Blah Blah Ramdev and India's love for nonsense

The hero utters a war cry and shoots the villain with the previously cast aside weapon; previously assumed bravery and muscle power be damned!

In the end, though, everything works out well.

The point being that Indians love their melodrama, in all forms and shapes. And Hindi movies, the touchstone of popular culture, play upon this love.

The problem is that more often than not, the effects spill over from the reel into the real.

Take the Baba Ramdev tamasha, which played out like a really bad 1980s film, the Is kahani main drama hai, action hai, emotion hai subtext all too evident beneath the surface of the cause celebre.

The Baba, the yoga, the black money, the fast, the slogans, the lathi charge, the cross dressing, the externment, the tears, and the subsequent allegation of a murder conspiracy! If you happened to land in India without a context and chanced upon the wall-to-wall Baba coverage on TV, you would think that a country of 1.2 billion people had solved all its problems – internal security, border disputes, poverty, female infanticide, hunger, sanitation, inflation - and was staging this side show just to let its hair down for a bit.

Sadly, the fast was the predominant story across mainstream media, instead of being some kind of 'Oddly Enough' visual relief package in the last segment of the country's news bulletins.

As a Western diplomat put it to me rather cheekily, 'I went away for a week and when I got back...I was like, what the hell!! Now a yoga guru is running this country?'

Of course, to make up for the lack of melodrama, Sushma Swaraj and company broke into a spontaneous dance at Rajghat. You would think that the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha using dance as a method to register protest - a classic real-imitating-reel moment - would shock people. Such is the public acceptance of melodrama, leave alone shock, it didn't even surprise anyone.

With the reduction of complex, fundamental issues into a farce, the level of mainstream debate around them is so shallow and superficial and so mired in theatrics that you might as well not follow the debate. You won't miss a thing.

The Ba Ba Black Money story is a case in point.

Why the average Indian accepts such nonsense in the name of discourse is beyond me. Perhaps the polity and the media have collaborated in reducing expectations to such a level that anything goes. Even characters like Baba Ramdev, who simply swoop in to fill the vacuous political space forfeited by genuine political institutions like a corrupt ruling disposition and an incompetent opposition party.

It's ironic that a controversial yoga guru discredited several times - right from making claims of curing AIDS to selling Putravati, a drug that Baba Ramdev claimed could make women have sons - is raising the bogey of black money.

Of course, as is the order of the day, Baba's solution to bringing back the billions is a fast under a very basic and drab slogan: Bring the black money back. I'm surprised that Baba hasn't prescribed the PM some magic pills to go with the slogan.

In spite of the obvious farce value of the gimmick, rest assured that very soon we'll see another Baba-type character occupy the national conscience, channelising the rage of a young India against a political system that is supposed to work, but doesn't.

P.S: As a young reporter, I have had the opportunity of covering Baba Ramdev events a few times. In 2006, ASSOCHAM organised a 'Science and Spirituality' debate between Professor Harry Kroto (Nobel Prize winner in Chemistry) and Baba Ramdev.

When Professor Harry spoke emphatically about the role of science in our lives, the audience, mostly uncles and aunties from Delhi, spaced out.

Baba Ramdev did not speak much.

Instead, he sucked in his stomach till the belly button and the spine were one and churned his guts giddy to thunderous applause of gaping mouths.

I was there in 2008, when in a small restaurant at Pragati Maidan in Delhi, Ramdev announced he would launch a political party that will contest the 2014 elections from all 543 constituencies of the country. None of us filed a story.

The editors did not ask for one either...

More by Raheel Khursheed: The Ma-Behen of Indian democracy

Operation Osama: A jihadi cow, some chicks and a lot of confusion

The coolest jail in India

Ban the burqa? Let the women decide

Even Pappu can fast - Only you can kill corruption
 

Raheel Khursheed is an independent journalist based in Kashmir. He consults on communication skills, development and youth leadership. He writes on international, national, local and even trivial matters. You can contact him on raheel.khursheed@gmail.com. Follow Raheel on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Raheelk