DADDY, DON’T  BITE!

BY SUNNY THOMAS

A savage bit his daughter to death. In a culture where fathers rape and teachers molest, it shouldn’t really bother us. Our newspapers gave it a decent  burial, without even a line of editorial comment on the rotten state of the amoral society. Not even Arnab Goswami, the Angry Anchor whose anger is becoming Trendy Journalism, thought it not worthwhile wasting human emotions when you have the hanging of Afzal Guru before you to blow hot and blow cold.

Going by newspaper reports, even the Guru did not expect a snooze for his crime! Perhaps, even Ajmal Kasab would have expected a negotiated deal on his life. After all, this is the country that failed to bring to book the mastermind of the Mumbai blasts, Hafeez Syed, sending the message to the world that India is a soft state.  

Do people who kill others in cold blood have the right to live? Some pseudo-intellectuals call capital punishment `barbaric’ , but no less barbaric than their crime. When the crime is barbaric, should the punishment be less barbaric? Many people who commit crime entertain the hope that they can escape through legal jugglery. Often, a life-term turns out to be a life in 5-star comfort, if you have the means to bribe. The argument that hanging is irreversible is an argument for argument’s sake, citing examples from primitive times. Today the trial goes through several stages and appeals can be made even against the death sentence once it is awarded.   

It is true that anything done in 2013 could be interpreted as a pre-election stunt. Be that as it may, but give the President and the Home Minister the credit for doing what they were duty-bound to do.  Judges wearing the gown do not always understand the ground reality and political compulsions behind government decisions. If that were not so, we could have been governed entirely by the judiciary. Admittedly, governance is a much complicated process than delivering judgments.   

The sad thing about the Guru is that he led a life of self-destruction, shattering many dreams and lives of people whom he had never met. Taking pride in destroying lives is the tragedy of faith without reason, and the tragedy of the state itself.  Money flows from across the border where terrorism has become a cottage industry. The argument that the family members did not get an opportunity to say farewell  to the one who did not give the victims’ families the same opportunity reeks with hypocrisy.

  

Only we Indians are capable of believing one of the largest conclaves of humanity needs no security arrangements. Mercifully, the police at the Allahabad railway station were armed with only lathis, not rifles. Otherwise, the casualty would have been in hundreds.  

   

Our television channels have already made Narendra Modi the prime minister.  Dr Manmohan Singh is only the lame duck, and Rahul Gandhi, the reluctant villain. Understandably, the media wants to create a Frankenstein’s monster of speculative story to play its own game.  But the plain truth is Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley enjoy far greater support across the political spectrum than Modi. 

Imagine, Narendra Modi taking a Rath Yatra, from Kashmir to Kanyakumari! It will not start from Srinagar or from any part of the Valley. It won’t pass through Haryana, for sure; passing through Mulayam’s UP is doubtful. Didi’s Bengal, it has to skip. Telangana or Andhra is not well suited for the Yatra. In Jaya-land, Modi might get a red-carpet welcome; but Kerala will be hostile. 

Be pretty certain, 2014 will be the graveyard of political politics: such is the scepticism of voters that half of the existing MPs will lose their deposits; and only very few will manage to scrape through. Parties without leaders and leaders without MPs  will be the comedy of 2014. It would be as if a whole generation of politicians have been wiped out in the revolt of the ballot!

New faces everywhere in Parliament, and no one would be stupid enough to ask, `Where is Modi or where is Rahul?’ Someone might still look for Nitish Kumar!