NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, took refuge in family anecdotes, Urdu poetry and Hindi metaphors to justify his party’s defeat in the Tamil Nadu elections.

“Girte hain sheshawar maidanejung mein” (it is only brave riders who fall in the battle field)” Mr. Gandhi told his party men the DPCC (1) convention here. His grandfather, Jawaharlal Nehru, had he recalled, consoled him by quoting this bit of verse to him when he had fallen off his horse as a child.

As further consolation, Mr Gandhi assured the assembled congressmen that the party would always, from now on contest elections in Tamil Nadu as “brave riders” gone are the days.” He said.” when we went into battle holding on to the tail of the horse”. Committees were Fake

Mr. Gandhi had many unflattering things to say about his party in“ those days” not long past: “For twenty years we did not fight an election in Tamil Nadu, we had no organization sometimes we hung on to somebody’s Kurta or somebodies pall. If they won we won, if they lost we lost. We knew it would be an uphill path when we decided to go it alone this time. We did not have a single Congress (I) leader in Tamil Ndu who was a household name. And no party organization. The district committees were “Farzi” (fake) the block committees were “farzi”.

It was all “farzi Bas Chalta Rehta Hai.

Mr. Gandhi’s 45 minute speech was full of such “revelations” about his party and his government. On the functioning of different bodies in the Capital, He said, “Na hame pate hai kya hota hai , na aap ko . Bas apne aap chalta rehata hai( I don’t know what happens, nor do you.Things just work on their own)”. On decentralization, he said: “We gave the powers (to. the grassroots level bodies and we took them back. It was haath ki safai(sleight of hand).

And on corruption, he said: “We have tried to banish it, but our hand is tied. The more law we enact, the more the corruption grows”. But corruption, according to Mr. Gandhi was only something that travelled upwards from the Brass roots. “It begins at the grass roots and travels upwards, in the Process covering up those responsible. When we try to investigate, we are confronted with five page reply, This because of the fasla (distance in between).At the mohalla level, everybody knows the corrupt person. He can face us, but he cannot face you,’ he said.

Article extracted from this publication >>  February 17, 1989