Harvard professor or villain of Indian political drama?

Should a Harvard professor be taught the model code of conduct not to stoop to make personal attacks? Mr Subramanian Swamy is at it again. To many Indians, he is a gigantic intellectual who has dissipated his mighty intellect and energy by straying away from the academic field into the cesspool of politics. Yes, he is still an enigma and a riddle. To some, he is a maverick mired in controversies numberless while to others, he represents the aggressive Hindutva of the RSS and the Viswa Hindu Parishad. A few opine that he an anti-corruption crusader. A prominent Editor-in-Chief, however, says: “He is a megalomaniac rebel. Calling him a maverick is not right as mavericks have positive qualities. Cho RamaSwamy rightly comments ‘Swamy is a leader in search of a party, he won’t submerge himself in any party. He has every right to be like that’. To the literati, he is King Lear in his false judgement, an Othello plagued by suspicion, a Macbeth in ruthless resolves and above all a Machiavelli in remorseless strategies. An embodiment of sarcasm and invective, retort and retaliation, Subramanian Swamy is an anti-hero in the Indian political drama.

An erudite professor of Economics of global fame, he authored a book entitled ‘Economic Growth in Chinaand India 1952-70’,where in he stated that India’s and China’s growth rate were nearly the same and even commented that ‘people like Amartya Sen and others writing of China growing at 10 per cent and with a per capita GDP of1000. His contentions were, indeed proved correct when China concessional aid from the world Bank. A born rebel without pause, he enrolled at the Indian Statistical Institute in Kolkata and locked horns with P.C Mahalanobis, Father of Planning Commission by submitting a paper in which he stated that Mahalanobis ‘submission on Derivatives was a plagiarized version of ancient mathematicians. An precocious scholar, he won accolades from the academic world by submitting his doctoral thesis at the young age of 24. His paper on the theory of Index Numbers won the appreciation of Amartya Sen who invited him to join The Delhi School of Economics. He also authored what he termed as ‘Swedeshi Plan’in which he advocated a market-friendly alternatives to five year plans. During the Parliamentary debate in 1970, Mrs Indira Gandhi brushed his theories aside and even ridiculed him as ‘Santa Claus with unrealistic ideas.’

Abugbear politician and spoilsport, Swamy had few rivals in the art of political machinations and manoeuvres. The Jana Sangh made him a member of the Rajya Sabha in 1974. The imposition of The emergency in 1975,however,unravelled the Jamesbondian politician in him. In the face of an arrest warrant against him, he sneaked out of India into the United States where he not only crowned himself as a leader of opposition but also accepted a visiting professor’s appointment at Harvard. His dramatic entry into Parliament before the lapse of six months of non-attendance and escape later were the stuff of a crime thriller. During a course of obituary references, he made a dramatic appearance, and said ‘I have a point of order. There is no obituary reference for democracy. It has also died’ and then vanished from India to the United States via Nepal and Bangkok.

An otherwise brilliant academic among politicians of today, Swamy exemplified in his life that there are always no permanent friends in politics but only permanent enemies. He tongue lashed the high and the mighty for reasons exclusively known to him and spared none and saved none. For instance,he hosted a tea party at a Delhi Hotel and invited both Mrs Sonia Gandhi and Jayalalithaa with the sole intent of bringing down Vajpayee government. And he did it! He protested the arrest of Sankaracharya of Kanchi and called Hindus ‘victims of terrorism.’ He forced a suave Rama Krishna Hegde to resign in the wake of a phone-tapping scandal, attacked both Karunanidhi and Jayalalithaa and set them against each other from which both benefited and initiated corruption cases against Jayalalithaa. He played a crucial role in the legal battles in the 2G spectrum cases.

He left no stone unturned to make Chidambaram a co–accused. Chidambaram just missed his missile, but A.Raja went to jail and so did Kani. Besides his pathological hatred for the UPA chair person Mrs SoniaGandhi, Swamy’s distrust of and disrespect for Vajpayee were evident from his comments on the bachelor life of the statesman in the past. The strangest thing is that he is now a spokesperson of the very party that Vajpayee nurtured.

Now the Harvard professor as usual has not only violated the model code of conduct by remarking rather inexcusably with ‘Priyanka Gandhi drinks too much alcohol and she has a bad name’ but also invaded Priyanka Gandhi’s ‘right to privacy.’

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