ONLY DINESH – THE COMPLETE MAN

Readers will pardon me for mixing up the punch lines of three different suiting ads – Dinesh, Only Vimal and Raymond’s The Complete Man. Unfortunately I haven’t seen the Dinesh Suiting ad for sometime, hence must be forgiven for forgetting the punch line. But I do remember two Dinesh Suiting ads, both featuring Sunil Gavaskar. In one, he whacks a ball that whips the icecream off a cone that a young boy is eating. The boy’s angry mother is pacified when Gavaskar autographs the ball. In the other ad the Egyptian mummies come to life when Gavaskar is suitably suited in Dinesh. The recent Rail Budget, and the recently removed Railway Minister, Dinesh Trivedi, reminded me about the suiting ads. The Prime Minister thought that Dinesh had done a good job with the budget, and was indeed a “suitable boy”. But Mamta, like the angry mother, was not amused, when she saw the icecream whipped off her cone, with the increase in railway fares. Unlike the mummies, she was not impressed or inspired to come out of her closet. She preferred to remain mummified in time. The other two suiting ads have the punch lines – ONLY, and THE COMPLETE MAN. Today I daresay that Dinesh Trivedi is the ONLY COMPLETE MAN, who could stand up for his country and his beliefs; not afraid of losing his ministerial job, nor of ruffling the feathers of mother hen Mamata. I saw two interviews of Dinesh Trivedi on TV, one just after he had presented his bold and pragmatic budget, and the other after he had been unceremoniously sacked. I salute the man for his courage and humility. He was neither bitter, angry nor accusatory. He simply reiterated that he had done what he felt was for the good of the nation, and according to his conscience. He reiterated his belief in God. He also said that he was not going to lose any sleep over losing his ministerial berth. Such persons of integrity and humility are hard to come by in the body politic. Earlier, in the UPA I, Manmohan Singh staked his government on the nuclear deal, because he firmly believed that it was in the country’s larger interest. But in UPA II, the same person has repeatedly succumbed to the perils and pitfalls of coalition politics; coalition dharma as he calls it; though the less charitable would call it coalition compulsions and constraints. Pressure tactics from coalition partners, for petty gain or populism, should more appropriately be called adharma (the lack of righteousness). I do not know if the Congress has a Plan B, for splitting the TMC, with Dinesh as the engine driver. That would be revealed in time. As of now, sacrificing a good man and a good budget at the altar of coalition dharma shows the Congress in poor light. It furthers the impression that it is a lame duck government that suffers from policy paralysis. Was not this the time for Manmohan to have behaved like a complete man and only say, “Enough is enough. I won’t take any more bullying or blackmailing”. Wouldn’t it have been better for the Congress to have taken the high moral ground, and gone down fighting, instead of limping along from one coalition crisis to the next? We are yet to see the end of this anyway. As for Dinesh Trivedi, I believe that he is indeed a “suitable boy”. If he is sidelined or removed from the TMC, the Congress should not hesitate in accommodating him, and using his talent and moral uprightness for good governance. In this entire sordid episode, Dinesh Trivedi has come off best, as the only and most suitable – complete man. May his tribe increase. * The writer is a Kanpur based social activist.