What you get when you blacken Kulkarni’s face
Politics often plays itself out as little interludes, little fables about values and morality which add to the central epic of power. While the battles around Narendra Modi reach an impasse, three events - Dadri, Nayantara Sahgal’s protest and the ink incident involving the Shiv Sena and noted columnist Sudheendra Kulkarni have received both publicity and analysis. The blackening of Kulkarni's face has been treated more like a spectacle, like a picture for display, than a symbolic event to be analysed. It was almost a Rashomon-like story split into several levels. The dramatis personae also includes an interesting cast of characters.
First, Kulkarni, a strangely ambiguous figure — a student activist-turned-party intellectual — has served as an aide of both Atal Bihari Vajpayee and LK Advani. A dissenting figure inside the BJP, his recent book on Mahatma Gandhi should have got more attention than it received.
Kulkarni decides to launch former Pakistan foreign minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri’s book at an Observer Foundation event in Mumbai and follows it up with a small panel discussion. For the Shiv Sena, with its Mumbai patriotism, such an event mocks at it. When its threats did not work, the Sena cadres threw ink on Kulkarni. He walked around as if he had been anointed in black.
The debate was conducted at several levels. There was first the exchange of letters between senior journalist Rajdeep Sardesai and the Shiv Sena's youth leader Aditya Thackeray. For Sardesai, the Shiv Sena is a spoilsport and is particularly vindictive when it comes to digging up cricket pitches. It is like an enthusiastic gardener watching his carrot patch being vandalised. When Sardesai hears the news of Kulkarni’s treatment, he immediately dispatches a letter to Aditya.
Loyalties
He reminds Aditya of common loyalties. Both are committed to Mumbai, and are alumni of St Xavier’s College. Sardesai invokes these old loyalties to talk of his current distress. The inking of Kulkarni is only one incident in the "threat and carry out" policy of the Shiv Sena. Sardesai sees no rationale for such behaviour and asks how long is the Shiv Sena going to hold Mumbai to ransom. Sardesai’s letter is short. It is a statement of concern and consternation by someone who loves free speech and the city.
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#InkWars
Aditya’s letter is an even more interesting read. It accepts common loyalties to city and college but argues that loyalty is a nested series. It unfolds from family to mohalla to the nation. Aditya asks, when soldiers die for the nation, when Pakistan stands condemned as a terrorist state, does not a book release make a mockery of the week’s events? How can one celebrate when one should be in mourning? For Aditya, the two patriotisms of nation and the city are enough to see Pakistan as a villain.
In fact, he draws out a stark symbolism between blood flowing at the border and the ink flowing in the city. Is such an ink innocent, even if it represents the act of intellect? There is an exaggerated melodrama of symbolism being played out here. Aditya knows an open letter is for public display. He seems to suggest that by allowing Pakistani ink to flow along with Indian blood is a travesty, an insult to soldiers and their families. Inviting Kasuri is not an act of hospitality and peace-building but of treason. Kulkarni is a traitor to the Shiv Sena's cause.
Aditya’s letter is an eloquent one for its language, if not its logic. Sardesai’s letter is terse, and expresses concern. Aditya’s letter has all the verbosity of a politician talking after the deed is done. In fact, a few days later the Shiv Sena felicitated its cadres who carried out the ink attack. One almost feels these cadres are the second line of warriors keeping India free.
Quandary
Yet, the ink metaphor so utterly vivid this week has to be pursued in a different way. The BJP had guaranteed full security to the event. The Shiv Sena, as electoral partner, was in bit of a quandary. It had to show its defiance to the BJP. This might strain the relationship but everyone knows it is a relationship that can stand enormous strain. There is a time for strategy over difference. The Shiv Sena knows Kasuri cannot be touched, the event cannot be intruded on because that would blacken BJP’s face. However, the Shiv Sena also realised that it had to do something, create some display of public anger which would be politically convincing and add brownie points to the party as elections were imminent. Presto, the solution is elegant. Blacken Kulkarni’s face. He is anyway a BJP dissident and a Pakistan-lover. At that moment one does not know whether the incident is plain ink or octopus ink. The octopus, when under attack, shoots out a black ink-like liquid to confound its attackers. Whether the Sena was octopus-like is an open question.
Victim
The victim and the protagonist of the whole event is the most restrained. He congratulates the people of Mumbai for not succumbing to Sena threats; he is clear that Mumbai’s cosmopolitanism has withstood the new civic patriotism of the Sena. He is also very clear that the hawkishness of the Sena is not an answer to the India-Pakistan problem. Third, he suggests that not all Pakistanis want terror and futhermore, that Kasuri was never associated with terror. Pakistan’s terrorism was actually triggered off after his term.
Watching Kulkarni behave, one cannot but sympathise with him, not just for his conduct but for his intellectual and political stand. He has stood up boldly for his ideas and paid the price of being harassed and humiliated. He conducted himself with a dignity few politicians would have shown in a similar situation. As an ethical experiment, the pacifist still shows he has a lot to teach the bully boys of fascism. Democracy still has whimsical ways of offering surprises which opens one to alternative ideas.