The saga of Shishupal in 2019 General Elections

In the last forty eight hours, the whole country was embroiled in a new debate when PM Narendra Modi, during one of his election rally, invoked the name of former Prime Minister Rajeev Gandhi in relation to corruption. In a taciturn of events, the country found itself questioning and answering this invocation. Of course, both the camps came up with their own ideas.

Now, before we go into the merits of this debate,  I find it imperative to invoke even an older saga- The death of Shishupal! This thought occurred suddenly to me in the “aftermath” of this debate.  Allow me to qualify.

For the uninitiated, in the epic tale of Mahabharata, Shishupal  was the King of Chedi and cousin of Lord Krishna from his paternal aunt’s side. 
Shishupal was born with a physical deformity with four hands. Upon his birth, there was a prophecy that the person, in whose touch shall the baby loose his deformity, will also be responsible for his death.
Well, as ubiquitous as it might sound, it fell upon Lord Krishna who while visiting his aunt at Chedi took Baby Shishupal in his lap and the deformity was gone. The entire royal household while celebrating the news was also lost in despair knowing the identity of the future killer of Shishupal.
To a depraved mother, thus Lord Krishan vowed that he shall pardon hundred mistakes (read abuses) from this child but the moment he utters his 101^st abuse, shall be his last moment on Earth! As the story progressed, Shishupal grew up to be extremely jealous and frustrated of Lord Krishna. SO much was his angst that during the royal coronation of  Prince Yuddhister in Indraprastha, he went on a verbal diatribe against Krishna. And he forgot he promise made by Krishna to his mother. And he died! Lord Krishan killed him with his Sudarshan Chakra the moment Shishupal uttered his Hundredth One abuse.  Let’s remember this saga!

The scorching summer of 2019 shall go down in the annals of history as having witnessed the toughest ever election campaign this country has perhaps seen.  The modern Mahabharat!  And in this new epic, the two key characters are PM Narendra Modi and leader of Congress Mr. Rahul Gandhi.

In the run down to the elections,  Mr. Gandhi went on a verbal diatribe against an elected PM of the nation. Leaving all the basic decency aside, he vehemently set himself on referring the elected PM with choicest of abjectives. His favourite choice of word to describe the PM was “Chor” meaning Thief. And soon, his entire party followed suit and started referring the PM as a chor. Was it a new phenomenon? NO, it was not! 

Long before Mr. Gandhi, his mother Ms. Sonia Gandhi had the dubious distinction of calling the current Pm and then CM of Gujarat as “Maut of Saudagar”. Please bear in mind that it was in reference to Gujarat riots- the favourite fall back cushion for Congress to counter Mr Modi.

While the tirade of calling a PM as “Chor” continued for a long time, suddenly out of blue the PM, in his inimitable style of calling a spade a spade, reminded Mr. Gandhi that his father the late PM Rajeev Gandhi was the 'chor'. He in fact challenged Congress to invoke the name of Mr. Rajeev Gandhi in their election campaign in Punjab and Delhi.

Post his remark, all hell broke loose in the power corridor of Lutyens Delhi with any and everyone in the ecosystem of Congress doing their best to carve a villain out of Mr. Modi. Of course the intellectuals and many in the media of the country joined this circus.

Their key points were:

     1) Rajeev Gandhi was an ex Prime Minister and now dead, so we should forget.

     2) The ex PM  was assassinated, so a martyr.

         

     3) He is a Bharat Ratna!

         

       Let's adress

1) Rajeev Gandhi was an ex Prime Minister and now dead.

So what? In which book is it written that an ex PM can not be called out. And let’s not forget that :

• He as PM was responsible for death of thousands of Sikhs killed by a pogrom hatched by his own party.
• He was the PM when Bhopal gas tragedy happened and more importantly, the key accused was allowed to fly abroad.
• He was the PM who didn’t allow millions of Muslim women their basic human rights. He was the PM who was directly responsible in Bofors scam and
• He was the PM whose disastrous foreign policy in Sri Lanka, amongst many things, was also the reason for his death. And...
• While not as the PM, he was the man who was responsible for bringing down an infant government of Chandrashekhar. So which great PM are we talking about?

And why should we forgive or forget the dead? Then millions of  Jews, Russians and chinese should forget Hitler, Stalin and Mao Zedong respectively. Likewise N. Koreans should forget the Kim Jong iL.

And the best part! These same champions of morality, about an Ex Prime Minister, never lost their sleep when an elected PM was continuously abused. But then the original Mahabharat had only one Shikandi  but in the modern Mahabharat, it seems Congress party has employed a team of Shikandis

2) He was assassinated

So was Raynard Haydrich the leader of Hitler SS squad in Prussia. At that time for many in Germans, Heydrich was a hero. But just because he was assassinated, should we forget his role as a perpetrator of human genocide? And here let me again remind you aboout the remark of Mrs. Sonia Gandhi referring to Modi as Maut ka Saudagar. Maybe she forgot that original Maut ka Producer, director, distributor and trader was the man who casually justified murder of thousands of Sikhs as "Earth shaking when banyan tree falls".  

In the recent past, Zia Ul Haq and  Benazir Bhutto were assassinated in Pakistan! Should we forget them even though the former was part of “cutting thousand wounds to India’ program and the latter was responsible for unleashing ISI and people like Hamid Gul bleeding  India. 

3) Bharat Ratna

Given by a government of his own party. Point closed.

And here we will again talk about Shishupal and Lord Krishna! For god’s sake, I am not even imagining to attempt at personifying these two in wake of current elections. My analogy is about the mindset and ideology.

Like Shishupal, the attitude and thought process of Rahul Gandhi drove him to start abusing an elected PM. For years, abuses were hurled at him but like the coronation of Yuddhisthir (where Shishupal was at his worst), now the abuses at PM was extreme. And Like Lord Krishna, the ideology Mr. Modi allowed him to face these abuses with unfailing patience. In fact he allowed Rahul some levity too. 

But like ultimately Lord Krishna killed Shishupal with his Sudarshan Chakra, Mr. Modi killed this vicious trait of abuses by invoking Mr. Rajeev Gandhi and rightly so! He has upped the ante and given a whole new meaning to the narrative. He has killed the immoral ideology and the thought process of a man who never seems shy of resorting to uncouth vilification.

In this kali yuga, the Shishupal of Mahabharat 2019 (read the vicious ideology of abusing an elected PM) is dead and buried now. It should be dead! 

And this episode shall set the course, just like the original version, for the road map of a just, friendly and prosperous NDA Government on May 23^rd 2019!