Eyes
Wide Shut!
... By
Asma Khan (asmaanjum.khan@gmail.com)
Asma Khan, a
social reformer, analyses the excessive love of politicians for their subjects, during elections.
The great Indian Election Tamasha running house full in the largest
state of India, is something we can ill afford to miss. It is
undoubtedly a Theatre of the Absurd unmatched in its unreasonableness
and perhaps also the biggest flop show of democracy, in the largest
state of India, Uttar Pradesh which is larger in area and population to
Great Britain.
The din of canvassing for the different candidates, across party lines
is indeed deafening. We, the voters as well as the onlookers, have been
here before and done that too, what with Mayas, Mulayams, the Rahuls
and Priyankas and never to forget, the quintessential fundoos.
Coming back to theatre of the Absurd or the irrational, the idea behind
it, is the sense that, the human condition is essentially absurd, and
that this condition can be adequately represented only in works of
literature that are themselves absurd. Same is the case here in Uttar
Pradesh, India’s most populous state. Its quite a bewildering task to
be able to comment adequately on the absurdism/irrationality that is,
found here.
The Queen Maya Memsaab, who, according to Wikileaks, kept tasters
before she munches anything and for whose convenience, a chartered
plane is sent from Lucknow to Bombay, for fetching her favourite shoes,
reminds me of my childhood hero, Cinderella, sort of or nothing short
of it. This former primary teacher was first spotted by Kanshi Ram
almost by an accident. The place was the Constitution Club, Delhi;
time, September 1977, and the occasion was Abolish Caste Conference and
the speaker was Raj Narayan, the then cabinet minister who was talking
about saving the, ’Harijans’. This word was repeated often and the
discomfort it caused in the air was palpable, but most preferred a
diplomatic silence. But not so, for the twenty –one year old Primary
teacher, her voice rose above all; Didn’t the honorable Minister know
how Dr.Ambedkar had referred to these people as Scheduled Castes, in
the constitution? The term, Harijan, was insulting, she insisted. Her
voice was lonesome and quite a daredevilry act for an unmarried woman,
Dalit at that, to be speaking so vociferously and openly against a
cabinet minister. Kanshi Ram never could forget her after that and
became her mentor, till his end. He was twenty-two years, her senior.
Women politicians, in those times were rare to spot, more so from
Dalits. The Maya story seems almost Cinderelleseque, a rise from ashes
to the echelons of high power within no time.
From 1977 to the present 2012 The Maya story seems, unbelievable. That
feisty courageous woman has now come to cry ‘foul’ frequently. The
climax is reached when she is said to have employed tasters, before
munching anything. Paranoid!
![Satish Acharya [Mayawati's growth]](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_wh8W04dGH_8/S_9lvtHkfBI/AAAAAAAACKs/pG6V2VlLcD4/s1600/280510.jpg)
Afraid of the
demons, some her own creations and some imagined, she
operates as a shadow of her former fiery self. The absurdism reaches
its height when huge elephantine ambitions take the form of those crude
outsized structures that seek to dwarf everyone around them, a
phantasmagoria kind of thing. Ironically enough the disease by which
thousands [Yes, thousands!] of young children die in Maya’s state is
also known as Encephalitis! Its hard to miss the bleak resemblance in
nomenclature. It’s unbelievably irrational to see that when
thousands are dying regularly and on an annual basis, these phantoms of
elephants compete with the innocents to crop up, as they continue to
die. The Cinderella of the yore has transformed sadly to become our own
Hosni Mubarak, no less a dictator herself. How else can one explain
this dichotomy of events which stand so starkly opposite to each
other? A weird twist, in the story comes, when the Election
Commission ‘orders’ all the phantasmagorias to be covered till we are
over with the elections! 
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Why not ask to shut our eyes,
instead? I wondered. Like it or not, we have perfectly mastered the art
of keeping our Eyes Wide Shut, for so long that, the
‘covers’ are
unable to dissuade us to ‘see through!’ It has become a habit.
This
explains our apathy at the going -ons in UP? A new feather is
added to
the crown of the politicos when Mulayam promises sops for the rapists
by declaring valiantly that every ’educated’ rape victim will be given
a government job!
Call it
temptation!
This
never-heard-before excuse for raping a woman is indeed a classic. A
rapist may shout to his victim, “Frailty, thy name is woman! Fool, How
could thou forget a government job?”
Why do you do it?
Surely it is bad
policy.
They say you
can’t help it.
To part with a
pound of flesh should be no big deal for a woman, or Mulayam seems to
think so.
And
our own, Salman does a Khursheed again by trying to become nostalgic
and recalling how ‘Madame Sonia’ shed tears over the Batla House
Encounter!? (I am sure she might have tied a Japanese napkin to a
pulp.) But it’s only this that, he now does a Gajani and conveniently
forgets to mention the proverbial crocodile tears. Yes, these
politicians seem to get away with murder.
Yet
what an aura surrounds you;
Your
evil little aura, prowling, and casting a numbness
On
my mind
Eugene Ionesco
while talking about the literature of the absurd says, “People drowning in
meaninglessness can only be grotesque, their sufferings can appear
tragic by derision”. Our politicians seem to have taken it
to heart. It is this sheer callousness of the political class that has
made it almost unbelievable, whatever, that’s going on in UP.
But, like the proverbial silver lining in the cloud, credit must go to
Kumari Mayawati jee for uniting her people despite not enjoying any
special privilege of class and wealth, and for this she will go down in
history as one of the most influential figures of Dalits.
Patrick French while talking about the beginning of Kanshi-Maya era of
Dalit politics ,in his new book, India-A
Portrait (which he likes to call, An Intimate Biography of 1.2
Billion People) says,
"Like African-Americans
in the United States, it was only when Dalits organized themselves
rather than being helped by external well-wishers that things really
began to change.”
How wonderful a dream it would be if we Muslims take a leaf out of our
Dalit friends and do a Maya!
Sounding idealist, but I dream for this day.
Anyways, it would still be interesting to see who wins or loses this
game of chess in UP,
Come then, let us
play at unawares,
And see who wins
in this sly game of bluff.
Maya or Mulayam,
Sonia or the Fundoo!
I am tempted to add further,
Can I not overtake
you?
Are you one too
many for me,
Winged Victory?
Am I not mosquito
enough to out-mosquito
you?
(With due apologies to D.H.Lawrence, verses are from his poem, The
Mosquito- India-A Portrait, pub:2012, Penguin)
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