The poet looked sorely out of touch and the script-writer was clearly fatigued. For one it was poetic injustice, while for the other it was the case of a script gone awry. Two of the most eloquent speakers of our times were found fishing for credible words and substance at the Marina yesterday and it is doubtful if they would have succeeded in even stirring the crabs on the beach out of their sleep.
Sure, it does not really matter, for crabs do not vote, but the ‘sea of humanity’ which will, were not enthused either. One can at least understand the dravidian drumbeater’s monotonous harangue for he has been doing little else all these years, but when the Prime Minister of the nation and the leader of the ruling NDA too sounds as hollow as the eminent but empty Murasu seated beside him, one can be assured that the infection is really serious.
In fact, it is an epidemic – the emptiness of words and the deficiency of conviction. The Marina meeting addressed by the PM and the CM is purely symptomatic of the affliction that is bothering today’s politicians. To be fair to these eminences, hollowness seems to be the underlying tone of every leader or speaker, of whatever party right through this electioneering.
There was not a single leader or a speech that sounded credible, despite a deluge of voluble rhetorics inundating the poll scene and one need not look far for the reasons. Even a cursory peep into recent history would reveal that, barring the AIADMK and the DMK, there are no sworn enemies in this election.
Every other party has been a part of either of the major fronts, could have continued to figure in the same fronts but for last minute hitches in seat-sharing talks and still might as well do so in future if the polls throw up an uncertain verdict. Past friends are today ‘ s enemies and vice versa, and it is possible that the future might imitate the past.
Every politician has been swinging like a pendulum from the ‘secular’ to the ‘communal’, and from the corrupt to the clean, though these jargons themselves exist only in their lexicon and invoked depending on the circumstances.
Little wonder that the so called secular front has parties that had slept with the BJP in the past and should have been infected by the communal HIV, and the much tom-tommed anti-corruption front has characters with long Sarkaria shadows looming over them, not to speak of the candid tehelka tapes binding them down.
While such circumstances should normally inculcate a spirit of restraint and circumspection in their demeanour, these Frankenstein demons are more prone to throw caution to winds and get into a no-holds-barred mode in taking on the current enemy. Amends could always be made if the situation warrants it and in any case, the opponent too, being a politico himself, could be expected to be as forgetful and forgiving, a political euphemism for shamelessness.
With ideologies and principles becoming as mutable as the towel on their shoulders, how else can they sound but hollow? On the contrary, it is private agendas, personalised and acrimonious attacks and innuendos that have taken primacy, making the speeches even more vacuous and all the more irrelevent for the public. Karunanidhi wants people not to forget what happened during 1991-96, but does not want to extend the flashback to the seventies whilst he sowed the seeds for all the ills is afflicting TN till date. And there is also no secret about his ‘very democratic wish’, that the city’s father would tread his father’s footsteps.
Precisely what Jayalalitha’s apprehension is. And she seeks vote from people as a means of protection from the viles of the father-son duo, not to speak of the nephew waiting in the shadows. While one wants to protect a lineage the other wants to protect her self. What has the people got to do with either? Why should we care what happens to them?
Even the eloquent Chidambaram sounds funny. The weekend politician having converted himself into a practicing one, goes hopping from town to town warning the people against voting for ‘that’ woman. But what about ‘that’ man who let ferocious tigers into this tranquil land that eventually led to the gory assassination of his very dear friend and leader?
Was he not the one who laid the foundations for the dismissal of the then DMK government with a stirring speech in Parliament? Well, this flashback too should not proceed beyond 1991. The TMC that he left has not fared any better either, with its leader Moopanar who is known for consistently confusing his listeners, besides himself, is now busy issuing conduct certificates to his one-time foe who was the raison d ‘etre of his party’s existence.
No one really knows what caused this dramatic change of heart, but the rumour has it that the secular bug has bitten him too. But that did not however prevent him from keeping his doors open for the DMK till the last minute. One cannot, however, accuse the Congress, the TMC’s ageing and infirm parent, of sounding hollow. The party and its numerous leaders are yet to say anything of consequence within the earshot of anybody to decide if they sound hollow or not.
For the secular Leftists, who blessed VP Singh’s courtship with BJP in 1989 – curse this pre-1991 amnesia -, the current elections offers yet another opportunity to exhibit their famed double-standards. While in TN secularism has to be saved even if it means tolerating corruption, Kerala and West Bengal by their chaste logic could afford some doses of communalism.
The hollowness of the Left is the worst, because these parasites deem themselves as the ultimate intellectuals and the sole custodians of all logic and rationality. The hot air let loose by them in different tones in different states according to the prevailing circumstances is more offensive on the ear than the scorching summer heat.
The all round hollowness is indeed confounding. But then the Indian voter vested with that wonderful weapon of democracy called the vote, has to perform his karma. Though the din ends today, one is advised to keep one’s ears plugged, walk upto the booth, press the button of doom and get away as quickly as possible.
The bad news-whoever wins is not going to make a dime of a difference to him – will get to him much early this time, but that is a new ordeal altogether. For now, the noisy emptiness would have ended.
| POINT OUT : The all round hollowness is indeed confounding. But then the Indian voter vested with that wonderful weapon of democracy called the vote, has to perform his karma — T R JAWAHAR |