LACK OF HUMOUR OF INDIAN POLITICIANS - 2

Yet, the late Raj Narain who like Lalu Prasad Yadav these days allowed his rusticity to look humorous did become a source of great jokes. He had become a great national hero after defeating Indira Gandhi in the election of 1977.

Raj Narain had gone on an election tour in a village side with some vegetarian politicians. After a day or two, he saw a wayside restaurant (dhaba as we call it) and immediately said that so long he had been having bhojan (meaning food but being a Hindi word may mean for some people, wrongly though, vegetarian food) and now he wanted to have khana (an Urdu word which may mean for some people, wrongly though, non vegetarian food).

Lalu Prasad Yadav
Similarly Lalu Prasad Yadav, protected by police guards reached a village where there was a rivulet. He immediately told the policemen that he would cross quickly and they should follow. He got up on the back of a buffaloe like a typical villager and crossed.

When the policemen could not do it but reached the other side of the rivulet with lot of difficulty he is said to have asked how could they ever protect a leader if they did not know how to ride a buffalo.

Some Japanese met Lalu and said that if they were given the job they could make Bihar highly industrialized and efficient like Japan in one year. Lalu is said to have retorted that if he was given the task of running the administration of Japan he could convert it into Bihar in half that much time.

Some Anecdotes
Some anecdotes which circulate about some politicians create some humor.

1. During the last general elections a Hindi speaking Congressman came home after hectic electioneering. Dumping his huge body on a sofa in his drawing room, he saw a woman coming and got up to do namaste to her. Later, he discovered that it was his wife not a voter of a street. It was an election time reaction. Then correcting himself, he told her to give him some khaini (tobacco powder mixed with lime) to give him a kick strong enough to take him straight into the central cabinet and not stop at Ghaziabad railway station.

He is in the central cabinet of course now and is seen on television screen whenever some law and order problem arises.

2. A friend in a high position in bureaucracy told me once that during election time, one astrologer picks up the horoscopes, right or wrong, of twenty five important leaders of his state and gives predictions to all of them in writing that they would win elections and become ministers. Two out of the twenty five do become ministers and he shows them as his success and encashes them.

3. For nearly a decade there has been a talk of passing Women’s Reservation Bill which was successfully obstructed by male legislators one of whom described it as WEE -MENS  BILL.

4. Bihar has been described as a state with highest per capita poverty.

Aya Ram Gaya Ram

There was a politician of Haryana who changed political parties at a time when the addition of even one member of legislature was making a difference to the political claimants wanting to form a government. This politician took money from each party and went on changing, perhaps, ten parties, one after another, on a single day. This act gave to Indian politics a new word in Hindi “aya Ram Gaya Ram”. The name of the politician had Ram in his name. This word means a turncoat.

Raj Nath Singh
On a website is reported a speech of Raj Nath Singh of BJP which is not humour but a very intelligent and cultured remark.
http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?newsid=1129205http://www.dnaindia.com/
report.asp?newsid=1129205

Withdraw support from Centre: Rajnath tells Left
PTI
Monday, October 22, 2007 20:23 IST AGRA: BJP chief Rajnath Singh has asked the Left parties to withdraw their support to the UPA government over the nuclear deal issue.

"During Rama's time, politics was 'bhakti' (devotion), in Krishna's time it became 'yukti' (skill) and in the hands of Gandhi and Subhash it became 'shakti' (power). Then it became 'mukti' (freedom) while in the hands of patriots Ashfaq Khan and Bhagat Singh but now it has become 'sampati' (property)," he claimed.

Small Congressmen
But the best political humour was provided by a journalist, some Joshi, who wrote a humor column in a Hindi newspaper. His sudden death through heart attack was a terrible loss to high quality journalism. He was read, admired and became something of a legend for some years.

Among the many pieces he wrote, Congressmen quoted the one relating to Rajiv Gandhi, the prime minister whose house was heavily guarded by battalions of policemen.

The 'small Congressmen' ( which was the title of the famous piece) who had no access to Rajiv Gandhi and distinguished themselves by getting a petty police officer from one station to a more lucrative bribe yielding station and made money, did not know much about the great bribe story, the Bofors deal, in which Rajiv Gandhi was said to be involved. Compared to the small amount of money they were making Rajiv was perhaps minting billions and hiding them in foreign banks.
All that these small Congressmen knew was, said Joshi was.
Baahar battalion
Under Italian
Outside the house of Rajiv Gandhi there was the battalion (of policemen) And inside the house was the Italian (Sonia Gandhi.)

( 25 October 2007)