They call it `brothelization’ of politics. I disagree. Why should we lose our cool if someone changes a camp. Shifting loyalty is human. What renders it inhuman is the reason you do it. We need not be emotional, but practical in our perception about those who do it. They do it openly and confidently. Likewise we need be open and confident. If saints and sufis have a space in history, why should frauds and floor-crossers be denied the same. Without the former the world will still go on, but without the latter history is incomplete – and boring.
Politics is no religion. We are not born to it. We learn it, seek it, change it, enter it and exit it as and when the situation demands. Religion, in a culture we are living in, is a given. Though religious conversions do happen but in our setting, faith comes like the colour of skin, like gender. Immutable, unchangeable. No matter one can change that too thanks to modern science, but that change is rare. By and large religion is a legacy we inherit and uphold till we die. But politics is change. When we comment on the behaviour of a politician, one thing that we shouldn’t forget is that we are talking about humans, not angels. About erring, falling mortals, not about incorruptible, unblemished gods and goddesses. Like any other profession, politics too is a cross between the beautiful and the ugly. That is the reality the world over. Why should we be an exception.
Party membership is like a club membership. You change one for the other for a better deal. You are free to cross the floor and set the new limits for yourself. No one denies you the freedom to change as many times as you like. But don’t explain this change on a moral ground. Call it your will, your weakness, your temptation, but not a desire to serve people. This `serving-my-nation’ story is too stale to have its takers now. It’s self-service, not social-service. And after all serving your self is not that bad.
The point is not about our perceptions which are susceptible to change every time, but about scruples. If that change results in your loss of position and power, we call it sacrifice. When it offers a better gain, we call it business and business is a principle unto itself. That is where brothelisation enters the scene.
Human weakness has no limits. Lust for wealth and power is one such weakness which takes us anywhere anytime. It first murders your soul, invalidates the very sense of values. But there are ways and ways to stay honest even in your dishonesty. Explanations blur the picture, confession makes it clear. The corrupt can stay clean if they confess the corruption of their soul. That is why brothels don’t find a nicer name.
`I can always sell for a better price wherever it comes from’. This line from a character of a play is the voice of an honest self that has been dishonest all his life. To know and to accept one’s ugly side at least speaks of some beauty in a human being. Moral justifications make us doubly immoral. Say you did it as you liked it. Say you did it as you desired it. But remember. Sell yourself to the highest bidder. Higher the better. If chameleons accept opportunism as their characteristic trait, we will admire them as `honest chameleons’.