Nowadays I feel that the media should pay both the BJP and the Congress a salary

as content providers, since both parties obligingly furnish the print and telev
ision media with a sensational new headline almost every week – gratis. In fact, t
hey readily act as cannon fodder for self-appointed crusaders like Arnab Goswami
and Rajdeep Sardesai of Times Now and CNN-IBN respectively – and there seems to b
e no end in sight.
Hence you have the BJP’s obdurate Yedurappa gleefully defying his party leadership
and continuing on his shameless ways; all the while presenting a beatific smile
to television cameras. On the Congress side, the wily and wilfully corrupt Kalm
adi continues as head honcho of the Indian Olympic Committee (IOC) – even after be
ing brutally exposed - the very organization he and his cronies so skilfully use
d to amass huge personal fortunes at the expense of the public exchequer. And of
course, the infamous 2G telecom scam and its grinning perpetrator, A Raja, is n
ow an urban legend. In the latest brouhaha about onion prices, the Agriculture M
inister Sharad Pawar has scored an obvious self-goal with his seeming indifferen
ce and pathetic explanation for the avoidable crisis. Don’t the country’s two major
political parties realize that their image is taking a humiliating beating in th
e eyes of the voting public? Why are they so intent on committing political suic
ide? Can they really be that dumb?
They are not, of course. It takes a great deal of cunning and ingenuity to trans
form oneself from a humble fruit seller into a crorepati within the short span o
f a few years. If the Congress and the BJP are deliberately smearing egg on thei
r faces by shielding the badly exposed and patently culpable scamsters, there ha
s to be a more devious explanation. In my opinion, the only plausible reason for
this bizarre behaviour is that everybody knows everyone else’s dirty secrets. It
is a classic application of the Biblical injunction: let him who is without sin
cast the first stone.
And so the government is going through the motions of appointing inquiry commiss
ions and conducting income tax raids; probably after coming to a tacit agreement
with the perpetrators that it is just a show for public and media consumption;
and giving them more than enough time to destroy or “misplace” any incriminating evi
dence. If any proof is needed, you just have to observe the smug expressions on
the faces of Kalmadi and Raja even as they are being “raided.” They are confident th
at the powers that be cannot impose any significant punishment without themselve
s being exposed. I would exclude Sharad Pawar from this particular charade, but
then, he has a different agenda. Pawar has made no secret of his desire to shed
his agriculture portfolio and concentrate on his cricketing activities. By displ
aying such blatant incompetence on the onion issue, he almost seems to be goadin
g the Prime Minister to sack him.
I am no fan of the loud mouthed Rajdeep Sardesai, but for once, one of his stock
phrases is very appropriate here: ees hamam me sab nangey hai.