We, the People-Indian of the Year

                                               We the People- Indian of the Year

IOTY 2013 was announced yesterday with the usual gusto and cheering from an invited audience of celebrities. While many of the awardees deserved the honour bestowed on them- (late)Justice J.S.Verma for Lifetime achievement, Deepika Padukone and Team  ITBP and NDRF for Special achievement, Leander Paes and Ramkant Achrerkar  for  Outstanding achievement,  ADR and Lily Thomas for Public service, P.V.Sindhu for Sports, Rajiv Bajaj for Business and Stop Acid Attacks-SAA, a NGO for the Crowning glory of Indian of the year , two IOTY awards  for Politics and for Entertainment came as an anti-climax, almost taking the sheen off the CNN_IBN glittering ceremony.

Arvind Kejriwal was declared IOTY for Politics by a jury consisting of eminent persons from different walks of life. He was chosen over all other eminent contenders that included Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Raman Singh both of whom have scored a hat-trick of getting elected as Chief ministers of MP and Chhatisgarh respectively, Rajasthan comeback Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje, Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah and Union Minister Jairam Ramesh. What seemed to have tilted the Jury’s views in favour of Arvind was that he had proved a giant killer by defeating the popular Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dixit and had gained acceptance with Delhi voters within a year of forming his broom-spangled party. But how does this catapult him to a higher position than Chouhan or Raman Singh who have been thrice tested and elected or Vasundhara Raje who had demolished the incumbent Rajasthan CM, Ashok Gehlot on a comeback trail? The Editor-in-Chief of CNN-IBN, Rajdeep Sardesai with a mischievous smile hailed the giant killer saying he had changed the course of politics in the country. It all started with Anna Hazare last year and Arvind made political capital out of it. With anti-corruption as his crusading weapon, he had launched a vitriolic attack on the two contending parties Congress and BJP and showed that every member of these two parties deserves to be politically eliminated as each one of them was steeped in corruption. Arvind made corruption as his platform to enter politics calling all his opponents ‘chors’ and dishonourable persons, though he could not substantiate any of his claims against them. What better way could he have chosen to connect with masses who, in general, out of sheer envy and frustration love listening to attacks and criticism of all netas? Like the nursery rhyme about old Mcdonald, Arvind and his partymen and women made a chorus:  “here a corruption, there a corruption, everywhere a corruption,E-I-E-I-O” . Even after his party’s moderate success in the recent Delhi elections, they continue to use derogatory language against all parties while weaving a halo of honesty around them on their ‘aam admi’ caps. The IOTY acceptance speech by Arvind was graceless and full of bombast arrogantly claiming that governance was not a rocket science and that he would rule Delhi better than all others. There was hubris in his body language and in his choice of words and he played to the celebrity gallery who though were ill at ease, nevertheless felt duty bound to applaud the giant killer. He seems to believe that he is David personified and all non-aam admi party members are Goliaths of corruption.  For him and his party, neither Congress nor BJP had done anything to Delhi all these years and its people, but only been swindling them  and he, the modern David has arrived to demolish all the Goliaths and put them behind bars. The Editor-in-Chief Rajdeep Sardesai egged him on to carry his venomous politics for which he had been awarded IOTY for Politics. All those glitterati that had converged in the auditorium were made to look sheepish as they were not the aam admis. Their loud applause at Arvind’s holier-than –thou attitude was to say the least, obsequious and smarmy.

The other questionable award was the one given in the category of entertainment. Kapil was chosen above Deepika Padukone and Shah Rukh Khan, Farhan Akhtar and team Lunchbox . Kapil Sharma’s brand of humour is risqué, often coarse with plenty of waspish one-liners in a monotone. Having seen him with other comedians in Comedy shows other than the one sponsored by CNN_IBN’s own entertainment channel, ‘Colours’- his selection as IOTY (entertainment) was  odd and a trifle disconcerting. Among the category of comedians, there are many others with whom he was performing Comedy Circus before he joined the Colours programme. Kapil’s acceptance speech was loquacious and babbling and he wanted to join the aam admi bandwagon by entering into a dialogue with Arvind. He seemed to be so carried away by the awesome award conferred on him that he forgot that he had to make a gracious acceptance speech.  “I-me- Kapil” was the tenor of his ten minutes on stage performanceinterspersed with his one-liners to Arvind.

These two ‘misplaced ‘awards bring to the fore two characteristics of We, the People of India.  We are not a humourous race who can laugh at ourselves. We need humour only to dissect and destroy others. We think of comedy only as Satire and that too Political Satire that employs ironic comedy to portray persons or social institutions as ridiculous or corrupt, thus alienating their audience from the object of humor. We have not refined our sense of humour to laugh at the simple foibles of men and women, but often mistake comedy to be one of scatological or sexual humour. The wry smile that was forced out of the celebrity audience at Arvind’s taunts and Kapil’s insipid talk during the IOTY ceremony is a testimony to our lack of understanding good comedy. Our TV comedies do not explore the cracks and contradictions in our attitudes and conventions nor are they a kind of commentary on social life, based on close observation and incisive questioning. Most of the time they fall flat and they try to force people to laugh at bawdiness and vulgarity as the spice of humour. Humour, thy name is not Indian.

The other characteristic that is singularly Indian is to pretend to take high moral ground specially on a public platform. Indians are master pretenders and no wonder why we always moralise and sermonize as though we are forever speaking from the pulpit. We will pretend to be an aam admi who shall make a virtue of ordinariness and elevate ourselves to the distinguished category of extra-ordinary people by remaining nondescript in our appearance. That is why neither US nor Europe nor China nor Pakistan nor for that matter even Togo or Italy takes us seriously.  We are relegated as an inconsequential, preachy race, who loves to talk in homilies. As a race, we preach what others should do and not what we should. That is the reason why we always speak of our rights and not of our duties. We are not a mature democracy where, duties go along with rights. AAP’s way of seeking referendum on whether to form the government  from  aam admis who had already cast their votes in its favour is pathetic. Arvind’s gimmick  is a mockery of democracy, in line with H.L. Mencke’s  observation that ‘Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.’ Democratic governance is the right given to people to elect their representatives to govern. If everyone has to have a say in governance, -and that too, in a vast pluralistic, multi-lingual, multi religious country like India, the result will be  a cacophony of voices that would put the Babel of tower to shame.

Has CNN_IBN in  a covert way given the IOTY to We, the People of India by honouring Arvind and Kapil?