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November      Last updated: Nov 20,  5:00 p.m.

India That Is Bharat

What does Pawar mean when he still says there is no question of his going back to Congress?

Satiricus

It's politics, stupid! IT'S politics, stupid! That is how Satiricus' friends very kindly explained the situation to him when he complained that the goings-on in Maharashtra were going beyond his comprehension. That, of course, explains everything. Or does it? Why did Sharad Pawar leave the Congress that was national in name and set up the nationalist Congress? To Satiricus' politically unlettered mind it was because nationalism was not enough for Pawar and he wanted to upgrade it to nationalistism. Does that mean there is a definitive distinction between national politics and nationalist politics? Satiricus does not know, but obviously Pawar does. In fact nationalist Pawar seems so knowledgeable about things political that when, after the election results were out, he perceived the prospect of power, provided the number of loaves and fishes matched the number of hungry mouths, there was a time when he thought being nationalist and being Bharatiya were virtually one and the same thing. So he talked to the Bharatiya people and said--‘Come, let's share the spoils and keep the anti-national Congress out’. Alas, it didn't work out. So he turned away from the anti-nationalist Bharatiyas and decided to bridge the alphabetical gap between the national Congress and its nationalist offspring. Now, does that mean the foreigner leading the national Congress is not only national but even nationalist for Pawar? And if it does what does Pawar mean when he still says there is no question of his going back? There is only one answer to this question--it's politics, stupid! Satiricus actually wants to know what a politician means when he says something. Can anyone or anything be more stupid?

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Satiricus has read many things that many Hindus have written against Hinduism. That is all right, because that is a sure sign of secularism. But he is shocked when he sees a Christian writing against Christianity and a Muslim writing against Islam. Take this recent newspaper article by the French journalist Francois Gantier, blasphemously titled "Tell the Pope how Hindu he is." In the very beginning of it he asks if the Pope knows that in coming to India he is coming to "a land from which Christianity originated". And then he goes on to quote French, Belgian and American historians to show that many Christian rites are directly borrowed from Hinduism and Buddhism. Could all these Christians be more un-Christian, even anti-Christian, when an Indian bishop recently rejected the VHP demand that the Pope should not say Christ is the exclusive way to salvation? And as if all this about the Hindu roots of Christianity is not distressingly anti-secular enough, Satiricus has come across a book titled "Why I am not a Muslim" by a Pakistani Muslim living abroad. The very idea of a Muslim of Muslim Pakistan explaining why he is not a Muslim is shocking for Satiricus of Hindu India. This book says from the Koranic point of view an elected parliament is an illegal institution, because Islam not only staunchly advocates divine dictatorship but also forbids law-making by declaring the Koran an eternal and unchangeable code of law. This is actually welcome news, for it means Gen. Musharraf is a pious, devout Muslim who has put an end to this illegal institution. But does that in turn mean that as per Pakistani Islam military dictators are more Muslim than civilian governments? Satiricus does not know. That is why he is not a Muslim.

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Satiricus was under the impression that calling a spade a spade or a barber a barber had gone out of fashion. He thought we civilised human beings only talk about an ‘instrument to dig with’, or a hair-stylist. But it seems there are still some people around who give more importance to being simple than to being civilised. For instance a reputed British novelist bidding for the post of London's Mayor pledged the other day to appoint a commissioner for dirt, if elected. "Yes, dirt," he told a party conference, "I will not use fancy phrases like effluent pollution or environmental waste--dirt". Fortunately, now that we Indians are free of the British yoke we do not have to follow this Britisher. In fact Satiricus is of the firm opinion that any Indian holding any office is asking for trouble if he is thoughtless enough to talk in terms that people can actually understand. Take dirt. however, dirty our politics, would any Indian minister for environmental pollution relish being plainly called Minister for Dirt? Satiricus bets not. For people would then know that his job is to remove dirt--and they would actually expect him to remove dirt. But with environmental pollution the Minister is safe, for people-in-the-Indian-street don't know what it means. He can give learned talks on the effects of effluent, at the end of which people will clap their hands and factories will continue discharging their effluent. It is all a question of perspective, a civilised perspective, a perspective so civilised that we call a peon a class-four officer. We don't mind if a peon snors away the whole working day on his stool, but the peon would certainly mind if he is abusively called a peon instead of a class-four official. And in any case no one can say he is sleeping on the job--for sleeping is his job.

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Government after government in India that is Bharat has been accused of nepotism. Satiricus thinks it is an unfair charge, for there are just not enough nephews to warrarnt it. As a stickler for exactitude he holds that such a charge would not hold against anyone strictly confining his distribution of favours to sons and daughters and, occasionally, to the bitter better half. But is it necessary for the son to be legitimate? And must one distinguish between a dear wife and a dear mistress? Satiricus supposes that on the national level one must, but on the international level one need not. So Satiricus was not exactly surprised to read a recent long report on the functioning of UNESCO which said high-paid jobs in this prestigious UN organisation are given to mistresses of ministers, and in one case to an illegitimate son of a former cabinet minister. Whether such an appointment is a case of moral corruption or one of financial corruption Satiricus cannot say. Perhaps it is a beautiful blend of the two. After all, if UNESCO is in charge of the three-in-one blend of educational, scientific and cultural aspects of the United Nations it can easily mix morals and money. What is not equally easy, however, for Satiricus is to understand how educative it is for Indians with a five thousand-year-old culture to benefit from cultural consultants whose contact with culture is limited to one-night-stands. Perhaps it is a sign of our instant age that culture as defined by UNESCO does not need a hoary history, a single night is enough. And in any case if, as the definition goes, culture is what you do when you are alone, what business can others have to poke their nose into what you do when you are alone? So by all means let us have more mistresses and more illegitimate sons in the interest of more united cultured nations.