Source: IMPHAL FREE PRESS
Posted: 2009-09-22

Amidst the heightened interest in the definition of moral responsibility in Manipur, it is interesting that the same debate which the Manipur government ignored in such a thick-skinned manner, is also incidentally raging on the national arena, but with much more sensitive responses. The furore over minister of state for external affairs, and former UN diplomat, Shashi Tharoor, living in a 5-star hotel for three months until the media raised a storm, and then his penchant for making himself omnipresent on the current rages of social networking internet and mobile phone forums, in particular “Tweeter�, is a case in point. Tharoor hired a room for three months in a luxury hotel in New Delhi while waiting for his official ministerial quarters to be ready for him to move in. According to him, he preferred the 5-star accommodation over the Kerala government Bhavan in the national Capital for two reasons. He could not do without a gym and privacy.
The 5-star question first. Tharoor was not spending tax payer’s money to afford the luxury accommodation but his own tax paid money, and many put up a defence for him on this ground alone. He earned the money he was spending honestly, so what was so very wrong about him spending the money in any way which pleases him as long as he does not put it into uses inimical to the law? The answer to the contrary should have been obvious to anybody closely associated with the Indian reality, but was succinctly spelled out by none other than the erudite deputy chairman of the Planning Commission of India, Dr. Montek Singh Ahluwalia in a TV interview. The austerity measures recommended by the government, coming public at about the same time news of the expensive lifestyle of Tharoor became public, is not so much about saving money. In any case the savings from men like Tharoor sacrificing 5-star comfort is not going to be anything substantial to power any new relief measures or long term government projects. The gestures of austerity discipline amongst public figures, on the other hand, are a question of showing nominal solidarity with the suffering farmers in large parts of the country, many driven to the edge of suicide in the face of bad monsoon this year. We unreservedly buy this argument. This would be like the token respect we pay to departed people we respect by standing up and observing two minutes silence. In material terms the two minute silence means nothing, but in terms of showing spiritual solidarity, it is immense. As for his obsession with Tweeter, we for one are of the opinion that for a public figure to be still so enthusiastically following it is cheap and childish. It makes you lose a great deal of the esteem you had for someone who is undoubtedly immensely talented. In a slightly exaggerated sense, it would be something like the sinking feeling anybody would have at the unlikely event of discovering the Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh, freaking out in a discotheque. Nothing wrong with that too legally speaking! But this is unlikely indeed, for it is learnt the Prime Minister does not even carry a mobile phone.
This debate also would remind many in Manipur who would be familiar with Field Marshall Sir William Slim’s account of the Burma theatre of the WW-II in his book “Defeat into Victory� and how he went about ensuring moral solidarity amongst his troops even in the midst of adversities. At one point, when Allied troops were suffering serious reverses in the battle fronts, Slim who was based in the Kangla at the time (Slim House is still a very important landmark inside the Kangla), whenever it happened that supplies could not be reached in time to the soldiers in the front, he made his troops back in the relative safety and comfort of the rear bases in Manipur and Assam to go on half ration. This, he said had two effects. First, it ensured those in the headquarters to dread official red tapes that delayed supply lines to the front. Second, and more important, by the constant and real reminder that the fate of those in the front and those back at the bases are inextricably bound together, a very vital and strong spiritual bondage was established. This lesson is not to be taken lightly. After all, it is well known how Slim ultimately turned defeat into a resounding victory, in a theatre of the WW-II that he thinks is one of the bitterest and did not get the attention it deserved largely on account of it being overshadowed by more high profile campaigns in North Africa.
 

Related Stories

Tell a Friend | Printable version | Post a Comment