Opinion Eat your khichdi
It makes you strong, and never mind Sri Sri Ravi Shankar’s proscription.
It makes you strong, and never mind Sri Sri Ravi Shankar’s proscription.
Yet again, the spiritual leader Sri Sri Ravi Shankar has taken a political position. Yet again, he has missed the spirit of the thing. His motives are legitimate — trashing the formerly beloved AAP and promoting Narendra Modi, by underscoring the need for strong governance. Every citizen is entitled to hold a political opinion, to promote it and to change it at any time. But a citizen who commands as many hearts as Sri Sri should develop his opinions with some care.
Sri Sri has called for a government with a clear majority, disparaging coalition politics as “khichdi”. Actually, coalition governments haven’t performed too badly, or their ills have not been all attributable to their being a khichdi. Coalitions are generally a good hedge against authoritarian and majoritarian government. Sri Sri suggested that weak government would send the rupee down to 100 to the dollar. As it happens, the rupee is gaining hand over fist for reasons unconnected with politics.
In addition, Sri Sri has taken the extraordinary view that in the interest of stability, regional parties should be kept out of Parliament. The campaign managers of the big two, the Congress and the BJP, must be loving it, since it would mean not having to deal with J. Jayalalithaa and Mamata Banerjee. Undone by coalition dharma, a euphemism for suffering corrupt allies, the UPA may even appreciate the denunciation of khichdi government. But even those who are most upset about the disastrous second term of the UPA may not know what to make of Sri Sri’s rhetorical question: “Why can’t we keep changing parties like America does?” America does? Really? Funny, but we never noticed.
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