Opinion The daam aadmi
Karl Marx called it commodity fetishismtreating people as if they are commodities to be bought and sold....
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Karl Marx called it commodity fetishismtreating people as if they are commodities to be bought and sold. Indian democracy has now shamelessly gone one step lower. People are not people; they are voters to be bought and sold. There is no misery bad enough,no tragedy great enough which a political leader cannot turn to his or her advantage. Every pain has a price but the price of the pain can only be decided by a political auction in the election bazaar. There is no market failure in politics. All can be had for purchase if you have enough money.
The money,of course,comes in the form of bundles of notes with Mahatma Gandhis smiling face. That makes it alright since we pretend the Mahatma is blessing things done in his name. In Ahmedabad,people die of drinking illicit liquor. Prohibition is of course a guarantee that alcohol will be freely available but that the poorer people will get unhealthy hooch while the elite can smuggle Johnny Walker for their consumption. But death does not matter because the Gujarat government can pay compensation. Prohibition will not be removed since as everyone knows political parties live off illicit money given by the pliers of illicit trade. Thus it was in the Bombay state when I was a teenager in the Fifties and Morarji Desai was Chief Minister.
Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi has added insult to injury by saying that the state has prohibition because the BJP is a Gandhian party. But he is determined to hang the culprits. For a devout RSS man like Modi to claim Gandhi for himself is what the Jews call chutzpah. But then in true RSS style,he wants to announce the punishment before trial and on what he no doubt thinks his Gandhian beliefs death penalty is his answer. I take it that the death will occur non-violently. Will he insist they go on a fast unto death or will they merely be made to drink the hooch which killed the others?
Death is preferable to rape for many women. It is a traumatic experience and many women take a lifetime to get over it. In British courts,the victim of a rape is allowed to remain anonymous when giving evidence. But in India,the woman is not a person; she is a voter to be used to bring greater glory to the Leader. Hence,the compensation to be paid to her cannot be kept quiet since the point of the ceremony is not the victim but the leader. A rape is even better than a murder as far as the politician is concerned. After all,the victim is alive to vote for a price. Every aam aadmi has a daam.
But then politics is a competitive sport. Anything the BSP can do,the Congress can do worse. Hence it is that bad as Mayawati is in flaunting womens hurt for her own aggrandisement,UPCC chief Rita Bahuguna Joshi has to sink even lower. The idea that women politicians should use the fact of rape to trade insults with each other,one wishing that the other deserves to be raped must be the lowest Indian politics has sunk in the last sixty years. She clearly thinks that money paid in compensation is a weapon she can throw in Mayawatis face.
In a civilised politics,there would be no place for Rita Bahuguna. She would be expelled from her party and from politics as such. But then there is an election coming in UP and the contest is about who can sink lower. Uttar Pradesh has been made a jungle by its politicians. First it was the Congress Brahmins and then every other caste group and political partythe BJP,the SP and the BSPjoined in. The way the Congress is conducting itself in this episode,UP will remain a jungle.
Of course,the Congress has the monopoly of virtue,so Rita Bahuguna will be rewarded with Chief Ministership. The party boasts of a woman leader and indeed a woman Speaker. India has a woman President too,who was also a member of the Congress Party. Yet,patriarchy rules and the women act like agents for the macho society.
Now you know why Sita sank into the ground rather than live in Rama Rajya.
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