Rahul Gandhi, Ahmedinijad and Indian Media

When Kids in UP eat clay to fill themselves, you have to read the BBC news to find out about it. When Rahul Gandhi eats Dal-Roti, you just have to pick any mainstream newspaper to read about some jackass reporter fawning over this act of humility. I guess for the poor kid, it is not much of change from the daily gruel to clay. But for the Rajkumar who has grown up on his mother Steak Pizzaiola and pasta puttanesca, dal roti must be a quite a drop.

If that were all it took for a person to become a good leader, then Mahmood Ahmedinijad (MA) would become Gandhi, Dalai Lama, Roosevelt and Lincoln rolled into one. You see, Rajkumar Rahul is doing this for a couple of days (winning UP is his last chance) but MA does it and has been doing it all his life. MA comes from a poor family and like Lalloo Yadav, rose as a student leader. He has won two elections in Iran. He lives in an old house, drives his decades old car, wears rumpled suits and brings food to work from home. I saw a picture of him taking a nap on the floor. He does this every day. National leaders with such Spartan lifestyles are extremely rare in the world. He also has a PhD from a top Iran university. Despite of his admirable background, the guy is an ineffective leader given to virulent rhetoric. Compared to him, Rahul Gandhi’s meal as a measure of humility and austerity is nothing. Compared to MA’s education, Rahul’s education is nothing. Compared to MA’s political acumen, Rahul’s acumen is nothing. And yet somehow, Rahul’s handlers (read Digvijay Singh) think that a stunt like this will somehow endear him to the UP voters which in turn will lead to a unimaginably different results than Bihar and Tamilnadu.

There are two things that are really bothersome about all this. Congress is filled with political survivors so they must know something about elections. If they think that supping with a farmer (must be a well to do farmer. How many of the Indian poor can feast on daal these days?) will somehow win them the UP elections. If they are right then it is clear that they do not think too much of the UP voters. I pray to Bholenath that the UP voters prove them wrong next year. The other thing is that why does the entire mainstream Indian media act as Congress’s propaganda arm? I realize that when you become a media person, you do not have to take the media equivalent of the Hippocratic oath but there must be some measure of integrity needed for this job. If there is, then it cannot be seen in the mainstream Indian media. Shame on all of them!!