Saturday 26 November 2011

A slap of democracy!

What’s all this brouhaha about the slap that was felt across the political class?
Is it manifestation of public anger?
Or is it a publicity stunt?

Whatever it may be, it certainly is oozing frustration from within the society we live in for if it were a publicity stunt, there were a 100 other ways to attract attention than to travel 30kms to slap a cabinet minister!

It’s a pity that this government is not only blind and deaf, it is dumb too to not have seen this coming and continues to be in denial and is forking out ridiculous reasons to why this happened ranging from BJP’s Yashwant Sinha’s warning of violence because of price rise to Anna’s anti-corruption movement….if Yashwant Sinha’s statements had this effect, then, BJP should have come to power in 2009 or we did not need an Anna to campaign against corruption and Sinha could have well replaced him!! On the other hand, if it were Anna’s movement that led to this, then, it is even more important for this government to wake up lest its too late and Anna takes up cudgels against the government again as Jan Lokpal is looking like a pipe dream right now and the government continues indulging in a smear campaign against team Anna! If Anna does start again, then, the movement can potentially take a shape that would perhaps look like an Egypt or Syria or Libya or Yemen!

Will the government take cognizance of the crisis that is looming or will it still wish it away as it has done so far? Going by its reaction so far, this does not seem to be the case and as usual the government still thinks it can fool all the people all the time!

On a lighter note, I read on the internet someone saying, now that a Sikh (Harvinder) has slapped a Maratha (Pawar), to bring about parity, it is only fitting that a Maratha now slaps a Sikh (Manmohan Singh)!! Hope it does not have to go as far as that but with the current dispensation at the center it may not be entirely unthinkable sentiment.

The fact remains that while most of us explicitly would want to publicly condemn what happened yesterday, but in some corner of our hearts we all rejoiced and thanked Mr. Singh (Harvinder not Manmohan!!) for his action.

A better outcome of this episode would be if Manmohan Singh uses the powers vested in him as the Prime Minister of this country to slap a few of his colleagues into toeing a line that is truly for the good of this country!

That slap would be the one that is far more resounding than this one and would be remembered by history as game changing one in India’s polity. Amen!