Skip to main content

Modiesque anti-climax



We are used to people taking credit for works done by others. Their tribe is larger than what one may normally expect. They generally belong to the rank and file of any social group. One won’t normally expect a leader of any worth to do that. All great leaders give due credit to what their followers do. They are generous with appreciation so that more work will get done without unnecessary hassles.  Credit-seeking is the business of the inefficient people. Those who cannot achieve anything great but want to appear great nevertheless take credit for the achievements of other people.

When a person who is occupying a very eminent position in any society creates a huge suspense and huger hype about his silly credit-taking, it becomes farcically hilarious. Just imagine the Prime Minister of a country like India which has a population equal to that of the entire Europe and North America put together creating a hype and suspense about an announcement he wants to make to the nation.

The social media went berserk with conjectures and predictions about what Narendra Modi’s announcement was going to be about today when he created the hype and suspense much before the announcement was made. People thought he was going to declare an Emergency. Or was it going to be another insane demonetisation (which is often and pithily abbreviated as DeMon – Demon)? Or a war with Pakistan or China? Or a proposal to evict all antinational people from India to various countries of perceived loyalty such as Pakistan and Rome or the Vatican?

Finally when the announcement came, it was a farcical anti-climax. Not because the achievement of the scientists who shot down a live satellite is a mean accomplishment but because the achievement did not deserve anything more than a front page three-column headline in the daily newspapers.

What was the Prime Minister trying to tell the nation anyway? That we have become a nation of satellite shooters? That we have entered the star wars club? That we are advanced warriors or sophisticated savages?

Well, if the announcement was about some way to shoot down poverty from the nation, it would have deserved all that hype. If it was about creation of jobs, implementation of Sbka Saath Sabka Vikas or something like that, the nation would applaud in appreciation. Couldn’t we concentrate more on shooting down mounting hatred, the rising prices, or the spreading corruption?

“In the journey of every nation there are moments that bring utmost pride and have a historic impact on generations to come,” said Modi in his historic announcement. Indeed there are. But he does not know what they are. What a pathetic leader he is! Worse still, how stupid to grab the credit for something that others have been working on for a decade or so?

Ah, we get the anti-climaxes  we deserve!

 P.S. I didn't want to write political posts until the elections were over. But this anticlimax was just irrrresistible. :)


Comments

  1. parwatisingariMarch 29, 2019 at 6:16 AM

    :) maunam, sammati soochakam.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalMarch 29, 2019 at 7:14 AM

      My silence owes itself to weariness. I began to feel that i was living in the midst of people who refuse to open their eyes and see. Are people really so foolish?

      Delete
    2. जितेन्द्र माथुरMarch 29, 2019 at 8:15 AM

      I appreciate the thoughts expressed in this article. I also feel the same way. People are not foolish Sir but they are being considered as fools by their revered leader.

      Delete
    3. Tomichan MatheikalMarch 29, 2019 at 8:42 AM

      I hope people will exercise their voting rights wisely.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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
47 comments
Read more

Bihar Election

Satish Acharya's Cartoon on how votes were bought in Bihar My wife has been stripped of her voting rights in the revised electoral roll. She has always been a conscientious voter unlike me. I refused to vote in the last Lok Sabha election though I stood outside the polling booth for Maggie to perform what she claimed was her duty as a citizen. The irony now is that she, the dutiful citizen, has been stripped of the right, while I, the ostensible renegade gets the right that I don’t care for. Since the Booth Level Officer [BLO] was my neighbour, he went out of his way to ring up some higher officer, sitting in my house, to enquire about Maggie’s exclusion. As a result, I was given the assurance that he, the BLO, would do whatever was in his power to get my wife her voting right. More than the voting right, what really bothered me was whether the Modi government was going to strip my wife of her Indian citizenship. Anything is possible in Modi’s India: Modi hai to Mumkin hai .   ...
16 comments
Read more

Nehru’s Secularism

Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first Prime Minister, and Narendra Modi, the present one, are diametrically opposite to each other. Take any parameter, from boorishness to sophistication or religious views, and these two men would remain poles apart. Is it Nehru’s towering presence in history that intimidates Modi into hurling ceaseless allegations against him? Today, 14 Nov, is Nehru’s birth anniversary and Modi’s tweet was uncharacteristically terse. It said, “Tributes to former Prime Minister, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru Ji on the occasion of his birth anniversary.” Somebody posted a trenchant cartoon in the comments section.  Nehru had his flaws, no doubt. He was as human as Modi. But what made him a giant while Modi remains a dwarf – as in the cartoon above – is the way they viewed human beings. For Nehru, all human beings mattered, irrespective of their caste, creed, language, etc. His concept of secularism stands a billion notches above Modi’s Hindutva-nationalism. Nehru’s ide...
14 comments
Read more

The Art of Subjugation: A Case Study

Two Pulaya women, 1926 [Courtesy Mathrubhumi ] The Pulaya and Paraya communities were the original landowners in Kerala until the Brahmins arrived from the North with their religion and gods. They did not own the land individually; the lands belonged to the tribes. Then in the 8 th – 10 th centuries CE, the Brahmins known as Namboothiris in Kerala arrived and deceived the Pulayas and Parayas lock, stock, and barrel. With the help of religion. The Namboothiris proclaimed themselves the custodians of all wealth by divine mandate. They possessed the Vedic and Sanskrit mantras and tantras to prove their claims. The aboriginal people of Kerala couldn’t make head or tail of concepts such as Brahmadeya (land donated to Brahmins becoming sacred land) or Manu’s injunctions such as: “Land given to a Brahmin should never be taken back” [8.410] or “A king who confiscates land from Brahmins incurs sin” [8.394]. The Brahmins came, claimed certain powers given by the gods, and started exploi...
15 comments
Read more

The Little Girl

The Little Girl is a short story by Katherine Mansfield given in the class 9 English course of NCERT. Maggie gave an assignment to her students based on the story and one of her students, Athena Baby Sabu, presented a brilliant job. She converted the story into a delightful comic strip. Mansfield tells the story of Kezia who is the eponymous little girl. Kezia is scared of her father who wields a lot of control on the entire family. She is punished severely for an unwitting mistake which makes her even more scared of her father. Her grandmother is fond of her and is her emotional succour. The grandmother is away from home one day with Kezia's mother who is hospitalised. Kezia gets her usual nightmare and is terrified. There is no one at home to console her except her father from whom she does not expect any consolation. But the father rises to the occasion and lets the little girl sleep beside him that night. She rests her head on her father's chest and can feel his heart...
19 comments
Read more