Small Men



Though I have beeen actively following up domestic politics, I haven't found much to write about them in the blog. All seemed unabashedly corrupt and uniformly illiterate. However, the recent developments enraged me so much that I thought I will write about the current regime in Tamil Nadu.

This government is a minority in the assembly and is headed by Karunanithi, the famous septuagenarian. Ever since I was aware, I have been incredulously appalled at his short-sightedness, cunningness and silly, careless attitude to governance. The very term governance is an oxymoron here as very little is governed anyway.

He has been portrayed as the protector of the Tamil Language by the masses and also considered to be a master of Tamil Literature. With my average knowledge of Tamil, I figured his writings to be substandard and wrought with bloopers. His ideologies include rationalism and atheism. But it is quite limited to Hindu-bashing and he is the proud member of the relatively new club 'seculars'. This blatantly means minority-appeasing, which include attending Iftar parties by wearing the Muslim skullcap and at the same breath ridiculing Hindu rituals.

This apart, he has recently started sporting a yellow shawl. The rumour has it that it has been prescribed by an astrologer and ever since this 'allegation' broke out, he has been offering innumerable and each contradicting with the former, explanations for why he is wearing it. The trouble was he comes from the school of Periyar, the rationalist leader in Tamil Nadu, whose prescription is to wear only black shawls.

His family television house is called 'Sun TV', but he recently announced tax-rebate for movies that have Tamil titles. This, he declared, is to ensure that the Tamil movies have Tamil titles. This was an after-effect of a recent trend in Tamil to name movies in English. Hence, titles such as 'Gentleman', 'Boys', 'Something Something' and yes, even 'Godfather' doing the rounds. Many of these, at the verge of release, had to rechristen themselves in a hurry to avail the rebate, and since some amount of publicity has already been done for them, had to provide the original, English title underneath the new Tamil title to bring in the familiarity. This went into laughable proportions. A movie named 'Empton', after the famous German lieutenant of World War II, was denied rebate on the grounds that it is an 'English' name.

This is hypocritical considering the name of his family TV house. And his son, the CM prospect, is named Stalin, after the Soviet leader and his grandson 'Aditya', a visibly Sanskrit name.

What actually prompted me to write about him was his recent announcement. Audacious and shameless, he went onto reduce the ticket rates in the movie halls. From now on, apparently, the cinema halls will have to follow the ticket rates fixed by government. Apart from sounding death knell on the mushrooming multiplexes, I do not consider the purpose for which this has been done.

More importantly, I want to ask a few questions. What does he think is the job of his government? And how exactly does he define the term 'governance'? Is raising movie rates the most important problem plaguing Tamil Nadu? Is he under a time-warp where he thinks India is still under the License Raj where price controls were in vogue?

And how careless is that you don't worry about the state of the cinema owners and unilaterally announce such schemes as if they are your own business?

Whatever is the reason, I seriously wonder how such people could even be fit to consider as leaders, leave alone becoming Chief Ministers. If this is the behaviour of the head of one of the fastest growing states, I dread to think what the leaders of Bihar, Jharkand or Haryana are up to.

The irrigation water is becoming quite a concern, the farm produce are losing market, public transport is in critical condition, trade is dwindling, and the infrastructure even in the capital is creaking. And the Chief Minister thinks that people being unaffordable for movies is the heartbreaking problem to be addressed first.

Poet and a freedom fighter, Bharati remarked a century ago: 'When the ghosts govern the land, the scriptures eat the corpse'.