Politically Incorrect

There are cases when some entities are just very easy to dislike. The very first time you hear of them, you just hate them. It’s all black and white, like a zebra or an old television. There are no shades of grey, there’s nothing to like about the entity. Period. It isn’t like the villain in most movies these days, who at first seem like the worst kind of psychopathic killer, the ultimate embodiment of evil, the sort you would get if Adolf Hitler and Genghis Khan were to somehow conceive an illegitimate love-child, but then it turns out that they all have a solid back-story as to why they were driven to a life of crime in the first place, which makes you a little sympathetic to their plight when they’re getting vanquished at the end.

The BCCI has always come across as one such entity about whom there’s nothing to like. True, your dislike for them was considerably lesser in degree and not as all consuming as, say, the dislike a jihadi would harbor towards a non-believing, imperialistic Western power. But it was a dislike, nonetheless. It wasn’t because they were rich and successful; it’s far too easy to hate someone for that. It was because they seemed like a bunch of corrupt, inefficient politicians who were only in it for the money and did not care much about the game. They were always in the news for the wrong reasons, and with the Indian team lately displaying the sort of spinal tenacity generally associated with jellyfish, things got even worse. Which is why if I were the BCCI President, I would immediately order some cake, flowers and a personal thank-you note to be delivered to the IOA headquarters. It isn’t often that someone can make the BCCI look like a shining example of how to run a sports body, but the IOA managed to do just that by getting India banned from the Olympic movement.

It did, however, make me wonder – who on earth decided it would be a good idea to let politicians run sports bodies? They’ve already done a terrible job with politics – why would you let them handle sports as well? Has the thirst for farcical comedy and ineptitude not been satiated in the political arena? It’s a bit like Humpty Dumpty when he sat on the wall and had THAT great fall – why did they get all the king’s horses and all the king’s men to put him together again? What he clearly needed was a top-notch surgical team – obviously it wouldn’t help no matter how many of the king’s horses or men you put on the job.

Maybe it’s all a part of the “politicization” process – as a politician, you would want everything to be politicized so that you can make some money off it or at least get hold of an important-sounding post like Assistant Principal Treasurer Secretary, North Region. Which is why I find it strange when politicians accuse fellow politicians of “politicizing” an issue – I mean, that’s what makes the person a politician, doesn’t it? Ok, you can be pissed if non-political people started politicizing an issue. For example, if Batman suddenly decided to politicize the issue of the Joker robbing a bank in Gotham city and invited the Joker to sit and have a debate about it in parliament and then walked out in protest over the Joker questioning his fashion choices leading to the session being adjourned without any conclusion – that’s something you ought to be pissed about.

What you ought to be thoroughly confused about, though, is the whole business with the passage of the FDI bill in parliament. Depending on which side of the political spectrum you’re on, the FDI bill being passed could either be good news, bad news or news that leaves you wondering whether to uncork the champagne or go into mourning. On one side were the Congress touting FDI as the best thing to happen to India since the world cup victory. On the other side were the BJP – former proponents of FDI but now more concerned about fulfilling their role as the opposition instead of sticking to their ideological guns.

If this isn’t confusing enough, you have a third segment –parties that were against FDI but voted for it due to a multitude of reasons. A politician’s word is a bit like communism or the Indian cricket team – only good on paper. There was the DMK, that voted for FDI but with “bitterness in the heart”, making them sound like one of those characters in cheesy soap operas who feel terribly guilty about cheating on their spouse but carry on doing so nonetheless. Some voted for FDI “just to keep the forces of communalism at bay”, some voted because “the forces of communalism are ok, but we must keep the forces of communism at bay”, some were enigmatic and said they “would decide in parliament on the day of voting” although everyone knew what they would decide, and some simply abstained to make sure that the bill got passed.

It would be a good idea if parliament was made more like one of those courts that you see in law dramas or movies – where you can only answer by saying yes or no. It would make things so much clearer and save so much time. You’d just have a straightforward answer without having to know who has a bitter heart, who was called a barking dog, or any such unnecessary details.

“So, Sharad Yadav, are you for or against FDI?”

“In Bihar, in every village and town, you can see it in every farmer’s eyes - the struggle to put a roof over their heads without fear of being…”

“Stuff the moral lecture, Sharad. Just say yes or no!!!!”

Just like the rest of us, though, politicians also hope for a lucky break. For us it would be something along the lines of finding out that our bank account has more money than we expected, or that an upcoming project deadline has been delayed. For politicians, it’s more on the lines of “Oh, I hope the BJP does something stupid that hurts someone’s religious sentiments – that’ll take the heat off our latest corruption scam” or “Let’s hope Mamata Banerjee makes another one of her ridiculous statements so that no one notices that we haven’t passed any reform measures in ages”. Such a lucky break came along for the FDI opponents, when allegations of Walmart bribing the Indian authorities made the headlines. People were tired of hearing the same thing - FDI would harm our farmers and small traders and all those middlemen that gobbled up everything in between. Here was a new angle – the foreigners were possibly paying bribes. Here was a chance for a fresh round of expression of outrage.

It did, however, make you wonder what they were outraged about, given the number of scams that come to light on a monthly basis – the act of bribing, or the fact that the bribes weren’t big enough to be worthy of the sort of scams we’ve grown accustomed to!

Water Water Everywhere

One fine morning last week, the Bangalore landscape was suddenly blighted by big hoardings of Jayalalitha all around, as well as the flags of her party. It all suddenly seemed to have sprung up overnight. Anyone that’s lived in Bangalore would know what I’m talking about – these big, ugly hoardings with mugshots of loads of villainous-sidekick type characters. They all have the same template and it looks something like this:

Chennai, on the other hand, tends to favour the cut-out over the hoarding – and these are huge cut-outs. To give you an idea, here’s how huge it really is:

But coming back to the Jayalalitha hoardings – it turns out she was in Bangalore to meet the Karnataka CM in a doomed attempt to try and resolve the Cauvery water dispute. The bad news about such hoardings is that you know that a massive retaliation of hoardings and flags by her political opponents would invariably follow. Such things do not just go by without any retaliation – and sure enough the next day many parts of Bangalore were adorned with the Karnataka flag in what was soon escalating into a bad arms race of who could place more flags all over the city. This is something that always seems to happen. For instance, if Rahul Gandhi is visiting Bangalore and the Congress has put up all sorts of hoardings and flags, you can bet your life's savings that the BJP would retaliate with flags and hoardings of their own. Even if no one is visiting, they’ll find some leader whose birthday has just gone by, or, in the worst case scenario, just put up hoardings trumpeting the achievements of the state CM (admittedly, a tough challenge). But the retaliation is always there. And it isn’t just limited to politics.

A few years ago, the Muslim community in the city decided to protest against the execution of Saddam Hussein a good three weeks after its occurrence (no explanation was given for the delayed reaction). In retaliation, the next weekend the Hindus had a protest of their own, to protest the Muslims protesting against the execution of Saddam Hussein. It’s the same with festivals – whenever you’d see Muslims and/or Christians celebrating some festival on the streets, you can rest assured that the Hindus would also have a celebration of their own the next day, or vice-versa. Whether there actually is something to celebrate is not the point – it’s all about the retaliation.

For those wondering about the outcome of the Cauvery dispute meeting, of course it ended disastrously with Jayalalitha walking out in a huff. The Cauvery water saga is an ongoing dispute that flares up annually and will never be resolved. The saga tends to follow a cyclical pattern:

1. The Supreme Court, or a special tribunal / committee arrives at a verdict. This generally pisses off one of the states, while the other state suddenly has full faith in the Indian judicial system.
2. Protests and incidences of violence break out in the pissed-off state. Buses with license plates of the other state are torched, and other stray incidences of violence may or may not happen. A token bus-torching, however, is mandatory. On a side note – have you ever wondered why, whenever people are protesting against something in India, a bus ALWAYS has to be torched? Tear-gas incidents, looting, hunger strikes may be optional, but the token bus-torching will inevitably occur.
3. Pissed-off state refuses to adhere to the verdict. The other state cries foul.
4. The matter goes back to the Supreme Court, or another special tribunal / committee is set up.

Disregarding the Supreme Court seems to be the latest rage among politicians, as is evident by the Shiv Sena’s stand on Bal Thackeray’s memorial. Realizing the futility of it all, the Supreme Court finally told the states “Since you guys give as much regard to my verdict as the US gives to the UN, why don’t the two of you just sit down and thrash it out amongst yourselves?”

Recent evidence of political behavior would suggest that this was a terrible idea, but I suppose the Supreme Court had little choice in the matter. The trouble is that democracy ensures that neither side would back down from their stance – the more you talk tough about the water dispute in your state, the more votes you’re likely to get. If you lose an election after making crores in a corruption scam, you still have the crores to fall back upon – losing an election because you gave up water to your bitter enemy amounts to political folly on an unprecedented scale.

So there was Jayalalitha, storming out of the meeting, accusing Karnataka of displaying the sort of swagger last associated with Amitabh Bachchan at the peak of his angry young man pomp, telling Tamil Nadu to go to hell and that they would “not release a single drop of water.” Karnataka, on its part, strongly denied the allegations, insisting that all they said was they would not release the water, but did not, at any point, use the words “single drop”.

If the states really wanted it, they could have utilized the opportunity to resolve the dispute. Since Supreme Court verdicts and face-to-face talks are a surefire way of NOT resolving the dispute, they could’ve tried some alternate methods – a beer-drinking contest, hand-to-hand combat, Russian roulette, a darts competition, a drag race, a coin toss, draw of straws, a corruption challenge or some such novel idea. But no, they decided to go back to the Supreme Court.

In fact, as I type this, the Supreme Court has again ordered Karnataka to release some water, protests have been scheduled in various parts of the state, buses are probably being scouted and Karnataka is considering not releasing the water and asking for a review instead.

The circle of life, as they say, goes on.