Our politicians have been saying and doing a lot of strange things in the recent past. Here are a few highlights:
Modi worship: Talk about taking human deification to a whole new level. First of all, the controversial “har har Modi” slogan — a spin on the well-known “har har Mahadev” chant — hasn’t gone down too well with religious heads. What’s more, some BJP youth leaders also replaced “shivlings” from a temple with Mr Modi’s photograph. If such puerile behaviour makes the agnostic in me wave it all away with a semi-resigned, semi-amused grin, I can understand why it inspires anger and exasperation in believers. What next, Modiji? NaMo namaha?
Walk like a politician: We all know how to walk like an Egyptian. But how many of us know how to walk like a real politician? BJP’s Rajkot candidate Mohan Kundariya has taken it upon him to show us. Several news stories (including this one) declared that he walked on school children’s backs, including a highly elevating demonstration of the same even as his supporters waved saffron flags. Following a social media outrage, Kundariya revealed that the “children” were aged between 14 and 25 years. Even if we disregard the age factor for a second, what about the sense and sensibility factors? Aren’t there better ways of garnering political mileage?
Enjoy rape: I can’t decide if it’s a good thing or a bad thing, but it’s not just BJP candidates who’ve been putting their feet into their mouths. Bengali actor and Trinamool Congress candidate Dipak Dev just likened contesting in elections to sexual assault. “It is just like getting raped, yaar. You can shout, or you can enjoy,” he announced in an interview to a Bengali newspaper called Ebela. He hit the nail on the head. All our heads.
Daughter (in law) distress: This one concerns two majority parties, with Congress leader Amarinder Singh taking on BJP’s shameless Arun Jaitley for terming Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s an “outsider” due to her Italian origin. In Singh’s own words, “Let me remind Jaitley of our great Indian culture and tradition which accepts the daughters-in-law as the real inheritors of the house and not the daughters irrespective of which place they come from.” How very progressive.
Image courtesy: BCCL
More On >> Current Affairs
