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Perfect PM
19 September 2013, 10:14 PM IST
Some years ago an American entrepreneur invented the perfect pet for people who were too busy to keep regular pets which need a lot of looking after: he invented the pet rock. Unlike other pets, your pet rock did not need to be taken for walks, or be given food, or get taken to the vet. Your pet rock just sat there, totally immobile and completely silent.
India went one better than inventing a pet that was totally immobile and 100% silent: it invented a PM who was totally immobile and 100% silent.
Taking care of India's democracy – the largest and arguably the most exuberant in the world – is rather like having to take care of a very lovable and very large pet dog. Having such a pet is a very rewarding experience – because you love your pet and you know that your pet loves you equally in reciprocal measure – but it can also be quite exhausting at times.
The pet called democracy has to be taken out on regular exercises called elections. It has to be fed a steady diet of debate, in return for which it will perform tricks like framing legislation and providing good governance. Yes, there's little doubt about it: democracy – particularly the boisterous variety that is Indian democracy – can be a very demanding and high-maintenance pet to look after. All that constant vigilance and looking after that it requires can prove extremely tiring, particularly after a hard day's work in Parliament.
So with its infinite genius for jugaad, India invented a PM who – like the American entrepreneur's pet rock – just sat there and said and did absolutely nothing as a relaxing antidote to the hurly-burly and the hal-chal, the gol-mal and the hangama of our overly-energetic and all too vibrant democracy. Looking after a frisky, unpredictable democracy getting you all hot and bothered and tense and stressed out? Take a chill pill. Take a tip from a PM who, like the pet rock, has mastered the art of total inaction.
There was corruption. There were scams. There was Adarshgate, Spectrumgate, Coalgate and Vadragate. There were so many 'gates' that India began to look like a sports stadium with its multiple entrances and exits. Or like a circus arena which has to have many openings for all the clowns and jokers and performing animals to go in and out from. The PM sat and watched the circus and, pet rock-like, remained unmoved. The economy did a nosedive; the rupee went into free fall, without benefit of parachute or safety net. The PM remained unmoved. Investors packed up their portfolios and left the country in droves. The PM remained unmoved. The price of onions went up to the price of gold, and no one knew what the price of gold was because it had so many zeroes that by the time you'd counted them all several more had been added to the total. The PM remained unmoved. Nobody seemed to know whether the country was coming or going, and if it was going, where it was going, and why. The PM remained unmoved.
That's why, like the pet rock, the PM will go down in the history books as the only PM truly to deserve the title of PM: Perpetually Motionless.OR Perpetually Mute
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