Everything reverberates

I am a Muslim, and I am an Indian. And I see no distinction between the two.8221; Omar Abdullah8217;s resounding speech cut to the heart of the matter. In the final hours of the trust vote, after the Lok Sabha had witnessed all kinds of political sophistry, run-of-the-mill rants and even the low performance art of the kind displayed by the BJP MPs who flung cash around the House, Abdullah8217;s speech was a game-changer. For a rough and ready popularity index, just watch YouTube, where his speech has been viewed thousands of times and showered with admiring comments from viewers who credited it with the 8220;best use of five minutes to cut through noise and cynicism8221;.

For all the drama of his delivery, Abdullah8217;s speech coolly skewered both the Left parties who set themselves up as certificating authorities of secularism, and the BJP for exploiting the Amarnath issue. And like the best speeches, he scored his own points 8212; deftly disassociating himself from the BJP, and positioning himself as a freethinking voice in Kashmir 8212; while making a forceful case for the way Indian Muslims are treated like a ventriloquist8217;s dummies. 8220;He represents what Muslims in India actually feel and think. He is truly reflective of what the youth of India is8230; forward-looking and progressive,8221; wrote one commenter, even as a few others sniped at him for political hypocrisy.

In India, obviously, the YouTube commentariat is one very particular subset of popular opinion 8212; mostly young and relatively better-off. But this is still the first time that a sincere, impactful Lok Sabha speech has had this kind of afterlife. The trust vote, which became a television spectacular, extended into a rousing debate online, disproving the notion that young people in India were apathetic at best towards their politicians. As the Obama phenomenon has shown, rhetoric and charisma can ignite imaginations on a whole new scale in our media-saturated times.