Why politics has become boring

Mediocrity is a big bore. What can be interesting about people fighting for power, money and manipulations? I never took interest in politics for a large part of my youth and my well-wishers said it was because I was too full of myself. They were not entirely wrong, I agree. I was an egomaniac to a great extent. But I was interesting enough to entertain my well-wishers. Otherwise they wouldn’t have taken me as seriously as they did.

Eventually I began to take interest in politics. I was forced to. The massacre of the Sikhs that followed Indira Gandhi’s assassination jolted me, but I rationalised it as a reaction, disproportionate though, to the brutal killing of a prime minister by her own security guards.

When Graham Staines was burnt in his wagon along with his two sons aged 10 and 6, I was hurt too deeply to write about it. The gruesome act was perpetrated by Bajrang Dal fundamentalists who claimed that Staines was converting Hindus into Christians. I have always opposed religious conversions. But I have always defended works of charity carried out by religious people because India needs such works. The kind of work that was done by Staines had no comparison with the kind of violence perpetrated by Bajrang Dal. India does not need violence. What hurt me beyond words was the killing of the two innocent boys. Nothing justifies such cruelty. Such cruelty makes religion and culture a big mockery.

While a dominant political party harped on Islamic terrorism in India, it failed to look at its own terrorism, the kind of violence unleashed on the country by its allies. This led me to take interest in politics.

A decade and a half after the murder of Staines, the missionary made an appearance in the novel which I was writing (and which is still in the process). Let me quote the passage from that novel:

Graham Stuart Staines and his two little sons were burnt alive in their station wagon by some Hindu fanatics in Orissa. Father Joseph was extremely worried about certain happenings in many parts of the country. Christians were the targets of many recent attacks in Gujarat where churches were vandalised wantonly. Maybe, a new leader was emerging, thought Father Joseph. Religion has been the handmaid of political power more often than not.

The Staines couple worked among the poor tribal people neglected by their government, particularly those inflicted with leprosy. They brought dignity to human lives.

“They corrupted the tribal culture,” explained Mahendra Hembram, one of the killers.

“How did they corrupt the tribal culture?” asked the prosecutor.

“They made the people eat beef. They made the women wear bras. They stuffed sanitary pads between the women’s legs.”

The new leader who was emerging in the novel goes on to become the Prime Minister of the country. A lot of massacres were perpetrated in the meanwhile, the Gujarat riots of 2002 being the most unforgettable.

What is interesting about such politics? What can be interesting about communal hatred, violence and massacre? Along with those, now we have the comedy of petrol and diesel prices rising like an arrogant but whimsical kite whose thread is in the hands of a boy of the type that Shakespeare immortalised in King Lear: “As flies to wanton boys are we to th’ gods, / They kill us for their sport.”

My grocer and vegetable vendor and fish vendor, almost anyone on whom I depend for my essential requirements tell me, “When the fuel prices rise, everything becomes dearer because everything is brought by transport systems that depend on the fuels.”

So I decide to tighten my belt and sit before my laptop converting my hunger into words for blogs. That’s not interesting exactly, I guess.

I find myself longing for statesmen instead of politicians. I long to listen to at least one political leader today who can tell us that there is a way ahead of this mess that the country has become. I turn the pages of the three newspapers with which I begin my mornings hoping to read at least one report that gives me reason for hope. Perhaps, that hope is interesting. Hope was the last item in Pandora’s Box.

Comments

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below. Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl

Re-exploring the Past: The Fort Kochi Chapters – 3

Street leading to St Francis Church, Fort Kochi There were Christians in Kerala long before the Brahmins, who came to be known as Namboothiris, landed in the state from North India some time after 6 th century CE. Tradition has it that Thomas, disciple of Jesus, brought Christianity to Kerala in the first century. That is quite possible, given the trade relationships that Kerala had with the Roman Empire in those days. Pliny the Elder, Roman author, chastised in his encyclopaedic work, Natural History (published around 77 CE), the Romans’ greed for pepper from India. He was displeased with his country spending “no less than fifty million sesterces” on a commodity which had no value other than its “certain pungency.” Did Thomas sail on one of the many ships that came to Kerala to purchase “pungency”? Possible. Even if Thomas did not come, the advent of Christianity in Kerala precedes the arrival of the Namboothiris. The Persians established trade links with Kerala in 4 ...

Re-exploring the Past: The Fort Kochi Chapters – 4

The footpath between Park Avenue and Subhash Bose Park The Park Avenue in Ernakulam is flanked by gigantic rain trees with their branches arching over the road like a cathedral of green. They were not so domineering four decades ago when I used to walk beneath their growing canopies. The Park Avenue with its charming, enormous trees has a history too. King Rama Varma of Kochi ordered trees to be planted on either side of the road and make it look like a European avenue. He also developed a park beside it. The park was named after him, though today it is divided into two parts, with one part named after Subhash Chandra Bose and the other after Indira Gandhi. We can never say how long Indira Gandhi’s name will remain there. Even Sardar Patel, whom the right wing apparently admires, was ousted from the world’s biggest cricket stadium which was renamed Narendra Modi Stadium by Narendra Modi. Renaming places and roads and institutions is one of the favourite pastimes of the pres...

Five Microtales

1. Development Chamar, Lohar, Mehtar and many others stood at a distance, along with their families, and watched their huts being pulled down by a bulldozer. They were asked to leave the place where they had been living for decades. “The government has taken over this land for development works,” an officer said. Chamar, Lohar, Mehtar and the others spread their bedsheets under a flyover over which flew opulent vehicles of development. 2. Impersonation The old woman went to the Women’s Welfare office. She wanted to register herself for the Prime Minister’s monthly welfare scheme for the old and unemployable women. She placed her thumb on the scanner for Aadhar authentication. “Not matching,” the officer said. She was arrested for trying to impersonate. Sitti...

Re-exploring the Past: The Fort Kochi Chapters – 1

Inside St Francis Church, Fort Kochi Moraes Zogoiby (Moor), the narrator-protagonist of Salman Rushdie’s iconic novel The Moor’s Last Sigh , carries in his genes a richly variegated lineage. His mother, Aurora da Gama, belongs to the da Gama family of Kochi, who claim descent from none less than Vasco da Gama, the historical Portuguese Catholic explorer. Abraham Zogoiby, his father, is a Jew whose family originally belonged to Spain from where they were expelled by the Catholic Inquisition. Kochi welcomed all the Jews who arrived there in 1492 from Spain. Vasco da Gama landed on the Malabar coast of Kerala in 1498. Today’s Fort Kochi carries the history of all those arrivals and subsequent mingling of history and miscegenation of races. Kochi’s history is intertwined with that of the Portuguese, the Dutch, the British, the Arbas, the Jews, and the Chinese. No culture is a sacrosanct monolith that can remain untouched by other cultures that keep coming in from all over the world. ...

Tomichan Matheikal's blog

Search This Blog