Lords of the ring

Due to the complexity of this country, there have been doubts on the kind of nation and society that we will eventually build. Would it be pluralistic, empower the trodden and be integrated with global developments?

Three sets of events of the last three months offer a clue. The first set commenced with the Abhishek Bachchan proposal of marriage, which took us through several temples, the release of Guru, the declaration by the father that the son has arrived, the proposal in New York, the bagging of two awards, a birthday bash, the addition of a Rolls and a Bentley to the Bachchan stable and a possible presidential nomination. The second set of events was the staging of a soap in the UK, the contestants slugging it out, resulting in a bawling Shilpa. The goody one acted nasty and the natty one acted goody. The slugging ended with both contestants laughing all the way to the bank and being honoured. One was invited to India as a special guest and the other to the British parliament. A third set of events took us through a cricket betting scandal, a convicted cricketer becoming a legislator and a draconian law by the government denying ownership of cricketing rights to a party on the grounds of public interest.

Channels force-fed a nation of a billion persons with these events and term them ‘breaking news’ every now and then, while lesser issues such as the Nithari massacre, the soaring inflation and the industry-agriculture clash were relegated to the sidelines. Can we draw any inference from this? Eight hundred million poor wretched Indians can be damned. In India, the politician, the cricketer and the actor are the only ones who matter.

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We need not fear the digital, communal or urban-rural divides. In this land of lotus-eaters, neither the hand nor the lotus will matter. Our model of evolution will be unique. The top layer will be the troika of the politician, the actor and the cricketer, and this group will be the engine of all change.

Is there a lesson for the man on the street for survival in this unfolding era? Some may quickly find ways to serve the triumvirate. Industry is a needless distraction and may relocate abroad. And the rest? We have a large middle class and a long history of a middle-of-the-road policy. Those who cannot reach the top and are dissatisfied at the bottom can look at the middle layer underworld option.