George Fernandes - Winter Sets on a Giant Killer

Perhaps the weakest in his six-decade long political career, George Fernandes is an isolated man today. His old socialist friends have deserted him and the BJP and the RSS prefer ties with Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar rather than the aging socialist.

Facing the heat from the CBI for receiving kickbacks in the Barak anti-missile systems deal, Fernandes, the Convenor of the NDA, is fast running out of friends. Fernandes has by now had completely turned against the very ideals which he once stood for as a follower of Jayprakash Narain and as he raves and rants against Sonia Gandhi, he is not even a pale shadow of the man who was once called the giant killer.

In a political life spanning over 50 years, Fernandes has seen a cyclical series of spectacular rises and abysmal falls in his career. This run-away from a Catholic Seminary in Karnataka landed in Mumbai sometime in 1949 and according to his own admission, spent the initial years on the foot paths of this City, like its numerous other hapless inhabitants even today. In about 10 years time he was a trade union leader with a sizeable following and by the early sixties he was a mighty force to reckon with in Mumbai. Such was his clout that he could paralyse the City by his strikes and bandhs.

He made a spectacular entry into the national scene by achieving what was considered impossible those days - defeating the Congress strong man S.K. Patil in the 1967 Lok Sabha elections in Mumbai. Up to this point, the political career of Fernandes was virtually proceeding in a vertical straight line though he had to undergo a lot of personal sufferings like struggle for survival, brutal police action, imprisonment etc.

He then took centre-stage as the leader who led the 1974 Railway Strike which is supposed to be biggest ever strike held in the world. After this came the Emergency, the underground Baroda Dynamite case and the incarceration. He attained almost mythic status because of his escapades, disguises and political manoeuvres and after the Janata Government came to power in 1977, he lost little time in demonstrating his socialist credentials when as the then industry Minister, he forced IBM and Coca Cola when they refused to dilute their foreign holdings.

The peak of his career perhaps was his being appointed the convenor of the NDA by when he had abandoned all of his socialist as well as secular leanings in the quest of what can only be described as a futile pursuit of relevance sans credibility. His communist colleagues questionably lost their relevance too perhaps in a changing world but they retained a huge measure of credibility and stature as well as a reputation for consistency - a virtue which George Fernandes buried forever when he went calling on the RSS Headquarters at Nagpur to mediate on behalf of L.K. Advani who was in the dog house for having called Jinnah a secular man during his Karachi visit. While Advani has successfully rehabilitated himself, Fernandes with no ideology to cling to and his naked opportunism visible to all, has sunk rapidly into oblivion.

The road seems lonely for the man who can't even win a municipal election on his own and with a CBI case unleashed on him. Suddenly George's mask has been ripped off to reveal the political fixer he has allowed himself to degenerate into. George Fernandes is one example of a man who began so well and seems to be finishing the race as a rootless political pilgrim.