Politicians suffer from perpetual foot in the mouth disease. But the latest slip of the tongue by BJP President, Nitin Gadkari has been blown out of proportion. Call it the absence of quick wit or the inability to express a point but Gadkari has been cornered by the media for comparing the IQ of Swami Vivekenanda to that of underworld don Dawood Ibrahim. Anyone listening to Gadkari;s speech with an open mind would have found nothing objectionable in it. He is right in saying that most humans are endowed with a similar IQ although some are indeed more intelligent than others and that it depends on individuals how they put their IQ to use. Gadkari’s only sin was that he used an unlikely metaphor for Vivekenanda – Dawood Ibrahim, India’s beta noire. But probably Dawood was the best metaphor he could think of. The problem with this country is that there are too many holy cows. Humans are turned to saints and heroes are put on a pedestal, quite forgetting that they are as liable to err as all humans are.
In this case, it is the media which has made a mountain out Gadkari’s Freudian slip. He could not have imagined that his speech would create the controversy it has. It is only to be expected that a ‘holier than thou Congress’ would nail Gadkari for this slip-up since they have been pillorying him over his acts of commission vis-a-vis the recommendations for the lucrative Maharashtra contracts.
Gadkari was speaking at an awards function to felicitate women achievers. Interestingly, none from the audience made a hue and cry about his comment. It was the media that cornered him for their breaking news capsule. The advent of the 24×7 electronic media has changed the way we look at news. This is a ravenous monster looking for sensation from every little thing, including turning a harmless quote into a national shame. True Vivekenanda is someone that this country worships and an exemplar and that Dawood Ibrahim is a fugitive who has inflicted indescribable harm on India. But that stark difference was what Gadkari intended to illustrate. And judging by the media reaction he has more than made his point.
It is unfortunate that the media chooses to focus on the trivial while allowing larger issues to slip by unnoticed. We are indeed losing focus.
