Valson Thampu

Valson Thampu

P.C. George faces the rest of us with a dilemma. How is he to be read? Is he a Christian who is a politician? Or, a politician who happens to be a Christian? Can P.C, if he is a politician, be also a Christian? In that case, what sort of a Christian? For how long?
Politics, we are told, is the art of the possible. That is to say, expediency is its guiding principle. But Christianity is not the art of the possible. If anything, it is the art of the impossible. Resurrection, for example, is ‘the impossible’, so to speak. A man, laying down his life for his friends, as Jesus did, is the impossible. What we mean when we say that Christianity is the art of the impossible is really that it is the art of making the impossible, possible; like feeding a multitude out of a boy’s tiffin of five loaves and two fishes. The art of the possible is to reduce the five loaves and two fishes to half a loaf and the tail of a fish, if not making the thing vanish altogether into thin air. That’s why Atal Bihari Vajpayee said, improving on the Rajiv Gandhi formula, that a rupee put into development shrinks to ten paise. That, surely, is the art of the possible. The birds of the air building nets on the branches of a mustard plant belongs, in contrast, to the art of the impossible.

With most politicians, it is the case of the tail wagging the dog. In PC’s case it is the tongue wagging the dog. It is as if his ample bulk exits for his tongue. Or, his body is an organ of his tongue. There was a time when politicians –say, a few of them- had a voice. Then it came down to politicians having tongues. PC denotes the next stage in the evolution of the political animal. He is the foremost example of a tongue having a politician. He is not alone in this; but he is unrivalled in this emerging distinction. It is a PC monopoly; though not a PC exclusive.

The tongue, unlike the brain, is in direct touch with the given. Unless, of course, the tongue is under the authority of the brain. In this, PC is rivalled only by the Pentecostals; with the difference that while PC’s tongue is in direct touch with the dregs of politics, the tongues of Pentecostals and charismatics are in direct touch with God. On available evidence, the latter is a whole lot safer and preferable to the former. If only PC had spoken his political fusillades in ‘other tongues’, he would have been less offensive and more durable in the political aakri shop. Often when I hear PC speak –by accident, not by choice; not knowing what to expect from a news bulletin, I begin to worry that the distinction between a bulletin and a bullet is becoming merely notional.

It cannot be denied, all the same, that PC is the man the channels love to hate. They think they hate what he says. But they love to air every word, every expletive, he bawls and bellows. How they lap him up! PC is to the media what Andhra pickles are to steamed tapioca; bland in itself, but quite interesting with a spot of the deadly stuff.

There is something, however, that the media and most of us overlook as regards PC. He is entertaining us at a huge personal cost. Give a thought to the man. In order to be true to the PC-brand, he has to sabre-rattle his tongue. There is a limit to which entertainment can be generated, and media hype sustained, by saying goody-goody things, or by speaking normally and in civilized tones. For PC to do that sort of a thing, it would be like the lion behaving like a lamb. So, he has to let ‘them’ have it. That is precisely when problems begin. This ‘them’ cannot be, in the nature of things, a fixed category; for variety is the spice of life. So, PC has to flick and flash his tongue against whoever, as per the shifting scope of politics as the art of the possible. Adapted to the PC mode, it becomes ‘the art of skewering the available’.

This puts PC in a situation that demands utmost dexterity on his part. So, depending on which way the wind blows, he tongue-lashes the Left, the Right, the Centre, the above, the below, the Muslims, the nuns, and so on. Not that he has anything personal against any one of them. How is he to provide the daily ration of titillation to bored and weary Malayalis, unless he improvises newer ‘lashing-bags’ (on the analogy of punching-bags) day after day? Otherwise, he has to be like the motor-mouths of the Sangh Parivar who corrode your nerves, day in and day out, with Islamophobia and anti-Pak invectives.

But, there is a limit even to this. How far can you stretch the line of your victims? Objects of tongue-lash are not in infinite supply, after all. So, PC is now forced to venture into ideological gymnastics. Finding himself dumped and disowned by his previous cohorts, he has discovered opportunely that the ills of India will vanish at once if the present secular, democratic Republic is morphed into a Hindu Rashtra. I am in full sympathy with PC, though I disagree vehemently with his wisdom in this regard. My sympathy is based on the obvious fact that, as of now, PC has to look beyond the borders of Kerala for even a straw of sympathy or solidarity. His present plight is best described by parodying the words of the Psalmist, “I look to the RSS, from where comes my help.” He might even go a step further and say, “Modi is my good shepherd, I shall not want”.

But, pardon me, I shouldn’t be unfair to PC beyond the remit of Christian charity. Political expediency is not exclusive to him.

I allude to these not to embarrass anyone, but to argue the need for informed, principled consistency in understanding the remedial scope of the Christian presence in politics. That consistency has to be derived from our commitment to the values and ideals for which Jesus lived and died. So long as we care not to go beyond securing fleeting material advantages via quid pro quo, we shall only be milder and inferior PCs, willing to shape-shift ever and anon to merge with prevailing or emerging political contours. I feel shocked at PCs Hindu Rashtra advocacy; for I know what its implications are. But, the sharpness of my indignation gets blunted when I realize that in principle PC is doing what each one of us would do, under similar situations; unless, of course, we are committed firmly to running diligently, the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith’.