Get soaked in the rains, the rainbow has turned tricoloured

THE TIMES OF INDIA
25 August, 2011

Tarun Vijay

It's no time to remain inside and get entangled in the mumbo jumbo of political technicalities. Come out and feel the pulse of the nation. The rain of change is flooding the masses and it is bad to take refuge under umbrellas.

For once, the political leaders should forget the colour they wear and lead the change, without any ideological inhibitions or proprietorial technicalities. No ideology or organisation can be bigger than the collective national good and peoples' will. Nobody understands if some one preaches that Parliament is supreme. Yes, but it is supreme because it reflects the peoples' will. Everybody feels Parliament must represent peoples' mood and wishes. No flag can be greater than the Tricolour.

Feeling the void created by the absence of a Vajpayee in the active political field, it is now Advani who people think can take up the challenge to lead the nation towards a politically transparent public life. He has done wonders before, he took up the issue of black money years before anyone thought about it, initiated the idea of women's reservation in the party and had it realized too. He changed the political idiom and language through his powerful commitment to the 'India First' policy and later converted the upsurge into a development oriented campaign making BJP run governments take up poverty eradication programmes concentrating on middle class and introducing new anti corruption laws like those in Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh. There may be some hiccups and spots here and there, which people 'on the other side ' may criticize, but none can match his statesmanship and mass acceptance and he remains a father figure who people trust as a leader above board. Can he take up the challenge to initiate a national campaign for a clean and aam aadmi oriented politics? I am saying this as a lay man, a common citizen and not as a party worker. I am saying this because I am flooded with SMSes and phone calls urging us to do something that addresses the public mood. And one call I can't ignore was from the living legend called F.C. Kohli the father of Indian IT. “Anna has a point. He has caught the imagination of the common Indian. Advani is the only leader who can take up the cudgels in political arena.”

In this politically incorrect atmosphere where a politician is hardly respected and any allegation on any khadi wearing politico gets chipkoed like a verified truth, we need leaders who still enjoy the trust of the masses. We have some in many other parties too. Let them put their heads together and take a plunge to lead the nation out of this darkness. The more they delay, the more unpardonable would be their procrastination in the eyes of the people.

Way back in April, I had written about the pregnant silence of the people. There was a time, just in the recent past when every one felt so hopeless that people and leaders would say with confidence, however bad the corruption scenario, it's hardly a political issue now. Everyone seems to have accepted it as a way of life. But it was not to be. The silence, mistaken as an 'acceptance' was pregnant with a revolutionary outburst. Not that I belong to the party, but it is an accepted fact that it was BJP's nation wide campaign against 2G, its examples in clean and efficient development oriented governance through the miracle called Narendra Modi , Shivraj Singh Chauhan, Raman Singh and the collective impact of its national leadership in Advani, Gadkari, Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley that made an indisputable contribution creating the right atmosphere which was further powered and fuelled by a sensitive and concerned media blitzkrieg.

It's a rarest of the rare opportunity when the entire nation seems to be speaking one language, expressing one desire, putting forth their best foot forward, cutting across barriers of castes, parochialism, religious denominations and economic disparity bars. Like a Kargil war, one nation, one people thread is visible all around. Those would be utterly unfortunate who stay away of it for whatever reasons. Pardon me if I say that at this hour I would also hope that the Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh, whom I have always respected as a nice and a decent person, will think and act out of box. Heavens won't fall if he joins Anna's fast at Ramlila ground for a day and shares the concerns he is representing.