I was in the undivided Shiv Sena. I know what ‘ShahNeeti’ is doing to TMC |
Et tu, Brute? This iconic line from the play Julius Caesar, written in 1599 by William Shakespeare, is a reminder for anyone in politics that the ultimate betrayal does not come from one’s enemies, but from one’s closest allies. This is the everyday political reality in India, in this time of breaking news content. It is the age of “ShahNeeti”.
A mere 24-hour window may see twists and turns, political parties losing and engineered splits. In 2022, we saw how the Shiv Sena split. Of course, this wasn’t a first in India’s history — even Congress had split in 1969. That, however, was an outcome of organisational revolt. In the case of the Shiv Sena, it was an engineered revolt which then became a model to use against other regional parties, too. We are seeing it play out now in West Bengal with the All India Trinamool Congress.
In Shakespeare’s play, the deepest wound to Caesar was not inflicted by steel blades, but by a single face among the crowd of assassins: Marcus Brutus, his protégé and trusted friend. With that final, heartbreaking realisation, the Roman dictator stopped fighting........