amuel Beckett would have been proud. A two day theatre of the absurd was enacted in the Lok Sabha (the lower house of the Parliament) on the issue of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in multi-brand retail in India. Nothing happened; no new ideas were presented; no new concerns were addressed; the opposition parties led by the BJP continued with its rhetoric that the policy was anti-aam aadmi or the common man while the UPA government claiming that FDI in retail is the only course left put some extra money in the pocket of the aam aadmi (We can choose to ignore the fact that UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law Robert Vadra mocks the aam aadmi on Twitter caling them mango people).
And it wasn’t just the structure of the debate that was absurdist; the dialogue followed suit too. Lalu Yadav was questioned the rationale behind using the Twitter and Facebook by BJP leader L.K. Advani if he was really against foreign investment. UPA member of Parliament Deepender Hooda offered to provide twenty four inch potatoes to McDonalds. Our Commerce Minister Anand Kumar Sharma proclaimed that McDonald had to make McAloo Tikki to survive in the Indian market (How is that relevant to the debate? Who cares?). But the biggest howler came from the Kapil Sibal when he said that the fears of the opposition are baseless since Walmart has failed in China and the chances of it succeeding in India are slim because the cycle-scooter-motorcycle riding aam aadmi can never afford to go to Walmart.
In the end, the government won, the opposition lost, the cappuccino drinking intelligentsia witnessed the political tamasha for two days, the TRP of soap operas went down and for once the cable/dish T.V. viewing middle class tuned to the poor man’s Doordarshan while the chai drinking millions continued to toil 18 hours a day to afford two square meals. And the great Indian political tamasha continues……. Stay tuned.
By Rajneesh Dhawan
