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!