Taking the cake

This is politics as nonsense verse, reducing Hinduism to caricature and democratic contest to not-so-sweet nothings. Hinduism is endlessly and richly variable in its rituals and permits many forms of worship.

This demented wrangling over Hindu symbols, the ludicrous political dogfights over the supposedly inert body of Hindu custom, is nothing but a cynical attempt to corner the lowest common denominator among voters. It is an elaborate fraud on the public, quite akin to Marie Antoinette’s famous phrase, if the people have no bread, then let them eat cake.

In fact, political symbolism is now fantastically folksy. First Digvijay Singh admitted his deep interest in gau mata, including his occasional indulgence in gau mutra; then Congress workers made culinary pronouncements on Vajpayee’s ‘shakahari’ diet.

Not to be outdone, in the land of the Yadavs, Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh handed out swords in order to reinvent Rajput glory for electoral benefit. Already the energetic efforts of Pravin Togadia, who has been busily dispensing trishuls, has taken him into the arms of the law. From gau to mutra to beef to swords to trishuls and now to cake, Indian politics, always poised dangerously on the edge of a nautanki, is becoming a full fledged Ram Lila. And this latest incident involving Uma Bharti really does take the cake.