Laloo at large

Once upon a time, benevolent rulers in this vast land would slip out of their palaces in the dead of the night. Bereft of their royal insignia and cloaked in peasant wear, they would roam their realm, dodging the confines of sycophancy to connect with the people. Laloo Prasad Yadav, freshly crowned emperor of the Railways, has decided to dip into that pool of ancient wisdom. There he could be, on some train, on some track, weaving his way through the bogeys. Travelling incognito, he will gather the stories and complaints of the millions of men and women who whistle through the length and breadth of India every day. The Mandal revolutionary has appropriated an old kshatriya ploy. The democratisation of our polity is proceeding apace.

There is actually nothing new about an Indian politician assuming a disguise and wandering around the countryside. Some years ago Surjit Singh Barnala wrote a fascinating account of his flight from home and meanderings around north India as a truck driver. That was probably inspired by claustrophobia. Laloo’s proposed flight, presumably, has a deeper purpose: to keep a check on the Railways, the world’s largest employer. One awaits the insights gleaned from his undercover operations. Yet, it is somewhat intriguing that the man whose politics is so fixed on his persona now feels constrained to hush those famous mannerisms, to possibly swap those trademark spectacles for standard frames, to even doff those extremely long-sleeved kurtas for more standardised cuts. Some men are trapped by power. Laloo clearly is held captive by his own performances. He must escape them to touch reality.

Greater men before have been imprisoned by their rhetoric. Jawaharlal Nehru once did his version of the disguised raja by penning a pseudonymous critique of himself. In its trenchant interrogation of his own worldview and acts, it mocked at those who had already begun to recite his writings as an act of blind subservience, and even opportunistic flattery. It’s a thought. In his sudden enthusiasm for detective work, once he’s done with hopping on and off trains, Laloo could go on to explore other ways of reacquainting himself with his people and politics.