Misguided missile

Despite the smoothness of his prose, Mani Shankar Aiyar8217;s 8216;Jaya and a dying delta8217; IE, June 11 is as good an example as any...

Despite the smoothness of his prose, Mani Shankar Aiyar8217;s 8216;Jaya and a dying delta8217; IE, June 11 is as good an example as any of the slick banality that diminishes the worth of newspaper editorial pages. Travelling down this road, we can see a situation where editorial pages are read by a minuscule minority whose contribution makes up the very same pages.

Doing a column on the plight of a people trapped in a desiccated delta is par for the course for a newspaper columnist. If he also happens to be the affected people8217;s elected representative, it is de rigueur. But why a narrative of the hardship of a population in distress has to start with smart-alecky allusions to Jayalalithaa8217;s multiple mob-mother monikers is known only to the columnist himself. The effect on the reader is unsettling in the extreme. Three reasons for readers8217; disquiet are given below.

Aiyar, we know, wins his elections by the simple expedient of dancing attendance on the imperious Amma during campaign time. If true, what Aiyar is doing now is as close as any one can get to political hara-kiri.

Another reason for shudders shooting down sensitive spines is the 8216;boomerang syndrome8217;. Aiyar8217;s party, it is universally accepted, is the world record holder for sycophancy. Only the other day in the Talkatora jamboree, Aiyar8217;s partymen elevated their current meal-ticket, the imported leaderene, to Divine Motherhood. Any missile of ridicule launched by a Congressman at the obsequiousness on display elsewhere, is sure to backfire.

The third reason for the reader8217;s unease is the veiled threat of secession that surfaces midway in Aiyar8217;s article. Aiyar has not clearly thought through the implications that a separatist movement would have on him personally. Eelam and Jaffna come packaged with Tamil Tigers. The Tiger supremo is not an amnesiac and would be justified in laying claim to Aiyar as legitimate tiger-meat, considering the way he had been consistently bad-mouthing Prabhakaran. If a struggle for Eelam gets under way, then either Aiyar says, Bye-Bye-Delta and seeks a less life-threatening constituency elsewhere, or we say Bye-Bye-Aiyar.

MP Aiyar8217;s primary concern is to get the fresh water from Kaveri to flow in the parched delta immediately. Neither Vajpayee nor Jayalalithaa is choking the water from reaching the Mettur dam on its way to Aiyar8217;s people. The finger on the trigger, the hand pressing down on the fresh-water-famished people8217;s oesophagus, belongs to one of Mother Durga8217;s hand-picked children, the chief minister of Karnataka. Aiyar acknowledges as much in his piece.

Therefore, if Aiyar8217;s agony for the people who elected him to office is real, he has no time to waste in grandstanding in newspapers. He should instead be constantly at the feet of Sonia Gandhi, imploring her to issue peremptory instructions to Krishna in Karnataka to drain the Kaveri for the kurvai crops. Our advice is for Aiyar to act as MP first and wiseacre columnist afterwards.