By Ananya S Guha
In my opinion politics is not the last resort of scoundrels. Why be so judgemental anyway and how do we define scoundrels? By calling others “scoundrels” we put ourselves above the “others” which is not only a very self righteous, self indignation perspective but also a clear message: “I am superior to this breed of politicians”. Let us get out of our circumscribed limits and high horses and look at ourselves properly. Do we do our work honestly? Do we laugh at ourselves or are we only busy laughing at others? Do we treat our fellow beings with compassion in a country like India – look at our egregious behaviour with domestic workers for example! Come let us get rid of this prudery, this “I’m right, you are wrong” glitch. That is why I view this entire campaign against corruption, by Team A and cohorts with skepticism. Why target only politicians for corruption, and that too select individuals whose faces you don’t like? And why, pray have you woken up to this grave infidelity after more than fifty years of Independence. No, no, I smell a rat . . . And it is getting smellier still. And, secondly how do we define “Corruption” that sacrilegious and puissant word? Before making accusations let us set our house in order first.
I also have a sneaky suspicion in my glutinous mind, that those who can’t join them, cannot beat them either! What a riposte! Do I sound like those dreaded politicians? At least their corruption is honest and transparent. Look what a Presidential candidate has done; he has made his greed so obvious that people are pitying him.
Who isn’t self aggrandizing? What about writers, those intellectuals, look at the way some Indian poets and writers threw out Maheswata Devi from the Presidency of the Sahitya Akademi. Isn’t that grotesque and shameless corruption? I know, what you will say – I am talking about financial corruption. How do we set yardsticks as to who is financially corrupt or not? When you pay your domestic worker a pittance and make him or her wash your dirty linen or assail the person with dirty indictments, are we being honest, how insuperable our actions are, how inviolate! And then we pray, but don’t ask God’s forgiveness . . . What blasphemy. I have seen the behaviour, recounted above with my own eyes and then we talk of moral paradigms. Please don’t nauseate me and Team A we don’t need your moral dictum. Please go and play IPL, there is money there and no corruption. Everything is white there, even at night! Leave politics to politicians and don’t play it since you are not scoundrels.
