Let’s look at the ongoing search for a political language which unites today’s India and brings Delhi closer to Karbi Anglong and Kodaikanal. Every village, every small town in today’s India is voting for its immediate requirements of bijli, sadak, paani and isn’t overly bothered about deals being nuked by obscure ideologues who fight their quixotic battles from remote, ideology-shrouded, A.K.Gopalan Bhavan. The Congress is floundering, Manmohan Singh appears happy subtracting politics from his governance and Sonia Gandhi is left with the unenviable task of fighting anti-incumbency after having refused to climb the official pedestal.

A politically tongue-tied Congress has allowed Narendra Modi to snatch the good growth rate story from an eloquent P. Chidambaram. The Sachar panel has become a ticking bomb that Congressmen keep returning to without deciding whether it should explode or be defused. Whatever good came out of the NREGA was credited in the Left’s political account because the four party block insisted it had pushed its agenda down a reluctant government’s throat. It’s another matter that Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee’s police force fired upon Forward Block sympathisers because they were complaining about NREGA benefits not reaching everybody in Cooch Behar.

For the other parties, the idiom has already been decided upon. The SP will lampoon everything that is not Muslim and Yadav. The BSP will re-energise poor brahmins and recast their caste story by introducing a class angle. The Left will speak Bengali and Malayalam. Om Prakash Chautala and Ajit Singh will speak pure Jat. Akalis will speak chaste Gurmukhi. Karunanidhi may speak bits and pieces from the Tamil Eelam credo. Jayalalithaa will speak exactly the opposite of what Karunanidhi is talking about. N. Chandrababu Naidu will find out that his tightrope doesn’t actually exist. Shiv Sena will emulate Raj Thackeray. Nitish Kumar will speak his mother tongue. And Naveen Patnaik will make yet another attempt to speak the language of his illustrious father.

... contd.