ahul Gandhi’s photos adorn the
shoulders of mainstream news-
papers but he is in Aspen, Col-
orado, apparently to attend a
conference. BJP spokesman
Sambit Patra made a valid point: Rahul has
never attended such intellectually chal-
lenging seminars in India.Why such en-
thusiasm for an event at Aspen?
The election campaign in Bihar is in full
swing. It must be a little embarrassing that
his two rallies in Bihar made no impres-
sion whatsoever. Neither Nitish Kumar nor
Lalu PrasadYadav are comfortable with
Rahul in their vicinity during a serious
campaign. Far fromwinning votes, he
loses votes for any combination he joins.
That is the perception.
If he has chosen to disappear from the
scene to keep his self respect, well, this
would be the first time he has demon-
strated a diminishing value called sensitiv-
ity, a thin skin.
The Aspen conference, if there is one,
may not be his only engagement. Con-
gress president Sonia Gandhi is NewYork
bound for medical checks.Why would the
family, which values its privacy, congregate
in NewYork at a time when the entire In-
dian establishment, media et al, are all
over the city for the UN General Assembly?
It would be malicious to suggest that the
deadline for foreign asset disclosure is ap-
proaching.
The family is, by now, quite used to
scraping the bottom of the electoral barrel.
Another humiliation in Bihar (for the Con-
gress) will not cause much sleep for Sonia,
Rahul or the coterie which survives by
looking at themwith cow eyes.
And yet the media will not give up on
Rahul. There he is on front pages, his es-
capades, if not his politics, the subject of
heated debate on prime time TV.
The media’s obsession with Rahul is
clearly not because of some intrinsic
worth it sees in him. It could be in pursuit
of TRP ratings because in a feudal society a
family name is a valuable asset even
though the family is in free fall.
In fact the Gandhi family, in abject de-
cline, for past few years, were a powerful
negative force which brought Narendra
Modi to power inMay 2014. The world’s
most expensive media campaign would
have remained unrewarded had Modi not
harvested the voters’ total disgust with
mother, son and Manmohan Singh.
It is possible that the formula which
brought Modi to power in 2014 is being
given another try in Bihar. The face of the
BJP’s campaign in the state is Prime Minis-
ter Modi, who is unlikely to double up as
chief minister in the event of a BJP victory.
Regional leaders Nitish and Lalu are the
faces of the RJD-JD-U campaign. There is
no regional BJP leader impressive enough
to face the duet. Not fielding a chief minis-
terial candidate has the advantage of aspi-
rants from diverse castes having their eyes
riveted on the top job and therefore under
some discipline.
There is a flaw in the game plan. An in-
cumbent prime minister fighting state
level leaders does not look logical. Modi,
the aspiring prime minister, riding the
crest of an expensive campaign, battered
an incumbent, Manmohan Singh, who
looked helpless on a short leash held by
Sonia Gandhi.
Within six months of coming to power,
Modi was trounced in Delhi. In other
words he did not ride to power on some
extraordinary magnetism he possessed.
He won because of the media hype plus
the dismal trio in opposition. So, Modi
needs a foil like Rahul against whom he
looks a winner. To that extent Rahul is a re-
quirement of the BJP.
There is an overriding factor. The Indian
ruling class, the corporates included, has
nursed an unrealistic dream that India has
somehow become a two party system.
Two parties carrying carbon copies of
the same economic policy is for the corpo-
rates a dream scenario, accustomed as
they have become to crony capitalism of
differing shades. Rahul as Modi’s foil cre-
ates the illusion of an alternative. This is
supposed to work as a deterrent for third
and fourth fronts.
Sooner or later a fatigue factor will set in
and it would be extremely unfair to Rahul
not to prepare him for that eventuality.
Nitish still looks like a political animal,
at home in the rough and tumble of an
electoral fray. But the rustic charm of Lalu
has now begun to pall. The trend began
with Raj Narain who provided a home-
spun contrast to the polish of Hiren
Mukherjee, Nath Pai and H.V. Kamath.
Lalu today begins to look like a continua-
tion of sustained boorishness on both
sides of the aisle.
Whenever I ask Congressmen why are
they flogging an obstinate horse that will
not budge, they answer listlessly: “For the
time being there is no alternative to the
Gandhi family.”
Talking of the Gandhi family, has any-
one noticed the evolution of Rahul’s first
cousinVarun Gandhi from an intemperate
rabble rouser to a writer of thoughtful
columns? Channels in search of TRPs may
consider a Rahul-Varun showdown.
R
Saeed Naqvi
Columnist
Indo-Asian News
Service
Chairman & Publisher
Dr. Sudhir M. Parikh
Editor
Sunil Adam
Managing Editor
Ela Dutt
Consulting Editor
Suman GuhaMozumder
Chicago Bureau
Sunthar Visuvalingam
Ahmedabad Bureau Chief
Digant Sompura
Tel. 26446947
ContributingWriters
Shilpi Paul, Joanne Flynn Black,
Swathi Reddy
Layout & Design
Shashikant Warik
Photographers
YogeshMehta,
Peter Ferreira, Deval Parikh
Chief Operating Officer
Ilyas Qureshi
Executive Vice President
Bhailal M. Patel
Advertising Manager
Sonia Lalwani
Advertising NewYork
Shailu Desai, Manoj Vyas
Advertising Chicago
Syed Sheeraz Mahmood
(773) 807-7925
Editorial & Corporate Headquarters
115West 30th Street, Suite 1206
NewYork, NY 10001
Tel. (212) 675-7515
Fax. (212) 675-7624
E-mails
Website
Chicago Office
2652West Devon Avenue, Suite B
Chicago ,IL 60659
Tel. (773) 856-0545
Fax. (773) 856-3537
California Office
650Vermont Ave, Suite #46
Anaheim ,CA 92805
Tel. (661) 468 -3851
Ahmedabad Office
303 Kashiparekh Complex
C.G. Road, 29 Adarsh Society
Ahmedabad 380009
Tel. 26446947
Fax. 26565596
Published weekly, Founded in 1975.The views
expressed on the opinion page and in the Letters to
the Editor column are those of the writers and do
not necessarily reflect those of News IndiaTimes.
Copyright © 2015, News IndiaTimes
News IndiaTimes (ISSN 0199-901X) is published
every Friday by ParikhWorldwide Media Inc.,
115West 30th Street, Suite 1206, NewYork, NY 10001.
Periodicals postage paid at NewYork, N.Y.,
and at additional mailing offices. Postmaster: Send
address change to News IndiaTimes, 115West 30th
Street, Suite 1206, NewYork, N.Y. 10001
Annual Subscription: United States: $28
Rahul ShowsNo Interest Or Talent
The media’s obsession with Rahul is clearly not because of some intrinsic worth it sees
in him. It could be in pursuit of TRP ratings
Opinion
3
News India Times
October 9, 2015
ave you noticed that a significant
percentage of parenting time is
spent screaming at your children
to stop screaming? Researchers say
that even very young children are
now learning curse words, because parents
break their own anti-cursing rules. “You’re
three years old! Stop (bleep) swearing!”
My gently religious family has always
been totally non-cursing, with words like
“silly” being considered highly risqué, and
“poppyhead” causing people to faint.
Not so in the outside world. I was
shocked recently when I did some broad-
casting and my loose-tongued co-presenter
was told that almost all curse words were
now allowed after 9 p.m.
This is bad for everyone, because re-
searchers say that English-speaking soci-
eties are running out of swear words. They
lose their power now. Scientists say curses
are important because they evolved to alle-
viate physical and emotional pain. Still, I do
think some people should never use bad
words because they just sound wrong in
their mouths. Like weather forecasters. “A
(bleep)-load of rain fell this morning, and
the humidity level will rise to a (bleep) of a
lot by noon.” Just doesn’t work.
One suggestion someone gave me is to
use swear words from other languages. In
the U.S. TV show “Firefly”, actors used real
swear words, but only inMandarin and
Cantonese. Guys, there are a lot of people
who speak Chinese on this planet, or hadn’t
you noticed? Still, it’s true that non-English
speakers have some cool curses. In Hindi,
people insult each other by saying: “You are
the hair growing on my flank area.” InMan-
darin Chinese, people say, “You son of a
rabbit.” (Sometimes you hear parents curse
lazy children with this phrase without real-
izing the irony.) I had an Italian friend who
used to say “Maladicta” when I trod on his
toes. It sounded very “sweary” but he’s liter-
ally just saying “Bad word.”
Some years ago, I had to train a foul-
mouthed reporter for a job on live radio.We
wrote a list of words that sounded like
curses but were safe for broadcasting use
and taped them to her microphone. The
top three most satisfying ones were Pool,
Cow and Follicle. The next time something
bad happens, try shouting “POOL” at the
top of your voice. It works really well.
If you want to be really classy, I recom-
mend making all dramatic announcements
in Latin. Here are some useful phrases to
get you started. At the bar: “Di! Ecce hora!
Uxor mea me necabit!” (“Dear God, look at
the time! My wife will kill me!”) On the
street: “Recedite, plebes! Gero rem imperi-
alem!” (“Stand aside plebians! I am on im-
perial business.”). And if you want to insult
someone, skip the expletives. The most hor-
rible curse in Latin is this one: “Utinam log-
ica falsa tuam philosophiam totam
suffodiant.” (“May faulty logic undermine
your entire philosophy.”) Ooh, that’s nasty.
CurseWords For ClassyFamilies
H
By Nury
Vittachi
Whenever I ask
Congressmenwhy are they
flogging an obstinate horse
that will not budge, they
answer listlessly: “For the
time being there is no
alternative to the Gandhi
family.”
