Talking Heads

[Guest guest]

Talking Heads

The Times of India 2 August 2001, New Delhi.

'Talk less, work more' was an exhortation popularised by

Sanjay Gandhi in his heyday during the Emergency. With his

Characteristic disdain for parliamentary norms, he aimed his

aphorism at the common man, who has never had the luxury of

talking more and working less.

But, perhaps, these words may be valuable advice for our elected representatives

who tend towards inappropriate verbosity,

irrespective of the occasion. The forum, the gravity of the

subject, the sentiments of the audience, none of these factors

deters our netas once they get into bhashan mode.

If the venue is an international one, then truly there is no

stopping our ministers from lengthy discourses. Experts must

still be trying to figure out the nuances of our health

minister's virtuoso performance at the historic UN general

assembly on HIV/AIDS.

In pursuit of a post for India on the board of a proposed global

fund of around seven billion dollars to fight the disease, the

minister declared in the same breath that India had been

enormously successful in fighting the virus and today had

the second highest number of cases in the world. Earlier,

he vigorously contested UN figures of HIV prevalence, claiming

that these were grossly exaggerated.

The minister's performance pales in comparison with a previous

one by a filmstar-turned-politician who declared at a function

to raise funds to fight HIV/AIDS that those affected by the

virus ought to wear badges to identify themselves. The chief

guest, Hollywood actor Gere, was left speechless by

this public display of insensitivity.

Cut to Kerala where former chief minister E K Nayanar, when

addressing the rise in crimes against women, dismissed the

issue of rape with the pronouncement: " What is all this

fuss over rape? There is a rape every five minutes in

America. " Feminists are still getting over that one.

For those in the dark about the reasons for illiteracy in

this country, the minister for human resource development

had an interesting prognosis. Addressing a function at

which the head of UNESCO was present, the HRD minister

laid the blame for India's illiteracy squarely on our

colonial rulers.

Before the British broke the back of our traditional

education system, he said, there was a primary school

in every village. The British have been gone for well

over 50 years but the UNESCO chief presumably was too

polite to raise this inconvenient point. Earlier too,

the minister has never failed to assert that the India

of yore was more advanced than most other countries. But

with the characteristic indulgence we extend to the obiter

dicta of our leaders, no one has openly challenged any of

these theories. Perhaps, there is a message for our elected

representatives in the lines by Garnett:

" I hardly ever ope my lips, " one cries/ " Simonides, what

think you of my rule? " / " If you're a fool, I think you're

very wise/If you are wise, I think you are a fool. "

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Forwarded by: Dr.Jagdish Harsh

E-mail: fxbindia@...; Web: http://www.fxb.org/india.htm

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