Shoe-ing in a change in politics

D N Singh

Ever since George Bush had a narrow escape by the dint of his body reflex against the shoe thrown at him by an Iraqi journalist, it seems to have become the new form of protest across the world. In India especially it has been embraced whole heartedly across the political spectrum. First, there was a shoe thrown at the Union Home Minister P Chidambaram, then another at Congress MP Naveen Jindal. From then on the flood gates of shoes seem to have opened. There was an attempted shoe throw at LK Advani, another on Jitender Kapoor, the star of yesteryear, and now, most shocking of all, a shoe thrown at the PM himself. For the Union Home Minister P Chidambaram it was more of an embarrassment than a threat as the shoe missile flung at him was a symbolic act, albeit with a very serious motive. Naveen Jindal would not have thought even in his wildest imagination that a dhoti-clad retired school teacher from the backwaters could muster the courage to show his anger that way. Now it is for the entire nation to ponder as to why suddenly all these things have started happening? Whether people are not able to determine the mode they should chose to express their disillusionment with the present-day politics or politics itself has sunk to such a low, that such uncivil ways are deemed as the only fair means to protest? When the Iraqi journalist threw his pair of shoes at the US President, in a major part of the Arab world, it was perhaps seen as a counter-attack on US imperialism and a deliberate assault at the pretensions of the American administration, which came in with the pretence of wanting to liberate Iraq from the clutches of a ` tyrant.` All these acts of shoe throwing, deplorable as they are, are more than mere attacks driven by sudden anger or products of a febrile aberration. No. An act always shocks when it is accurate in achieving its intent, however good or bad in taste it may be. But we are not often shocked by many things inflicted upon us by the politics of today. We usually avoid such things. How often are we moved by the embarrassing descriptions of starvation deaths or of a mother selling a child; an abject reality of human conditions in places like Orissa and elsewhere? For instance, when we read or hear about thousands of farmers committing suicide we take it as another piece of news in the columns of a newspaper. The happenings in either Delhi in 1984 or Godhra in Gujarat or the communal conflagration in Kandhamal in 2008, did touch the rawest nerves of common men but such things always tend to die at the thresholds of the law, or within the theoretical limits of reports. They were no mere accidents and ironically, have become a part of the continuing present. The mayhem in Orissa`s Kalinganagar in January 2006 was out and out a politically orchestrated act that led to the brutal killing of 13 tribals. An act that could have been well avoided by the use of some political wisdom. What happened next? The drama of inquiry and compensation still continues. The officers who were behind the firing orders were transferred with promotions they did not deserve. The smouldering anger has not died so far. Kalinganagar is still boiling. Who, in fact, are the main perpetrators of such crimes is not a secret. Many of these are off-shoots of political designs played on all of us. The object is so clear. Persecution of one and appeasement of the other towards a political goal. It is gets unbearable after a point. The mad race after political goals is the biggest threat to the system we now live in. Political parties should know that they cannot enjoy a free hand in getting electoral dividends using perfidious and inflammatory utterances like `hath kat dunga` or `roller chala dunga` and get away with it. These may be seen as tirades within the limits of politics but, ultimately such acts disturb social harmony and lead to an explosion of sufferings one day. Mass emotion is mass emotion and sometime it becomes irresistible. This is what incidents of shoe throwing – more than anything else – clearly demonstrates.