My Dad
loves watching news. His idea of in-home
entertainment is flipping between all 1001 news channels – English, Hindi, Regional
– all the time he is at home.
There are some
obvious fall-outs of this. The most important one being that I just cannot
stand most of the news channels and my idea of watching news is just to catch
the headlines. The endless post-mortems, the speeches and horror of horrors – the
political debate mediated by an anchor – are not my cup of tea.
For past couple
of weeks, the hottest topic on news channels is who is going to be India’s next
President. Now for a post which is supposed to be apolitical, there is a lot of
politics going on and the news channels are cashing in on it. All day long, we
get minute by minute updates of what Sonia Gandhi has said, what Mamta Banerjee’s
riposte is, what is Mulayam’s opinion. It is the great Indian political tamasha.
Inevitably, we
have debates among political experts, politicians (theirs is more of a
monologue nobody else is quite interested in) and news anchors trying to coax
out of them the juiciest bits that can be milked through replays for at least
24 hours.
The post of
President, if my memory of Civics serves me right, is supposed to be held by
someone not in active politics and while she has limited powers, the First
Citizen of the country can force major rethinks. A case in point if the tenure of
APJ Abdul Kalaam, regarded by many (including yours truly) perhaps the best
President we have ever had.
Regardless, if
nothing else, I have always seen the President’s post as emblematic of dignity
and poise, albeit with limited uses. The Presidential election in India is very
different from USA, where the President holds all the power. But this time
around, the entire process has been stripped of all grace and everything that
is not crass – something which is quite the trademark of Indian politics these
days. The taint of politics has never been more pronounced.
And where is the
common man in this? Where are we? As a layperson, I am not sure that Pranab
Mukherjee, whose tenure as Finance Minister, has seen one of the worst growth
rates for the country is the right person for the post, like Sonia Gandhi
insists. Some in India Inc. have taken it as a good sign, hoping that at least
it would get rid of him and his financial policies. Mamta Banerjee thought that
she had delivered a coup de grace when she named the PM as her choice, for the
same reasons as India Inc. for cheering Mukherjee. And now her first choice is
Kalam – the same Kalaam who all these politicos had dismissed when the topic of
his second term had come up five years ago.
So, I think it
should be understandable if most of us have least interest in who our next
President is going to be? Unless, we enjoy political dramedy.
Until next time,
ciao.
