Silly Season

Looks like politicians want to now usurp the roles of stand up comedians. They are now out to provide comic relief and other forms of light distractions in the face of faltering economy, rising prices, starvation deaths, rotting food grains, drought and flood woes.
 
First it was Beni Prasad Verma. Somehow Congress party never gave him his due, probably because he was a turncoat from Samajwadi Party. However his remarks on inflation had the party's ace foot-in-mouth practitioners feel hot under their collar. 

He said that rising prices actually helped farmers! Probably long innings in Delhi's corridors of power has made him incapable to differentiate between farmer and middleman. Since he may be interacting more with the latter for election funding and other money matters, he may have thought they got a really good thing going. Now that government has increased diesel prices, hope he does not feel that the boys who dispense fuel at petrol pumps are going to book Mercs.
 
Some days later it was the turn of opposition BJP. And that too none other than loh purush Narendra Modi - normally known for combative rabble rousing statements.

He told a US newspaper that malnutrition in Gujarat was due to vegetarianism and middle class girls’ size zero obsession.  Surprisingly his remarks on vegetarianism went unchallenged and mercifully there were no Peta protests. It was surprising that no veggie pressure group took umbrage to his statement. Or probably they failed to make it to media's radar. 

But his comment on middle class girls more than made up for that shortcoming. While organisations associated with child rights and women brandished statistics to show how worse off  girls are in Gujarat; he became a favourite muse for cartoonists and satirists.

Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi too joined the fray by coming up with a jaw-droppingly ludicrous statement on rising Muslim population in his state. To cover up Congress government's lapses in curbing Bangladeshi infiltration, Gogoi ended tying himself up in knots.

At a TV interview to Karan Thapar he shocked everyone by saying that the rise in population among Muslims was due to illiteracy. Thapar first thought it was a slip of tongue and asked him repeatedly, but he came out with same reply. His party high command was left red faced and tongue tied. And for Muslims it was a rude awakening, as it came from the mouth a leader belonging to a secular party.

Meanwhile amidst all this foot-in-mouth orgy, the apple of every cartoonists' eye Digvijay Singh was conspicuous by his absence.

Also Read: Bangalore Beat

Slapgate kolaveri

So finally the Maratha strongman too joined the long list of our netas getting slapped or booted in public. The TV footage of Sharad Pawar getting slapped seems to have created a sharp divide with the political class and intellectuals on one side and the hoi polloi on the other. The political class, quite understandably, was saying it was an attack on democracy, a Taliban act, and the intellectual class seemed to be seconding it.
The problem with politicos is that they remember about lofty ideals such as democracy, liberty, value of life only when one of their kind gets the rap. Look at the rare camaraderie shown by Parliamentarians in supporting Pawar! It was a sheer act of self preservation.
At heart they are hard core feudal-oligarchic in their dealings. Quite recently a TRS MLA had slapped an official at Andhra Bhavan, wonder why no legislative body bother to condemn it? Harvinder Singh was sent to Tihar; the MLA must be continuing with his king size life. As an aside I feel the VIP inmates in Tihar may now be spending sleepless nights with Harvinder Singh on the prowl! 2G accused A Raja, who never  bothered to even apply for a bail may now have started thinking in those directions.
Cut to November 14. Rahul Gandhi while addressing a rally in the dusty hamlet of Phulpur in Uttar Pradesh, is greeted with black flags by some protesters. Congress leaders, including two Central ministers, rush to the spot and beat up the protestors. Wonder where was the consciousness about democracy? Another footage of inimitable Digvijay Singh kicking a protestor is still fresh in mind. The stunts by Lalu Yadav's brothers-in-law on Rajdhani Express may be a fading memory, but worth recalling in this context.
One can cite umpteen such examples of their sheer contempt for democracy and common public. They have no moral right to lecture the aam aadmi about showing Christ-like forbearance for the sake of democracy, while they trample it on a daily or even hourly basis.
By the way how did Pawar's own party react? By burning tyres, stoning buses and putting commuters to inconvenience in many of the towns in Maharashtra. His daughter Supriya Sule put on a martyr's air and said it was the worst time in her life. To which a guy had tweeted "If one slap is your worst time, think of farmer families!". Her father as agriculture minister had done little to arrest the calamity of farmers committing suicides out of crop failure and debt trap.
The TV channels, which had gone on the defensive after Katju affair, were firing all cylinders with the footage of a Sikh man landing a slap and later even brandishing his kirpan. Harvinder Singh may have delivered one slap, but these guys by repeating the footage for the whole day in graphic details, delivered many slaps. They almost seemed to be making up for the forced coyness they had shown during Aishwarya Rai's childbirth. Poor Rahul Dravid! Bad enough that he has to live perpetually under Sachin Tendulkar's shadow, but his 13,000-run milestone too got eclipsed by the Pawar hoopla.
The slapgate had also put the twitter scape in a tizzy. Though the likes of Rajdeep Sardesai, Barkha Dutt had said it was unfortunate etc there were some really hilarious tweets from the not so famous men on the street. Sample the following:

• A toast to Harvinder Singh for slapping Sharad Pawar. Pleasure to watch, re-watch :)
• On hearing that Sharad Pawar got slapped for food inflation, the petroleum minister must have quickly ordered a full-face helmet.
• Sharad Pawar to Harvinder Singh: Why this Kolaveri da ???
• Blogger satirist greatbong says: For a second, I thought it was Harbajan Singh who, true to form, has gone and slapped Pawar for being dropped from the side.
• When Harvinder Singh met the ICC president Sharad Pawar he suddenly remembered the ICC World Cup 2011 theme song 'de ghuma ke'.

Well one may argue this is not real India as the twitterati are considered tech savvy elite guys. But believe me the anger at lower rungs of our society is far more strident. Their remarks would be akin to what Anna Hazare first blurted out "bas ek hi maraa", before the Gandhian in him took over.
Shajil Kumar