Arrested development

A dysfunctional family which happens to be something like this- A dad who cares little about his family and enjoys his time away from his responsibilities tending to daily chores; an elder son who bumbles around even when trying to be serious, and craves to create some magic of his own; a mother who enjoys the riches of the fast-depleting family fortune but shrugs responsibility for its consequences; a bumbling grandson whose throbbing pubescent hormones get the better of him; a dutiful son who has some sense of responsibility and tries to keep the family and its wealth from falling apart.

This is a rough narrative of the central characters of the hit Fox comedy Arrested development, which made critics sit up and take notice, garnering several awards in the process. Why would I want to talk about an innocuous, little-known show from the west in India? Because if you replace the dad with the President of India, the mother with you-know-who, the elder son with Dr. Manmohan Singh, and the grandson with Rahul baba, you have our own hit show being played out live to the public airwaves everyday. Sadly, there is no dutiful son who can come and rescue it from the rut, though Digvijay Singh more than makes up for the digging-a-deeper-grave part.

I was in Delhi for my visa interview when the travesty of June 4 occurred, and not surprisingly, the GOI made sure that the nation woke up to a Sunday of controversy and horror. A media-fest at the Ramlila ground at the behest of a Baba Ramdev was turned into a brazen attempt at the murder of democracy overnight. Since then, allegations and counter-allegations galore as the media churns out one byte after the other of the government or the opposition. In what has become fashionable in the tenure of UPA-II, shirking from responsibility and mudding the details has become commonplace. A similar scenario is shaping up now as the government tries to defend its midnight turn as Rambo necessary to prevent an escalation of a law and order situation, this when it claimed to have things in place and spared no effort in canvassing and convincing Ramdev to call off his proposed mass satyagraha. In words of a famous idiom, ungli tedi karni pad gayi.

A trite movement which rested on driving up a frenzy among his staunch supporters had turned Ramdev into a political figure. Clear signs of alignment with the right wing organizations were visible as he took stage and laid out his ludicrous conditions, which were, in all fairness, in good intention by a man who was only still grasping the reach of his celebrity. Perhaps it never dawned on the government's think-tank that a movement based on less than stellar credentials like Ramdev's would crash and burn on its own, unlike Anna Hazare's campaign against corruption, which had the backing of the educated class and proposed legislation in tow. Forcefully evicting thousands of hapless people in the middle of the night in Delhi's scorching summer only reaffirmed the notion that has long prevailed when it comes to Congress' image in the public- a party which tries hard to stay in the middle but gets nowhere. The hasty action has created more questions, drawn the ire of the NHRC and the Supreme court, recharged the civil society activists and the opposition, and worst, put a blot on India's tradition of allowing the liberty of peaceful protest and enshrining it as a fundamental right.

Perhaps it was a calculated gesture on the GOI's part. With 3 years left in its second term and no apparent threat looming over the stability of the government, it is relying on the fickle-minded public with a withdrawing attention span. The 2G scam has been turned into Kanimozhi's saga of martyrdom in the name of her family. The proposed Jan lokpal bill looks to be going nowhere. Operation 'Cover up' is already underway with regard to the CWG mess, as the Delhi government looks to bat it out with the central leadership having shown no signs of stern action against it. The scapegoat in each case, be it Kalmadi, Raja, Kanimozhi, or P.J. Thomas, is in the dock. The masters are thus more relaxed than normal. With the left still overcoming its nightmare of having been nearly swept out of national relevance for good, and the BJP squabbling over the next PM candidate, a strong challenge to the unruly central rule remains. This at a time when there are a number of factors to take the government to task- decline in GDP in the last quarter of 2010-2011, revision in the projected GDP for next year to the lower side, farmer agitations and land acquisition hurdles in Paradip, and a shortage of coal and natural gas slowing down India's energy production in the wake of ever-increasing demand. I am sure you can add to the list as well.

I am being reminded of our freedom struggle, when strong leaders of the stature of Subhas Chandra Bose and Sardar Patel took the helm and made sure the masses realize their responsibility. When Gandhi battled disenchantment in his idea of a united India with gusto. The democracy was showing positive signs of resuscitation with increasing voter participationin the recent assembly and local bodies elections, only to see the oxygen supply being cut short in the middle of the night.

PS: The lengthy stay in the capital city after 5 years showed me an entirely new side of Delhi, with improved road infrastructure and public transport standing out in particular. The CWG scam seems to have left an everlasting impact on the psyche of good 'ol dilli.

Cue up some Rahman