Tags:
Journalism of Courage
Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee has spent the last two days in Gujarat but he has been campaigning only in the evenings. In fact, politicians who have nothing to do with Gujarat such as Chaman Lal Gupta and Bhajan Lal have been tearing off to Ahmedabad, anxious to bask in the political sun of Gujarat. Yet they have mostly been campaigning after the sun has set. Why are so many rallies scheduled for the evenings? Only to ensure, beam the party spokesmen, that traders and shopkeepers have time to finish their work and then, in the leisure of the evening, surge in their eager millions to hear their beloved leaders8217; words.
Millions? Ah those elusive millions. Those millions who need the cover of darkness to convince their leaders and the gathered journalists that they do, in fact, exist. Those millions for whom the sun never rises as they sit in their drought-ravaged fields in Banaskantha or their earthquake-hit homes in Bhuj to hear the deputy prime minister drone on disconnectedly about Al Qaida and global geopolitics.
