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Swami gets a rap on his knuckles

By Lalit Sethi. Dated: 7/1/2016 11:53:46 PM

Subramanian Swamy has proved himself to be the classic culprit and guilty on the counts of all the foul words he uses for American Green Card holders who are in positions of authority in government and possibly even the private sector? He has been openly snubbed by the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, in an interview with the news channel, Times Now. He made it clear that "publicity craving people" do not do any good to the nation.
Modi requested the media not to make heroes out of those who made extreme comments as "I firmly believe that the nation should progress with development work in India".
Swamy no doubt took on Arun Jaitley by criticizing his Chief Economic Adviser, Arvind Subramaniam, a "Tambram" (Tamil Brahmin) by birth like Swamy because the latter cannot hit back at a politician, a member of the Upper House, because his official position restrains him from engaging in a public controversy.
The Prime Minister described the Governor of Reserve Bank, Raghuram Rajan, as a patriot who had served his term of three years and would continue to serve India in future regardless of what he would be doing.
Was Swamy biting the hand that feeds him ~ the Prime Minister? If he expected to be rewarded with a place in the Union Cabinet via his antics, his dreams have been shattered by a public rebuke and assertion by Narendra Modi of his own authority.
If Swamy tried to bite more than he could chew by pretending to be a votary of the RSS theology of anti-India foreign investment and all people 'videshi or foran', he has been given a taste of his own medicine. The BJP has cancelled two functions where he was due to speak.
Will that show him his place in the scheme of things or will he remain irrepressible and not back down with ease. His efforts to flirt with the RSS might come to grief as the Prime Minister will have or would speak to the RSS chief, Mohan Bhagwat, not to encourage mavericks, nor meddle with governance.
The Finance Minister had asked the government and BJP leadership to restrain, if not reprimand, Swamy. That the Prime Minister has done promptly and tried to stop growing indiscipline in party rank and file trying to indulge in hate speeches and provocative statements in the name of freedom of expression and inner party democracy.
He has told loud mouths and loose cannons in no uncertain terms that their divisive agenda will not be tolerated whether they are Ministers or MPs or self-appointed moralists in saffron robes or without them. One of the BJP secretaries, Siddharth Nath Singh, stated afterwards: "The whole debate on Raghuram Rajan and people who speak out of turn and the party's campaign in U.P. is over as the Prime Minister speaks the last word."
The BJP chief might have summoned Swamy in early June, but Swamy was not to be restrained because he believed he had tasted blood and succeeded in stopping the Governor of Reserve Bank from a second term. Is that really so?
For all one knows, Swamy might have told Amit Shah that he might be a loyalist of sorts but not subject to BJP discipline because he was a member of Parliament nominated by the Prime Minister to the Upper House. That ambiguity has been clarified by Modi in coming out against those who think they are not bound by certain norms.
He might be sitting in the second or lower down row of the treasury benches and trying to pull punches against the Opposition, which has a majority compared to the strength of the BJP and the National Democratic Alliance or NDA in the Rajya Sabha. But that need not give him freedom to do as he choose over twitter or social media, regardless of the large following in raking up unnecessary controversies.
He was directly or indirectly attacking Modi's most valued friends, the Indian origin green card holding or European or American or South East Asian citizens by criticizing the free flow of foreign investment sought by Modi. These are the people who organized huge rallies from coast to coast around the world, not just the USA or Wembley Stadium in London or a score or more cities of the globe and cheered Modi lustily as Prime Ministers of some host countries joined in.
If Swamy, who has a doctorate in economics from the US, was running all of them down, Modi did not take all this in his stride, but called a halt to this kind of strident anti-Modi idiom against policies like "make in India" and "Come to India" invitation to investors.
As a self-proclaimed visiting or 'un-visiting' professor at Harvard University even today, is Swamy or is he not questioning his own Indian credentials? Is he Indian to the core, just because he can speak Hindi quite quickly without all its nuances or English with a fluent Indian accent rather than stiff upper lip American style?
Just because Swamy possibly carries a vermilion mark or wears a white Chennai "veshti" and "angavastram" over his 'kurta' or shirt, does that make him more of an Indian than others who dress as they please?
When he came to India in 1977 out of the blue and bagged the New Delhi constituency ticket of the Lok Sabha from the BJP, to the dismay of the local and rest of the Indian Saffron Brigade, he had no qualms about what he now calls the "dubious foreign connexion" of anyone he is able to train his blazing guns on.
At that point of time 39 years ago, Swamy was a quite a youthful, if not middle-aged modern man in suits, with a strong hint of his American background, which he now seeks to denounce. Patriotism might or might not be the first resort of self-appointed nationalists.
But not long after his first stint as an MP in Lok Sabha, he earned the displeasure of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who decided to expel Swamy from the party for his indiscipline.
He has shifted gears many a time. He was hoping to get to Parliament via the lost friendship with Ms. Jayalalitha; she did not oblige. But long ago he was able to get into Parliament by being friends with Ajit Singh, son of Chaudhri Charan Singh, by becoming philosopher and guide of the western U.P. leader of Jats. --[IFS]