(Ishwari Bajpai is Senior Advisor at NDTV; he has been a journalist for 30 years, and has covered the elections since 1984.)
Some are funny, some are absurd and some are very worrying - a range of recent remarks by politicians places us in the silly season of politics as late spring makes way for summer.
Things have been said that have left many of us baffled, confused and concerned. And somewhere you have to ask yourself how much of this motor-mouthing is pandering and how much is testing the waters.
Arvind Kejriwal, Chief Minister of Delhi, leads the pack. His Transport Department has reportedly decided that scooter and taxis drivers may not be penalized for overcharging (read cheating) and refusing passengers.
What next? Delhi shopkeepers are no longer bound by the Maxmimum Retail Price of an item - they can have a field day and quote any price? I know Mr Kejriwal prides himself somewhat as "an anarchist" but should we do away with all laws (at the same time, his government has said all tests for H1N1 must have a fixed price.)
We understand that the drivers of scooters and taxis gave AAP a great deal of support and this is payback time, but pay back at the expense of the rest of the public? Is there no other way to stop harassment of these people by the police than legalizing the way for them to harass the general public? How much is this government going to pander to its perceived supporters?
And if this wasn't enough, Mr Kejriwal tells CII that he does not think that the government should be in the business of running buses at all because it doesn't have the money to buy more buses. Dilliwallahs who suffered years of the Blue Line killer buses (which were privately-run) are left wondering if the state-run DTC will be hocked to another group of people Kejriwal wants to pander to.
Instead of saying "I will ensure that we collect the revenues we need to buy buses", he is asking to anyone who cares to listen, "Can you tell me how to collect VAT?" Well, what has he been thinking of for the past year, if not how to run an efficient Delhi Government? Was it a case of making big promises to come to power and then waiting to see if things fall into place?
But Mr Kejriwal is not alone. Maharashtra seems as culpable in trying to satiate its supporters' appetite. The Attorney General of Maharashtra, while defending the cow slaughter ban in the High Court, warned that this was just the tip of the iceberg, more such bans would follow and all meats would go off the menus in the state. By next morning, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said that was not correct. He must have realized that while many Marathas don't eat beef, meat is very much a part of their diet. In fact, as a newspaper reported, Union Minister Prakash Javadkar was recently the chief guest at a launch of a book that was on non-vegetarian cooking in his state, a book he was full of praise for.
It is probable that Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis was asked what would happen to goat farmers, abattoir workers and the rest of this supply chain if the AG's thoughts were put into action. In a state unable to control farmer suicides, that's a grave question.
Similarly, the proactive move to show Marathi films between 6 and 9 pm. After much noise and criticism, prime time became daytime. And while the Shiv Sena continued to pour venom on those who it insisted were denigrating Maharashtrian culture,
there isn't much point in pushing regional cinema by punishing Bollywood when it appears to be financially inert.
In Rajasthan, meanwhile, Minister for Primary Education Vasudev Devnani has decided to re-write some text books. According to a report the minister said, "We keep calling Akbar 'The Great'. Why is he 'The Great'? ... Akbar was merely a ruler. If there is a chapter on Mughals, maybe he can have a mention in that, but not a separate detailed chapter on him. Yeh sab baahar se aaye hai. They have all come from outside.so why should we teach people about them."
Well, that's one way of reducing the size of our history books, since much of India was ruled by these "foreigners" from1192 onwards, we can perhaps have a chapter on "foreign rule": one page of the Delhi Sultanate, one on the Bahamani Kingdom, a page or two on the Mughals, maybe another two on the British, and finish off 800 years of history.
You would have thought that this gentleman would spend his valuable time looking at the quality of the schools, improving their facilities and the quality of teaching, rather than trying to change history. But that is probably too much hard work, this can be done by the stroke of a pen and win him brownie points with the larger "parivaar".
In fact, all of these instances are just examples of politicians who seem to believe that as long as they can continue to oblige their so-called voter base, they don't need to worry about governing, governance and the greater good.
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