Beyond rhyme or reason

for common sense curtails enthusiasm in this regard and if metaphors have to be mixed, the media spit on their hands and go about mixing them merrily.

Take this gem of political poetics which appeared in the anchor slot of a national newspaper a few days ago: "The lotus is abloom in the churning political cauldron of UP". It requires a major flight of imagination to visualise the flowering of the lotus in a cooking pot. Beautiful as the imagery is, there islittle realism in it. And yet, such is the enthusiasm that the lotus inspires among a variety of political writers that sub-editorial caution is thrown to the winds, as the distinction between lotus bloomers and lotus-eaters is wished away.

The politicians themselves, of course, aid the media in its assaults on language. Pramod Mahajan’s felicitous reference to "Monicaji" and the calculation made by George Fernandes regarding the demographic contribution of Sonia Gandhi were matched by Ghulam Nabi Azad’s views on the Prime Minister’s personal life and Rajesh "wink-wink” Khanna’s Yeh jo public hai yeh sab janti hai innuendo. The BJP MLC Ramchandra Gowda — in the presence of the physicist-educationist-human resource minister, Murli Manohar Joshi — took the cake by referring to Sonia Gandhi as Ravan’s sister Surpanakha.

The BJP MP and the former celebrated editor, Arun Shourie, was quick to pull up sections of the media for misreporting and attributing the abusive statement to the union ministerbut there was not a word in his habitually lengthy article criticising his party’s legislator who made the tasteless remark. Dignity apparently is expected only of some members of the central cabinet; the others are merely skeletons tumbling out of political cupboards.

If publicists display amazing logic, their principals, politicians themselves, show fantastic turns of phrase. Take the reported remark made by the irrepressible Laloo Prasad Yadav during the last elections when he heard that his former comrade-in-arms and present bete noire Shivanand Tiwari was denied the Samata Party ticket to contest from Goplaganj in Bihar. It is of course another matter that today Shivanand Tiwari has "double-crossed" the political divide and is bitterly opposed to his erstwhile friends like Nitish Kumar. In any event, Laloo Prasad Yadav is reported to have said then, "Shivanand ab aaloo chheelengey" (Shivanand will now peel potatoes). Why potatoes? And why peel them, not cut them, boil them, roast them? Why not peelonions? Is it because that would suggest involuntary tears?

But while the reference to potatoes may be bewildering, at least it is not tasteless or, even worse, in terribly bad taste. Take the remarks made by the incomparable Mamata Bannerjee about Jyoti Basu. She has threatened to speak about the death of Basu’s first wife. Now, given the scandalous age that we live in, such revelations would ordinarily have been sensational.

The only problem is that the event took place in the 1930s, over sixty years ago, well before Mamata Bannerjee was even born! What relevance babbling about that has in the electoral context today would be clear only to the mercurial Mamata; lesser mortals are denied such perspicacity and they might well think that such rhetoric is reprehensible and in very bad taste. But then, Mamata Bannerjee has never pretended to be sophisticated: she can well say, echoing a Left Front minister’s words uttered years ago, that she is "not a gentleman" and she would be correct in more senses thanone.

Indeed, politics today is not a game of gentlemen and no punches are pulled in the electoral ring. If there is still some pretence of manners and consideration, it is only for short-term gains. Take the case of the ever-apologetic Sonia Gandhi. For her politics appears to mean saying sorry to Muslims, to Sikhs, even to the Prime Minister who, it was reported, she called names. She has not been in politics too long and much is being made of her inexperience but she has had enough practice to know that if in the exchange of electoral rhetoric, the private does not seem to match the public, so be it.

Attribute the mismatch to lack of information and poor representation, never ever to dissimulation. The many, many instances during this electoral round of leaders like the faithful Kapil Sibal denying what they have said on camera prove that while the nation’s motto might be "Satyameva Jayate" (Let Truth Prevail), the conviction of politicians is the whatever prevails is the truth! And the disregard forveracity is bipartisan.

This is clear from the fact that on the other side of the political divide too ideologies and programmes can be easily jettisoned temporarily in the quest for power. So much so that even alliances and parties appear to be mere inconveniences. The redoubtable Atal Behari Vajpayee has so much political experience that he is projected as being capable of dancing intricate moves in the political tango all by himself, not needing the accompanists of the Sangh Parivar. It is not for nothing that the current elections have been called the "Vajpayee versus BJP" polls.

However, if as Bal Thackerey has shown, Shiv Sena tigers don’t discard their stripes, nor do BJP leopards change their spots. Even as the Prime Minister is putting on a grave, statesmanlike, near-Nehruvian appearance, his partisans are prepared to puncture the image. The reference here is not only to Govindacharya and L. K. Advani who, with unerring timing, remind the public that there is a BJP agenda – comprising abolitionof the Minorities Commission, abrogation of Article 370, building a temple at Ayodhya on the site of the demolished mosque, and so on – well beyond the polls.

Then there was the Prime Minister himself calling for a national debate on conversions when Christians were under attack. There was only one silver lining to this cloud: at least the "pseudo-secularists" in the media had cause to be thankful for small mercies: Vajpayee did not for once blame them for misquoting him.