit­tu’s cre­den­tials and has no com­punc­tion in stand­ing with hands folded be­fore the samadhi of late CM Beant Singh, a “young brigade” that can make its peace with a Rana Gur­jit Singh in the Cab­i­net but does not come out all guns blaz­ing for a per­se­cuted Sukh­pal Singh Khaira, a “young brigade” that can do chest-thump­ing at ap­point­ing a DGP but can­not tell its cen­tral hon­chos to dwell in any de­tail about the par­ty’s rear-view-mir­ror analy­sis of the events of 1984, a “young brigade” afraid of call­ing out the sins of those within the ranks, is not one for which a Gandhi must fight this hard.

Gandhi must come to the aid of the party — and he can do that by ask­ing the party to square up to the chal­lenge and lay it all out. Gandhi knows bet­ter. He is a keen stu­dent of his­tory.

Gandhi must come to the aid of the party — and he can do that by ask­ing the party to square up to the chal­lenge and lay it all out. Gandhi knows bet­ter. He is a keen stu­dent of his­tory.

He knows that the road to Ay­o­d­hya passed through episodes like open­ing the locks of a dis­puted struc­ture; the road to triple ta­laq and weapon­is­ing of the Uni­ver­sal Civil Code row went through an id­i­otic and com­mu­nal ap­proach to the Shah Bano episode; the road to break up of Jammu and Kash­mir went through the mur­der of elec­toral ver­dicts in 1987 and the GM Shah episodes; the road to mil­i­tancy was paved by decades of ne­glect of re­gional as­pi­ra­tions and paint­ing an en­tire com­mu­nity as se­ces­sion­ist; the road to Is­lam­o­pho­bia was paved by its malafide use of ap­pease­ment tac­tics in­stead of re­ally work­ing for the em­pow­er­ment of Mus­lims, and the road to cor­po­rate loot was paved by its poli­cies of open­ing the flood­gates to crony cap­i­tal­ism. Pun­jabis can­not for­get that the tac­tic to tar ag­i­tat­ing farm­ers Khal­is­ta­nis was fash­ioned by those who is­sued full-page ad­ver­tise­ments in news­pa­pers de­pict­ing a Sikh taxi dri­ver and pos­ing a ques­tion: “Will you send your child to school with him?”

Gandhi has been a fore­most cham­pion of fed­er­al­ism; ergo he also knows the role of those who used the Anand­pur Sahib Res­o­lu­tion to paint an en­tire com­mu­nity as “vakhvadis”. I am sure he will con­trive some con­vinc­ing ex­pla­na­tion of why his new-found cham­pion of democ­racy was so com­fort­able con­sort­ing with those who were speak­ing of Fi­nal So­lu­tion to the Mus­lim ques­tion?

For a votary of fed­er­al­ism and re­gional as­pi­ra­tions, it’s strange that Dr Gandhi places his en­tire hope of sav­ing the ship of democ­racy on the frag­ile shoul­ders of Con­gress alone. This sweep­ing aside of the coun­try’s in­nu­mer­able re­gional par­ties – the most pos­i­tive rem­nant of our oth­er­wise ema­ci­ated democ­racy – is disin­gen­u­ous at best, crim­i­nal at worst.

And still, I be­lieve that Gand­hi’s ad­vo­cacy of Con­gress comes from a good place in his heart. To­day’s Con­gress is not the Con­gress of the 1980s. But his­tor­i­cal mem­o­ries are in­sti­tu­tional, as are the crimes. Even­tu­ally, in­sti­tu­tions square up to them. Con­gress needs to do that. Dharamvira Gandhi must not let it off the hook be­cause he hates Ke­jri­wal’s Tiranga Pa­rade Party and the gag­gle that calls it­self Sanyukt-xyz-Mor­cha.

Given Dr Dharamvira Gand­hi’s sagac­ity, I’m sure he would not have for­got­ten that his new­found lib­eral friend and one of the sharpest crit­ics of the Modi gov­ern­ment, P Chi­dambarm had ac­tu­ally pro­posed to carry out sur­gi­cal airstrikes us­ing he­li­copter gun­ships against so-called Nax­alites in the hard-to-reach jun­gles of Chhat­tis­garh, Odisha and Jhark­hand. That, Dr Gandhi, is how democ­ra­cies com­mit sui­cide.

Gandhi has been a fore­most cham­pion of fed­er­al­ism; ergo he also knows the role of those who used the Anand­pur Sahib Res­o­lu­tion to paint an en­tire com­mu­nity as “vakhvadis”. I am sure he will con­trive some con­vinc­ing ex­pla­na­tion of why his new-found cham­pion of democ­racy was so com­fort­able con­sort­ing with those who were speak­ing of Fi­nal So­lu­tion to the Mus­lim ques­tion?

Democ­racy com­mits sui­cide when its lib­eral, left-of-cen­tre claimant to power de­cides to fight elec­tions in Gu­jarat on the “de­vel­op­ment” plank and not on the is­sue of hu­man rights, Is­lam­o­pho­bia and whole­sale killings of a mi­nor­ity.

It is eas­ier to vote for Dharamvira Gandhi. It should have been easy to vote for a party to whose aid Dharamvira Gandhi has rushed. He has opted to bring down the bar. We must not re­duce the bur­den of our ex­pec­ta­tions.

That’s how democ­racy will be saved in the land of the Gu­rus. Bole So Ni­hal-spew­ing crowd would not com­mu­nalise that fight, and a bunch of farm­ers, whether they are con­test­ing in the elec­toral arena or out­side, will only en­rich the de­bate about our and their sins of omis­sion and com­mis­sion. Just as I fin­ished read­ing Gand­hi’s lament about the sink­ing ship of democ­racy came the news of the death of EO Wil­son, the great Har­vard pro­fes­sor who stud­ied ants and ex­plained hu­man be­hav­iour, de­cod­ing how our species has a propen­sity to be­have in cer­tain ways and form cer­tain so­cial struc­tures. It will be cheeky of me to re­call the good pro­fes­sor’s words, but in a strange way, they’ll help Gandhi to make peace with his po­si­tion: “It is pos­si­ble to be un­happy and very adap­tive.” (Ed­ward Os­borne Wil­son (June 10, 1929 – Dec 26, 2021)

Bole So Ni­hal spew­ing crowd would not com­mu­nalise that fight, and a bunch of farm­ers, whether they are con­test­ing in the elec­toral arena or out­side, will only en­rich the de­bate about our and their sins of omis­sion and com­mis­sion.

Dharamvira Gandhi is a doc­tor. He knows how doubt has ad­vanced med­ical sci­ence and the faith that a good doc­tor can al­ways find a so­lu­tion with sur­gi­cal pre­ci­sion is merely a ro­man­tic no­tion. En­gage, or­gan­ise, strug­gle, and find your own cor­rect an­swer, be­cause democ­ra­cies com­mit sui­cide when we turn de­bates into bi­na­ries and claim mo­nop­oly over the sub­lime truth.