Rats are smart. They smell when the ship is about to sink and when it actually begins to sink, they flee. Ask Ansaris. They will tell you how. (And see Suhail Naqshbandhi’s cartoon – GK July 4 – which aptly captures the scene).
The PDP ship – as it seems – is sinking. Though no possibility can be predicted or ruled out, but for the party, it’s a bad patch. And meanwhile rats have a chance to run away. Imran Raza Ansari calls her yesterday’s boss Mehbooba Mufti `incompetent’. He says she made the party her fiefdom. She let the black sheep in. She nourished nepotism. What a courage this man is showing! But the only thing wrong in this rebellious act is the timing. It’s like brandishing your sword and beheading the dead. Courage has a date of expiry on it and that date for him is gone.
She was the same `incompetent’ chief minister when he was his minister. She welcomed the black sheep, when he was one of the sheep in her flock. He says he said a `Good bye to her’ earlier also, but we never knew it then, we know it now. He says he has been telling her about the `suffocation’ he was feeling in the party. We believe he has. But he didn’t tell us then, he is telling us now. That is why the only disgraceful thing in this graceful act of defiance is timing. Rats are happy when the ship is sailing. But a little leak and they leave the ship for a better boat anywhere in sight. Presume a situation. The alliance has not collapsed. The government is where it was. The ship has not hit the iceberg. The sailors are making merry. The black sheep are still there. The family rule has not gone. Was then the suffocation a better option than fleeing?
The history of politics is full of treachery and ours is one of the brightest chapters in that book of ambition and backstabbing. In statecraft, they say allegiance doesn’t matter. Changing a party is not like changing one’s faith. There is nothing certain in power sharing politics. It is like weather. Hot, cold, rainy, sunny, calm, turbulent – there is nothing to stay. PartnerSHIP, friendSHIP, courtSHIP – the SHIP of politics sails with or against the tide of the time. But there is something that stays – human weakness to justify any good, bad or ugly. Those who change camps have a ready answer as to why they do so? Those who stick have their own. But the truth is naked. My change of stance doesn’t emanate from a confession that I am doing it all for a better gain. Rats don’t accept that they nibbled at every bait thrown at them when they were in the ship. They don’t confess that they can’t wait but find another ship to sneak in. If they do, they are still nasty little opportunist rats, but at least honest rats, truthful rats. We may hate them for their temptation, but we will love them for their truth.
Tailpiece
There is no harm imagining. Imagine Mehbooba Mufti is back in power. If the ship sails again, will rats come back home?