Politics, confrontation, and the will to serve the nation

The three don’t actually go together. Politicians never confront other politicians with full vigour and we all know it is more like a big show of confrontational drama like the one the forces of India and Pakistan enact at Wagah Border. And we also know how heartfelt the will to serve the nation is in a mere politician.

The best time to observe political confrontation is during election time… attend the rallies, listen to speeches, note the slogans that evolve and sometimes degenerate, read the stuff in newspaper inserts and ads and click what they out up as hoardings. All these together can easily be stitched into some sort of a lesson in bitching. Thus ‘feku’, ‘shehzada’, and ‘NaMo’ flow through a surging flood of liar, jhoota, pagal, pappu, baba, aunty, didi, amma, maunmohan and hundreds of rhymed nonsense that gets to form the witty literature during election time in India.

‘So if confrontation and politics don’t go together, what does?’ asked Specky.

I said, ‘That’s simple. Politics and convenience go together.’

Specky was obviously confused, so I told her that almost all the conveniences in Delhi are now in the safe hands of large hoardings of one or the other political party. So if Congress is exhorting the public to ‘badte raho’ from one, we find the BJP showing the mug-shots of their leaders from behind piles of onions in a large picture and talking of inflation and price rises. The irony is that the local sweeper simply comes and places his ‘jhadu’ in front of both these hoardings and some wisecrack remarks, ‘Jhadu pher diya political creativity par!’ (Political creativity is swept aside!)

‘So you see it is always conveniences that link politicians,’ I said, summing up my doctrine. Specky nodded and laughed, ‘The truth is that these conveniences stink!’

‘That’s probably because the jhadu is still kept outside and not being used properly.’

Well, it is obviously now up to the masses, the public, and the electorate to see if they want the conveniences of politics or conveniences swept clean. And no, this post isn’t promoting any particular party or ideology… it is simply trying to define the nexus that has suddenly formed between the words I have used so far.

Incidentally, both ‘conveniences’ and ‘confrontations’ have ‘con’ ruling their entire existence. It is time, I presume, to let the cons be swept aside to allow the pros to enter and finally do the nation some good.

You must have also noticed that though the title of the article had ‘the will to serve the nation’ hogging more than fifty percent of space, it hardly features anywhere in the body text. The reason is again obvious… and don’t you dare ask me the reason for this last sentence.

2013_11_18_Politics, confrontation, and the will to serve the nation_The Education Post

Arvind Passey
05 December 2013

Published in ‘The Education Post’ dated 18 November 2013