Breaking Down News: Not Quiet on the Eastern Front

The Bihar election promises to be a prizefight and Dipankar Gupta has a prescription for political scientists: “If you want to understand politics, don’t talk to politicians”

The person whom Nalin Kohli refers to as the BJP’s chief campaigner regrets the inconvenience caused to Chandigarh by his visit yesterday. Indeed, while prime ministers routinely harass the public with their movements, the closure of schools in the midst of examinations marks this as the rarest of rare cases. It was nice of the PM to tweet in regret, but as the chief campaigner warms up to the chase, will he actually contain his security detail?

The Bihar election promises to be a gripping prizefight, and the punters are clueless about the odds. Rajdeep Sardesai’s show taking off from the India Today-Cicero poll, which gave the NDA the advantage, could only conclude that Surjit Bhalla and Pavan Varma should be locked up in a room and left to settle their differences. Surprisingly, that appeared to be the only concrete conclusion, apart from Dipankar Gupta’s prescription for political scientists (Journalists, too?): “If you want to understand politics, don’t talk to politicians.”

While Indiaspend reports that Maharashtra is in the grip of the worst drought in almost half a century, all the attention is on the food fight raging in the state. Chetan Bhagat dares the government to ban chai and samosas (Under a chaiwallah prime minister? Be serious, bhai!) in response to the four-day meat ban, a nod to the Jain community. Meanwhile, the ban bandwagon has reached Jammu and Kashmir, where the High Court has ordered the state to become righteously beef-free. Every government appeases someone or the other, that’s par for the course. Maharashtra started doing food politics in the Congress era and J&K apparently took the lead not long after the rising of 1857. And governments can’t be held responsible for court rulings. But seriously, will the cult of culinary cleansing persist until the next election? It’s incredibly pious and boring.

Revoltingly pious is the use of the picture of Alyan Kurdi, the Syrian child who drowned while trying to get to Europe, to illustrate the fate of those who abandon “Muslim lands”. It has been published in Dabiq, the English propaganda magazine of IS, and has won it more disgust than another beheading possibly could.

Meanwhile, perhaps for the first time in history since Athens was ruled from the Acropolis, a Greek election is getting the world’s attention, since the outcome will have some bearing on the idea of Europe. Wednesday’s televised debate between Alexis Tsipras of Syriza and Vangelis Meimarakis of New Democracy has been followed as keenly as a US presidential debate, because it will decide the fate of Europe. Followed rather than viewed, because it was all Greek to the majority. But quotes from the show, which is perceived to have settled the election, have been flying fast and loose.

Tsipras had called an election assuming an easy lead, but the two parties are neck and neck in opinion polls, leaving between 10 per cent and 25 per cent of voters undecided. It’s going to be a swingy, Indian-style election, and coalitions are likely to follow. Greece has a wide spectrum of second-rung players from the far right Golden Dawn to Pasok on the left. Who knows, even the anarchists could come into play. Yes, there are anarchists in Greece, though they aren’t a patch on ours. They content themselves with setting little fires, breaking display windows and stuff.

NDTV’s Monideepa Banerjee reports that some healthy anarchism is afoot in Bengal, where the government has backed Abhijit Chowdhury’s Liver Foundation, which has been imparting basic clinical skills to unlicensed health providers in Birbhum district. They stand in for absent medical services and object to being dismissed as quacks by the Indian Medical Association. For the first time, a government has acknowledged the unorganised sector in healthcare. This should lead to a better system of primary care and referral, not the bloodbaths and plagues that the IMA imagines will follow if compounders start taking away business from doctors.

pratik.kanjilal@expressindia.com