Courtiers vs Politicians

TK Arun
27 December 2012, 10:04 AM IST

Courtiers vs Politicians

What recent events in Delhi show is a rare shortage of politicians in the leadership of the government and an abundance of courtiers.  How to tell one apart from the other? It’s not always easy, true: only the jester wears a conical hat with a tassel at the very top. The difference lies in to whom their antennae are tuned. The courtier is focused on the throne, the politician on the people. When home minister Shinde boldly went where no man has gone before and asked a couple of television anchors if the home minister of the country should rush to address a few hundred people whenever they agitate, whether in Delhi or Garchiroli, he proved people are nowhere on his radar.

The politician would know when a few hundred give vent to the pent-up feelings of millions and when they articulate their own arcane concerns. He would respond accordingly. Minister of state for home RPN Singh said on live TV that he would deign to meet protesters in the flesh if someone would provide an ironclad guarantee that there would be no violence. If meeting real people is a risk that he or fellow refugees in ministry woodwork cannot take, why are they in this business of the people, by the people and for the people? Courtiers, of course, are accountable only to her highness.

The politician instinctively knows when a vote bank is stirring. Even if he himself stands for no strenuous principle, he knows to raise his voice in support of one when a vote bank rallies around it. In India, women are rarely considered a vote bank. They constitute half the voters of the country — actually a little less, thanks to violent social bias that kills off little girls in the womb, puts the little girls who do make it to the world on tight rations so that their brothers can go to school, forces them to rely on their own immunity to battle disease, so that whatever little the family can spare for healthcare goes to protect the male child, and generally reverses the natural tendency for women to outnumber men in a population. This is a vote bank that today is both stirred and shaken. Raisina hill unfortunately has turned concave under the weight of its worthy occupants and they cannot see this huge, agitated vote bank beyond the rim of the depression they have created for themselves.