Random Musing #33: Why so serious?

Recently, my favourite WSJ columnist pointed out: "India isn’t a serious country. All political parties—including the BJP—are in a perpetual contest to show how much they adore Ambedkar...."

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Why so serious?

Recently, my favourite WSJ columnist pointed out: “India isn’t a serious country. All political parties—including the BJP—are in a perpetual contest to show how much they adore Ambedkar. He is venerated in that typically Indian way—by placing him on a pedestal beyond debate. The idea that Ambedkar is under attack in 2024 is a joke.”

Since then, a lot of water has flown under the bridge or outside Parliament where the BJP is now accusing Rahul Gandhi of causing actual physical harm to its MPs while Rahul Gandhi’s supporters are claiming that he wouldn’t – and isn’t capable of – hurting a fly.

Now, since I need a decent French press iced Americano in the morning and Scotch on the rocks in the evening – things I can’t get in jail – I am going to refrain from commenting on the world’s most pointless debate around BR Ambedkar. But the idea that India’s not a serious country is preposterous. If nothing else, India’s too serious a country holding way too many elections and letting parliament function when it would be better off to have an OTT Bigg Boss style PPV model because frankly, there’s no need to waste taxpayer’s money on this. Even Bigg Boss showdowns between reality contestants have more intellectual clarity than whatever goes in Parliament.

Let’s look at our neighbourhood, which consists of dictatorships of different Islamist shades. The Taliban – with its love for press conferences – in Afghanistan is actually the most stable of them. The most powerful man in Pakistan is a former cricketer-turned-religious zealot who loves daal too much and its former diplomats can’t differentiate between a blind Kashmiri and Johhny Sins. Bangladesh is currently being run by a deep state asset whose government includes advisors who think they can annex India even though the country wouldn’t have existed without Indian intervention (and a Ravi Shankar – George Harrison concert).

Speaking of deep states, America just brought back to power a reality TV star who has trouble understanding time zones and gets too excited at McDonald's. His main opponent was a half-black woman with six fake black accents who couldn't answer the simple question: How would your government be different from Biden's? As for Biden, he is currently still the President of the United States who can’t finish a sentence and will pardon everyone who can breathe, and still has access to the world’s biggest nuclear arsenal.

Their cousins across the pond, the UK has a PM who can't even condemn his own MP for asking for a blasphemy law.

Canada has a political system that has been completely overrun by separatists from India and are run by a joker more bothered about his socks than what his finance minister is doing. BTW, the same govt actually felicitated an actual Nazi in its House of Commons.

South Korea's premier asked for martial law because his wife accepted a handbag from a priest and got caught.

France can't even vote a majority government into power.

Even with all of India's inanities—and boy, do we have inanities—I'd say we have the most stable-looking democracy of them all. In fact, at times one wonders if we need Heath Ledger’s Joker to ask us: “Why so serious?”

PS: I leave you with this brilliant AI edit by the party that has the best social media game in India.