Getting some perspective this New Year
We distribute goodwill generously on New Year’s largely because there isn’t much chance of seeing it again for 364 days. But cynicism is a distasteful response to the array of mobile and immobile best wishes that welcome the departure of yet another year of our lives. Having received my little share, I thought it only fair to record what precisely my five preferred best-of-the-best wishes for 2012 are.
Wish Number 1: There must be an all-party resolution in Parliament’s Budget session to rename the Lokpal Bill a Dhokapal Bill. The difference, for those not familiar with Hindi, is that ‘Lok’ (or Loka) means people, while ‘Dhoka’ means betrayal. You will surely recall the passion and oratory with which political parties proclaimed the need for large dollops of disinfectant in our public life. Okay, not all parties: Lalu Yadav and his MPs, for instance, were honest enough to argue that a little dishonesty was necessary leavening for Indian democracy. But the Congress and BJP engaged in a vicious squabble over who was holier than the other. Then, with a face as straight as a mobster’s income tax returns, both parties published their first list of candidates for the upcoming Assembly elections. According to National Election Watch, an NGO working for clean politics, the Congress had 26 candidates with criminal records, the Samajwadi Party 24 and the BJP 20. These are early days. Expect numbers to triple. Mayawati, who discovered she was surrounded by crooks only after keeping them as ministers for five years, will pool in her contribution.
Pundits are predicting that the coming up elections will end in a hung Assembly. I have a solution which the Governor must consider. He should instruct all criminals elected across party lines to come together and form CPA, or Chor Progressive Alliance. Their numbers will exceed the 201 needed for a majority, and they can form a stable government in Lucknow. By 2018, they will also have gunned down one another in squabbles for loot, which will be a bonus.
Wish Number 2: The term ‘Alliance’ must be banned from political parlance through an amendment to the Constitution. When the glue for unity is convenience rather than conviction, the proper word is ‘Dalliance’ rather than Alliance. Ergo: More accuracy. The Congress entered into a dalliance with Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool in order to uproot Leftists from power in Bengal. Once the immediate objective was fulfilled the relationship becomes non-serious; or, as modernists would suggest, it became an “open” partnership, with either side free to go its own way when it wanted to. Hence: no hurt feelings, no recriminations, no arguments and no expectations of a stable home teeming with policy-offspring. Outcome: Clarity. Example: Chor Progressive Dalliance would be far more accurate than Chor Progressive Alliance.
Wish Number 3: Clarity has a healthy appetite. It keeps asking for more. This may be one wish too far, but could government get precise about words it uses? When job reservations are promised (but not yet delivered) to minorities, why does Congress advertise them as a boon for only Muslims? There are elections in both UP and Punjab. Why isn’t any Congress leader telling Sikhs that the new reservations from the backward castes quota will be a great chance for their kids to become government servants? Once a category is delineated, there is no bar on any minority from applying for a job. And indeed, since there is no sub-quota, it is perfectly valid for any relevant authority to fill up the vacancies with Sikhs and Christians if they find them the better candidates.
Wish Number 4: This one is about jobs too, but of a rarer kind. How about some form of punishment for those who select the wrong people for top jobs? There is clearly something mentally askew about an army chief like V K Singh who has reportedly said that the Government of India is treating him as if he was the army chief of Pakistan. Metaphor is the mirror of temperament and judgment. General Singh claims to be fighting for his honour. How can a man who used one birth date to clamber up a thinning ladder discover a second birth date to stay on top for a few months more? If the date is wrong today, why was it not wrong 20 years ago, when it proved useful in an institution where seniority is taken seriously? Who let Major General Singh add stars to his shoulder?
Last Best Wish: An immediate, nationwide ban on the suggestion that Sachin Tendulkar deserves a Bharat Ratna. Ever since this clamour has risen, Sachin has been unable to get a century. I thought he was going to be victim of the Bradman Curse: the great Don could have reached a career average of 100 if he had made just four runs in his last innings, and got out for zero. But this is looking more like a Ratna infection. Let us keep quiet, let Sachin score his 100th 100 and then watch Indian cricket decline to its torpor when a win against Kenya was good reason for a national holiday.
The columnist is editor of The Sunday Guardian, published from Delhi, India on Sunday, published from London and Editorial Director, India Today and Headlines Today.