In the Hot Seat

WHEN it8217;s 40 degrees in the shade, don8217;t bother going to an election rally. Just send an SMS, Pramod Mahajan style. Polls in midsu...

WHEN it8217;s 40 degrees in the shade, don8217;t bother going to an election rally. Just send an SMS, Pramod Mahajan style. Polls in midsummer and the living is uneasy. At least for journalists who will be careering across the burning plain, notebooks and cameras at the ready, in hot pursuit of increasingly air-conditioned leaders sleekly moving across the dirt tracks in air-conditioned Sumos. Yup, even Advani8217;s rath, sorry Swaraj Mazda, is air-conditioned.

Time was when the freedom fathers trod on foot or bicycle to touch the soul of the masses and eradicate social distance and feel the common heartbeat and to hell with the weather. But now we are in the summer of our republic and today, a Gandhian march to Dandi to whip up some swadeshi salt would be better advertised on SMS, TV and subsequently event-managed in suitably ventilated transport. Amar Singh, Samajwadi party supremo, is most comfortable rallying the thakur samaj in the air-cooled environs of his Greater Kailash home. Navin Patnaik, chief minister of Orissa, flower child of the 8217;60s, drinking buddy of Mick Jagger and Jackie O, will be forced to pound the burning tarmac of Orissa in search of re-election. He will wish he were back near a cool jet stream because Orissa is predicted to be one of the hottest states this year. In that other hot spot Tamil Nadu, the Lady Of Maximum Temperature will be seeking to return to the hot seat. But of course even Jayalalithaa8217;s bulletproof van is air-conditioned because silk saris in May can cause a passion of perspiration.

Why the sudden craving for raths? Navin Patnaik8217;s about to nip off to the coastal belt in a rath. SM Krishna, chief minister of Karnataka has set off on his Dhundubi yatra, also in a rath. Deputy Prime Minister LK Advani has always been inseparable from raths. Ayodhya rath in 1990, Swarna Jayanti rath in 1997, Advani8217;s a rath ka hamsafar.

Why would everybody rath-er be on a rath? Simply because raths can be air-conditioned, equipped with beds and chairs, and be insulated from the hot sweaty millions, milling about in sunny hopelessness, in the brightness of mass despair. In hot Shining India, raths are cool, dark and safe because Shining India in summer is far too hot for idealism. Long journeys are best taken in equally long vehicles, custom-built for afternoon siestas.

Yet most are also feeling the heat of politics. There are whisperings that none other than Chandrababu Naidu, cyber CM and darling of New India, could face a serious challenge in this election because of the Congress alliance in Andhra. There are hints that the Tiger of Maharashtra, the Shiv Sena might roar again, now that Congress has been vanquished by the Telgi scam. Congress bastions in Karnataka are up for grabs, BJP fortunes in UP are wavering and all the while the heat of the television studio lights is generating more adrenaline than is necessary for the long summer ahead, when voters queueing at polling stations or at rallies will suffer the most, leaders will suffer the least and journalists and pollsters will suffer meaningless fevers.

In 1996, in the Lok Sabha constituency of Chhindwara in Madhya Pradesh, campaigning with Congress leader Kamal Nath was a liquid experience. It was so boiling hot, the sun so merciless, that avalanches of perspiration went cascading down the legs, only to evaporate in a flash from the burning earth. Yet dripping crowds came swarming on, their numbers increasing as rapidly as the sweat supply, until shirts and dhotis had to be wrung out and bottles of Bisleri emptied onto livid bald pates. Hugs, embraces, garlands, were uniformly humid, the seats in the van were wet, hands were drenched and water bottles seemed to fizz with sheer heat. But then when your ambition is to rule, hot weather is no deterrent. At the moment, the high noon of democracy is beating down with ferocious fervour and everybody, even Bappi Lahiri, wants a place in the political sun.