By : Valson Thampu

One sign of originality is the ability to others by surprise. When ten people are gazing at the sky to see a comet, you stare at the same sky and spot a comic strip. Or, everyone expects you to make a sad funeral speech. You get up and do a bangra. And so on.

Trust the Badals to do that in their manifesto. They offer to buy 100000 acres of land in America or Canada and resettle the dear, patriotic, Punjab-loving farmers there. Age, caste, sex, colour, skill no bar.

What an idea! It stands with a flourish on the similarity between Punjabis and Keralites. Both have their promised land beyond their borders. They are, presumably in their elements only after leaving their states.

I remember being introduced to a member of the Bahrain Amir family a few years ago. We met accidentally at the airport and my host there, being a senior journalist, was influential enough to sneak me into the royal presence.

The Amir warmed up on being told that I was a Malayali. (For reasons, not entirely clear to me, I am, otherwise, taken mostly for a Bengali. When I came Kerala to address a public gathering for the first time, my hosts were surprised that I could address the audience in Malayalam. Truth to tell, Malayalam is the only language I know. I pretend to know English just to make a living.)

“Half the workers in Bahrain,” he told me effusively, “are Malayalis. They are our best workers.” My regional pride went through the roof. Unfortunately for me, he continued. “But I also know that if they are in Kerala, they will hardly work.” I sank through the floor.

In this Punjabis are a class above Keralites. They are sturdy workers even in their home state. Or, more accurately, they were. Then came an avalanche of drug addiction and alcohol abuse, devastating the youth of that most dynamic state.

I do not know if the allegations against the extended Badal clan in this regard are factually true; or, if they are, to what extent. But I do know that anti-social and criminal activities cannot flourish anywhere without political patronage. It is like what the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh said a long, long time ago.

“Communal riots will happen only when I want it.” That’s the truth. No state is an exception to that. The doctrine of “spontaneous eruption of communal hatred and blood bath” is a joke. It is meant for cretins.

Politicians contest elections and shoulder responsibilities only for our good. Ask them. Each one of them will swear by this. But the end result of their love for us is that they ruin what little we have. It has happened to Punjab. The state today staggers under the crushing burden of debt, totalling some 2 lakh crores.

That explains why the Badals offer an escape route as a masterpiece of sure-shot populism. They know, or at least seem to believe, that in the present condition of Punjab, the most attractive prospect for sensible people –and farmers are sensible people- is to flee the state.

When it comes to generosity and compassion, it is difficult to match the Badals. Most politicians would eschew even the slightest admission of misdeeds. Here is a father-son duo, who are so sincere and transparent that they come up with an election promise that amounts to a resounding self-condemnation.

When it is it that leaving one’s home and settling down in an alien land becomes attractive? Is it not when survival itself is dubious and uncertain in the familiar habitat? People migrating to other destinations, abandoning the land of their childhood memories, is an unnatural thing. It is like water going uphill, when pumped. Otherwise, it is in the nature of water to flow downhill.

The Badals are offering to pump Punjabi water uphill. It is reminiscent of what Dr. Johnson, the 18th Century English literary giant said, belittling Ireland. “The only bright prospect for the Irish is the road that leads to London.”

When Amir Khan referred to the insecurity that his wife felt in the wake of a perceptible rise in intolerance, there was an outcry against his infirm patriotism. Leaving the country is an implied insult. It carries the covert verdict that India is a failed state.

Surprisingly no one is bothered that the Badals are giving out a worse message on a much larger scale. Is it yet another version of the good old distinction that St. Augustine records in The City of God? The captain of pirate frigate was caught by Alexander’s navy. He and his twenty fellow pirates were produced before the king.

“How dare you disturb the peace of my seas,” King Alexander thundered. “Sir,” the pirate replied, “I have only a small frigate and twenty men. So I am called a pirate. You have a huge navy and a massive fleet of ships. So you are called an emperor. Otherwise, what’s the difference between what you and I do?”

The Gospel According to the Badals is clear: “Truly, truly I say unto you; unless you escape from Punjab, you shall in no wise enter the promised land.”  Amen.