Vanka leni...

The attitude of a certain political party towards the CAG somehow reminds me of the Telugu saying which natives will recognize from the title. The Hindi equivalent (kind of) is naach na jaane, aangan tedha (blaming the slanted floor for not being able to dance). Before I am lampooned I shall admit that the Telugu equivalent for this is aada leka maddelani annattu (blaming the instrument for not being able to play it).

The spokesperson of this party has blamed the CAG for the monsoon session. In reality the opposition parties have to definitely take the blame. However if the government had not provided the fire the opposition would not have provided the smoke. A previously active spokesperson had to quit after his colourful private life was exposed (pun unintended). The present spokesperson took the easy way out and blamed the easiest target. The CAG has generally not responded publicly to any allegations against him. So the political party is kind of safe.

Moving on, the powers-that-be in India have once again proved how intolerant we are of dissent. The cartoonist Aseem Tripathy perhaps got a trifle carried away when he portrayed wolves instead of lions in the national emblem. Ideally this should not have been done. But arresting the guy is taking things a little too far. The interesting thing is in this case though there are accusations of politics behind the arrest, it is the police who seem to have become too active.

And what is this item in the news which says wives will get salaries? As can be said, "78% of all statistics are made up, like this one". I mean no disrespect to homemakers, my wife is one. But is paying your family member a salary the only way to give "socio-economic empowerment" to women? So tomorrow will we find guys turning homemakers, asking their wives to work while they get salaries from them? This is apparently a way in which we will get a "truer picture of GDP in our country". Has the government lost all hope in its team of lawyer-ministers and bureaucrats? Does this government believe India's growth story is so dead that we will have to resort to (badly) creative accounting to inflate our GDP figures which by some estimates might go below 6% also this fiscal?

Why I support Jay Leno but not America - part 1

I have divided this post into two parts as it promises to be a lengthy one.Let us start with Jay Leno. I love the guy's show. He is irreverent towards one and all. When he showed the Golden Temple as part of a parody on one of the presidential hopefuls it raised the hackles of some Sikhs and our politicians/bureaucrats. The US government has come to his defence defending his freedom of expression. Why are we as a race so thin-skinned? We pride ourselves on being a democracy but I time and again feel we are extremely hypocritical. Any time there seems to be even a hint of anything but respect towards a religion we start shouting. This is not a case of our gods being portrayed on underwear, it is not a case of a scripture being banned in a country. These were causes worth fighting for. But Leno's "transgression" is not. 

Don't we parody our own gods? Frequently don't we find our gods portrayed in cartoons which comment on our social, political and economic happenings (especially around Ganesh Chaturthi)? Do we ban all these cartoonists? Where is the famous Punjabi sense of humour? Take Salman Rushdie's example also. Granted the guy seems to have written an extremely provocative and probably avoidable book (which I admit I have not read). However do we banish this guy from our country for this mistake(?)? He was not allowed to come to the Jaipur literary festival. He was not even allowed to address it via video conference! Why? Some Muslim groups raised a stink. The Congress governments at the centre and state (Rajasthan) do not want to give any ammunition to their political rivals in Uttar Pradesh where elections are due to happen shortly. 

Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state is ruled by a party which heartily embraces Buddhism and Ambedkar. I will take a side track briefly. Now Ambedkar was a victim of our (sadly distorted) caste system and I believe this was the strongest reason why he converted to Buddhism. He must have had his justification, but first of all was this right? Gautama Buddha seems to be more of an agnostic than an atheist (the reader can to refer to this article for a more detailed reading). This means Ambedkar embraced a religion which did not denounce God. Thus he gave up one God for another. Did the "Hindu Gods" fail him or did Hindus fail him? This is a debatable issue.

Now coming back, I will narrate a story related to the Buddha (or was it Ramakrishna Paramahamsa?). I might be paraphrasing but the gist remains the same. One day the Buddha was begging and he reached a particular house. The man or woman of the house abused him profoundly for begging. The Buddha did not say anything and simply walked away. When another person asked him if he was not perturbed, he replied that the man had spouted a lot of rubbish. As the Buddha refused to accept it the rubbish was still with the person who had abused him. We rever Gandhi as a Mahatma and as the Father of the Nation. Did he not advise one to show the other cheek when slapped on one? Where is this spirit of tolerance today? 

Indian self-congratulation about freedom of expression and democracy brings to my mind a joke I once read. Once a citizen of Soviet Russia and another from the US met and started boasting about their respective countries. The US citizen said, "Do you know how much freedom we have in our country? I can go in front of the White House and call our President an idiot!". The Soviet citizen replied, "I too have a lot of freedom in my country. I can happily go up to the Kremlin and shout that the American President is an idiot!". When will we come out of this mentality?

Whether it is a Salman Rushdie, an MF Hussain or anyone else, we should learn to look beyond whatever "transgressions" they have committed. We can censure them if we believe they are wrong, but who are we to take away their freedom and dignity?