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.

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