MODI OR GANDHI?

BY SUNNY THOMAS

The other day, a television editor asked me in right earnest, Whom do you like to see as the next Prime Minister, Narendra Modi or Rahul Gandhi?  

I am very clear about what I want in life – not even once have I asked my wife, What do I want? 

I said emphatically, Robert Vadra or Nitin Gadkariji. 

Why? The editor persisted. 

Robert Vadra can provide one DLF house for every Indian. 

And Nitin Gadkari?  

Nitin Gadkariji can make every Indian a Director in his company, even if it is a dubious one.  

The Indian Parliament is ever in an uproar. Every MP and every Minister wants to be seen on television. Instead of historic sessions, we now have histrionic sessions, and our television editors are makers of (virtual) reality.  

The remarkable thing about Sushma Swaraj is that she always wins! The Sushma folklore is full of the victories she won for herself and her party. In 1999, she won a convincing moral victory from Chikmagalur, though Sonia Gandhi snatched away the real victory.    

The climax of the FDI drama in Parliament was the moral vistory of Sushma Swaraj as she herself admitted! But few realised it is the moral victory of her party for 2014, as the voting pattern indicates. Some called the M&M game played by Maya and Mulayam as a game of hypocrisy. It is a game of alignment that will decide who will be India’s next Prime Minister. 

BJP has lost its Vajpayee advantage of fielding a candidate who is most acceptable to most of his countrymen. By projecting someone who is adept at name calling and degrading campaign rhetoric, the party is ensuring its moral victory for 2014. In their anxiety to create history, some television channels have already placed Narendra Modi in PMO, with allies, like Jayalalithaa and Naveen, and party MPs queing in for plumb Cabinet posts.   

The battle lines are already drawn for 2014, with Mulayam, Maya and Mamata reluctant to be seen even voting with Modi party for fear of losing their votebanks. To be counted, the Invisible Party of India, the Marxists, should merge with BJP and play a constructive role.   

To avoid lies getting into your nervous system, one must skilfully use the remote when you spot a politician on television channel. Some channels air live (political) animal shows and the most excruciating part of it is the vulgar female smiles while the debate is on. For three consecutive years, the students of The Times School of Journalism voted CNN-IBN as the Most Professional Channel, and if there is ever a Cerebral Channel for cerebral panel discussion, it is Headlines Today. NDTV 24x7 is the anscestral home one loves to visit; and for instant energy and revitalisation, one should go to Times Now. 

 Congress seldom takes a holiday from scams and BJP from scam-mongering. But they are bedfellows growing fond of each other by every passing day. Don’t be surprised if you find Robert Vadra and Nitin Gadkheriji playing chess or drinking champagne near some mango groove of DLF Enclave.  

There is nothing Catholic about abortion. Nor is stupidity purely Irish. Law makers universally are stupid, not because they lack intelligence but because it is humanly impossible to envision every situation the law may have to deal with. It is compounded by the stupidity of doctors, the stupidity of the police, the stupidity of the interpreters of the law. And finally when someone has to be blamed, blame it on the Catholic Church that believes human life is God-given and hence sacred. We don’t need a court verdict to figure out what transpired: the doctors do not want to be caught on the wrong side of the law, nor were proactive enough to take instant remedial measures. At the hands of human ineptitude, the law meant to protect the sanctity of human life turned out to be a hapless instrument to snuff out human life!