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That our leaders do not, in the classical sense, lead is a platitude. We have long been inured to a selfish leadership, determined to get and retain power at all costs, determined to milk their tenure for all its worth. Big scandals, like Bofors, startle us, and then just pass us by. People get the governments they deserve, goes the saying, and who is responsible for the malaise the leaders or the people becomes a chicken-and-egg conundrum.
But for once, we have a case of no ambiguity, where the people have behaved themselves while the leaders have plumbed new depths of degradation. On the very first sitting of Uttar Pradesh’s newly constituted Assembly, legislators fought pitched battles like street urchins whose sole means of articulation is their fists. The bedlam erupted when the BJP MLAs stalled the proceedings demanding that their detained leader Kalyan Singh should be present in the House. Soon, the protest evolved into an angry verbal exchange between the members of the ruling SP-BSP combine, and the BJP legislators. And from there, it was but a short step to an all-out battle.
The scale of the melee can be gauged from the post-battle inventory. In all, as many as 33 legislators, six staff members, and a few Home Guards were injured. Many seriously. Among these were women legislators. So vicious was the cross-fire that of the 221 microphones provided in the House, only 16 remained functional by the time the dust had settled. Broken furniture, glasses, footwear, microphones and blood constituted the debris of the opening session of the new House.
At all times, a base display like this would have earned the strongest condemnation. But it seemed particularly deplorable coming in the wake of an exemplary display of restraint and sagacity on the part of the people. At a time of roused religious and caste passions, the people voted peacefully, without the customary clashes and violence. And then, as if in direct chastisement of their display of sanity, the elected legislators flung themselves at one another like lumpen elements do in a street5 brawl. The only message that could flow from it was that even in the house of debate, violence was the first resort.
It is tragic that people should have to teach their leaders how to lead. At least inn Uttar Pradesh this seemed the case last fortnight. Consider the irony: the first hour in the Assembly was far bloodier than the month-long campaign for the recent assembly elections.