Heartburn Over Rebels With A Cause

Shashi Tharoor, like V P Singh & Somnath Chatterjee before him, has put his party in a quandary by not toeing the line. Principled defiance is not easy to brush off

- SUGATA SRINIVASARAJU

Political parties in India ostensibly have two kinds of rebels or dissenters. The first kind of rebels are the common, pedestrian variety. They crudely bargain for power. They could be seeking an election ticket, a higher position, a hefty ministerial berth or greater funds. They threaten to disrupt if their expectations are not met.

The second type is rare to come by. They are the ones who put their parties in a piquant moral situation. They prick the conscience of their parties. They do so by either arguing from a higher ideological plane; by prescribing higher values to their colleagues, or via aligning themselves, parallelly, with a purpose far greater than that being advocated by their parties at a given time.

These high-minded grumblers, if we may call them so, may be difficult to handle, but parties cannot easily dismiss them. That is because they form a virtuous smokescreen before the voting masses, and sometimes become fossilized symbols of the foundational principles of their parties.

In recent days, Shashi Tharoor, a member of parliament from Thiruvananthapuram, has come across as the second type of rebel within the Congress. Ever since he became the most eloquent, non-partisan voice by leading an official delegation to foreign nations to explain India's war against terrorism, his party has suspected his loyalty. They have cold-shouldered him, attempted to play down his importance and even underplayed his certain mastery over English.