A digression, but worth in this context
http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=63636
n the shadow of statues, His Father’s Son is on lone journey
DIPTOSH MAJUMDAR
Posted online: Saturday, January 29, 2005 at 0144 hours IST
HISAR (HARYANA), JANUARY 28: Jats do not like statues. Ambitious and practical, they believe an icon’s memory is best preserved by carrying on with his good work. Haryana Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala erred in evaluating the Jat psyche. He planted his father and tallest Jat leader Devi Lal’s statues everywhere. Public response has been as cold as the Makrana marble these statues are carved out of.
This is the real tragedy of Haryana elections in 2005. No prize for guessing that Chautala and his Indian National Lok Dal’s campaign has slipped into a lacklustre mode. It is the mudslinging over Devi Lal’s statues, sprouting alongside the rich mustard and wheat crops in Jhajjar, Rohtak and Hissar, which bothers the elderly Jats. Baldeep Singh of Meham shakes his head despairingly, ‘‘Chautala went for overkill with this ploy of evoking nostalgia. It boomeranged. Devi Lal’s name has been sullied beyond repair.’’
Not that the prosperous Jat society has ever emulated the ‘‘backward’’ way of voting en bloc. Even when Bansi Lal was routed in 2000, the 32-per cent Jats of Haryana did not stand solidly behind the ailing Devi Lal, still alive and canvassing for his dependent son. Chautala won but Jats had not blessed him with their unified support. Strangely, it has never bothered Chautala that this is the first assembly poll he is fighting on his own. And he is over seventy.
Having lived in the shadow of his father, Chautala had no clue before the Parliametnary polls last year that a marauding anti-incumbency wave was soon going to overtake him. The INLD was wiped out. His supporters whisper, ‘‘Had Tau (Devi Lal) been around, he would have severed links with the BJP long ago. What were their six legislators doing in the last assembly? They were lambasting us forgetting that we are the senior partner with 47 MLAs. Jats never subscribed to the brand of Hindutva that the BJP was hawking. Even the nine per cent Punjabi settlers carry no memories of the Partition carnage.’’
With no allies and aided just by his two sons, Ajay and Abhay, Chautala cuts a very lonely figure. And his last bet, flickering embers of his father’s memory, cannot be rekindled anymore.
Since Devi Lal’s death in 2001, Chautala has honoured him with too many statues sporting dark INLD-green pagdis, too many brown, dusty parks, too many unkempt Devi Lal Bhavans, too many pedestals in desolate villages where the statue’s only company is hostile and howling northerlies. It is the same ‘‘We-love-Ambedkar’’ strategy that BSP strongwoman, Mayawati tried out successfully in Uttar Pradesh. Haryana is no Uttar Pradesh.
Says Mahender Singh of Jhajjar, ‘‘What about Sir Chhotu Ram? He was the real Jat, a businessman-philanthropist, a selfless donor. Haryana can’t be just Devi Lal’s zamindari?’’ In Mahendragrah, Om Pal insists: ‘‘Remember how the Americans brought down Saddam’s statues. After the elections, these pratimas will come crashing down.’’
While Chautala floundered in assessing the Jat mood, other parties shrewdly took advantage. The Congress has powerful Jat nominees. Even the BSP, making a pitch for the most backward vote, has put in a few Jats in its basket of candidates. But why are the Jats moving away from Chautala? ‘‘Tanashahi (dictatorship),’’ says the average INLD worker. Chautala kept power to himself. The MLAs were worse off than sarpanches.
If Bansi Lal had to go because of his ‘‘ariyalpan’’ (obstinacy), Chautala is paying the price for his perceived image of a tyrant. ‘‘Aurangzeb,’’ says Ved Pal in Bahu Akbarpur. ‘‘Saddam Hussain,’’ asserts Raj Singh in Hissar. Deshwali or Dhe Jats with their long military history in these terrains despise dictatorship in any form. As long as power is shared, they have no complaints.
Chautala has his back to the wall because he had not delegated responsibilities and decision-making powers.
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