Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Janta bole Naa toh Naa

Congress surprised itself and others! But what a relief, its been to see every kingmaker cut down to size. Paswan, Lalu, Jaya Amma, Mayawati, Mulayam Singh, Amar Singh, Pawar, Ramadoss, Vaiko, Shibu Soren, even former trouble makers like Bagarappa, AR Antulay and assorted criminals in UP, Bihar, MP- contesting across parties have been either booted out or have come back with diminished mandates! Way to go.

While everybody would like to annoint Rahul G as the latest messiah, I have an interesting take and wd like to point out the role played by the media in general in shaping our collective approach towards politicians, this time around.

These are ads, films and television exposes with political overtones that have been aired over the last 3-4 years. These have sub consciously raised our level of expectation from the political establishement and in a way also influenced our behaviour when it counted.

a) Tata Tea - remember the politician who is accosted by a calm young man and asked for his qualification to run the country !!
b) Idea Cellular - janta bole Naa to Naa.
c) Rang De Basanti - the film with Aamir as protoganist and its unabashed angst against the political class.
d) Crusades run by TV channels (specifically NDTV) towards exposing the politician criminal nexus while covering the BMW case, the Jessical murder trial, etc
e) Lead India and Bleed India campaigns run by TOI.

i think collectively all these gave vent to our cynisim towards politicians and helped formulate a sharper response towards both corrupt politicians as well as those who seek to divide and rule.
And as far as Rahul G is concerned, i still think, Chaddi pahen ke Fool khila hai.....fool khila hai.

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