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This sorry won't do. Shiv Sena MP is an embarrassment

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DailyBiteApr 07, 2017 | 09:47

This sorry won't do. Shiv Sena MP is an embarrassment

Ravindra Gaikawad, the Shiv Sena MP from Osmanabad constituency of Maharashtra, has tended a letter of apology to Union minister of civil aviation, Ashok Gajapathi Raju, expressing regret over the Air India incident, in which he assaulted a senior staff of the plane.

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But there’s very little either about his letter – which is all about the inconvenience that the flight restriction is causing to “effective discharge of duties and responsibilities – or his demeanour, which remains as unrepentant and arrogant as ever, which deserves a consideration of un-blacklisting him from Air India, and other private carriers.

In fact, an India Today snap poll on Twitter found that there’s very little support for Shiv Sena MP Gaikwad, even though his party is threatening to bring Mumbai to a grinding halt if the ban on his flying Indian airlines isn’t lifted and soon.     

But let’s try and understand one thing.

What does Ravindra Gaikwad represent? If anything, the Shiv Sena MP is the gist of everything that is utterly and horribly wrong with the contemporary Indian politician, who when not a scheming, permanently electioneering communal rabble-rouser, turns out to be an uncouth and violent nincompoop with a bloated sense of political entitlement.

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The “apology” letter, which Gaikwad has sent to the ministry of civil aviation, therefore is really an olive branch saying “give me back what I think I’m entitled to”, rather than a genuine expression of regret. 

The trademark belligerence of the toxic Shiv Sena, since the days of inception and its hey days under the late Bal Thackeray, to the rudderless ruckus-prone idiocies under Udhav Thackeray, is most visibly present in Gaikwad’s stubborn insistence on getting his ministerial privileges back on.  

It’s obvious that public opinion matters little to Shiv Sena and its MPs, which finds that its political sustenance is being made possible only via a combination of poisonous parochialism and malicious moral policing. Hence, the periodical outbursts and competitive intolerance games with its ally in Maharashtra, the BJP.  

But there are times when the political cauldron cannot contain any longer the sheer malignity of the elected representatives of the people. Gaikwad’s assaulting the Air India staff, hitting him with slippers for not being provided business class facilities in an all-economy class flight was really crossing the Rubicon of bad behaviour.

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Shiv Sena is the classic bully and it knows that acting like a browbeater has always been its political currency. Propped up by the Congress in the 1970s to take on trade unions, it has since used its trademark hooliganism to intimidate the whole of Mumbai and swathes of Maharashtra.

But physically assaulting an airline staff for more than 40 minutes and almost hijacking the aircraft over personal idea of humiliation has touched a raw nerve this time. India is repulsed by Gaikwad’s pugnacious behaviour and is in no mood to forgive him. Also the care courage shown by Air India CMD Ashwani Lohani, who grounded the MP for his atrociousness, has been received well by the outraged countrymen and women.

Although the media has followed the Gaikwad episode diligently, asking for his proverbial head and conducting polls on whether or not the ban on him flying again should be lifted, let’s not forget that Gaikwad is not a uncommon but a typical neta, who flaunts his public office and uses his VVIP clout to harass and intimidate people, seek unlawful favours and generally messes around.

If the ban on Gaikwad is lifted it would be a victory for this brand of foul and festering politics and politicians who practise it. It would also be a lost opportunity for India to rectify a small fraction of its enormously disfigured collective conscience.

Also read - Shiv Sena's Ravindra Gaikwad is just one of our MPs who shame India

Last updated: April 07, 2017 | 09:47
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