When Politics Fail, Religion Comes To The Fore

Baba Ramdev

"The introduction of religious passion into politics is the end of honest politics, and the introduction of politics into religion is the prostitution of true religion.”

Is the midnight scoop by Police on Baba Ramdev’s fast a master stroke by the Congress or a political blunder?

It might look one of the stupidest acts by a Government to use police force to evict people sitting on a fast democratically. The act of the Congress gave an opportunity of life time to the sangh parivar to raise a political bogey.

The incident completely changed the political scenario at National level and turned the tide against Congress and its allies. All of a sudden it made a Baba into a National Hero. It brought spiritual leaders to the fore to raise political bogey.

There was no doubt that behind the moves of Ramdev to sit on the fast, there is a meticulously planned political conspiracy. Ramdev did not keep his political ambitions a secret. His Fast was a competitive politics with that of undertaken by Anna Hazare.

He challenged a perplexed government with a threat of indefinite fast forcing powerful Union ministers run like servitors around him to buy peace and no doubt he caused humiliation to the ruling political class.

A few years ago, hardly anyone knew about Ramdev and Yogic antics. Now, there are very few who don’t. Thanks to Media and sudden Indian penchant for Yoga, Ram Dev has a disciple base whose core is the adolescent, emotionally psychic and sentimentally swayed lower middle class masses of rural India, and they run into their mystic millions. They believe that Yoga like spiritual practices can cure their mental disorders.

People like Ramdev began to aspire or conspire to make such blind spiritual following as an alternative to present political system which is no doubt lost its credibility due to corruption.

The political moves by apolitical leaders like Ramdev, is an effort place a political movement in a spiritual-wellness context. It is nothing to do with the black money or the corruption etc. it is a battle between two apolitical groups one led by Intellectuals of civil society with more left leanings and other by spiritual gurus supported by right wing ideologues to become alternate to present set discredited political class.

The UPA is on a challenge of a confrontation with Ram Dev for a simple reason: he is backed by people who don’t think. They will fast with him, and they will, if given a chance, die with him like a misguided Jihadist. What you have with Ram Dev is the stuff of riot and revolt without the least restraint of reason. They don’t care for rationale behind things except blindly following the Yoga Guru aspiring to contest elections in 2014.

We have come to this, a point in politics where parties and leaders have lost credibility in the wake of a series of scams in recent years and over six decades of democratic establishment built on the aspirations of the poor, who see world getting connected with mobile phones and satellite TVs, while their hands grope empty pots.

Certainly, there is not much trust any longer between the elected and those who elect. If a survey is now taken on people’s trust in key public institutions like parliament, judiciary or the police, the results are not likely to surprise anyone.

The fact is that trust deficit has battered the idea of parties themselves, without whom democracy will not work. It is into this vacuum of political leadership that well intentioned megalomaniacs like Ramdev with little or no concept of politics, science or economy assume spiritual captaincy.

When politics fails, religion comes to the fore. This country certainly needs to fight corruption. But that war is best fought by the generals of democracy, not by mystic masseurs. ..