The Politics of Breastbeating

Our politicians can teach a thing or two to rudalis, the professional breastbeaters who wail for a price at funerals in many parts of northern India. All that matters is a corpse should fall and they reach there like vultures to feast on the brownie points that the dear departed could generate.
This is exactly what happened following the suicide of farmer Gajendra Singh at the Aam Admi Party Rally against the land Acquisition Bill.. First, AAP commits a massive public relations gaffe by not cancelling the rally after the suicide and Arvind Kejriwal went on for another 20 minutes before leaving the venue.
Then first batch of vultures arrived. In this case the Congress leaders. They shot off their mouth without even getting their facts/ Ajau Maken the discredited local Congress boss who led the party to a zero score in the Delhi assembly elections, fired the first salvo or rather a dud bullet.
Maken claimed that the person who committed suicide was a Delhi school teacher affected by the education policies of AAP government.. May be he thought that by putting his foot into the mouth, he could get close to the family that owns the party. He must have been inspired by Digvijay Singh who is very close to the clown prince of the party and has both his feet in his mouth.
Then the breastbeating started with Rahul Gandhi going to the hospital to shed crocodile tears and BJP training its guns on AAP with more than little help from Delhi police which obligingly filed an FIR that pointed an accusing finger at AAP for the suicide
Too bad an FIR was not filed against the cops posted at the rally venue because as TV pictures showed they just stood there and watched the sorry spectacle without batting an eyelid. AAP volunteers rushed to help Gajendra when they realized what he was up to but by then it was too late.
Now as Kejriwal observed, cops were not under Delhi government but that didn’t mean they were to stand there as mute spectators. I don’t think the cops would have kept their humanity in check except because of an order from above. It is quite possible that the police had advance information about what was to happen and remained inactive on orders from their political superiors.
The only sin of AAP in this matter was late reaction to what had happened. If Messers Kejriwal and Sisodia had rushed near the victim, they would have earned plaudits but this didn’t occur to them. But BJP leaders are talking like there is some foul play and this is utterly ridiculous.
And what can we say about how the media behaved in this case. They were blinded by TRP ratings that they could gain by breatbeating. So it didn’t occur to even a single mediaperson at the venue that they should rush to help Gajendra. Their focus was solely on getting good shots of a guy committing suicide so that viewers can gawk at it and shoot up their ratings and provide for Arnab Goswami and his ilk an occasion for their rantings.
I have only one question. Have we lost our humanity?

 

Sabitha I am not surprised at the level of unhappiness among Indians. They are a disillusioned lot. Their idols have been found to have feet of clay. Despite a stable government now, economic and social insecurity is staring at their face. In such a situation it takes a saint to maintain humanity.

 

Kamalji tell me something. The police is not in the hands of AAP. Then why did they stand like statues when the guy hanged himself. Videos clearly show that AAP workers tried to prevent his attempt. May be the guys on the dais got wrong information about his state. Arvind Kejriwal actually said he would be going to the hospital to see how he is. But looks like police and media have got totally dehumanized.

 

Satchi I remember the last lines of a poem by German poet Erich Kaestner. The entire poem outlines the progress in science and technology made by men but the last line packs the real punch. "But apart from that, when viewed in light we are still the same old apes". You see we have not either genetically or mentally evolved along with our progress and the ape still remains an ape except for the loss of lot of body hair.. Our mentality is still that of animals.

 

True Satchi and in self defence.