Faking It, Then Cashing In On Anger For Political Gains

Parties are talking too much in too angry an idiom for the well wishers of Punjab to feel at ease about the present and, even more importantly, about future of the state otherwise full of zest for life.

- Harcharan Bains

As Punjab heads towards yet another assembly election, opinions are divided on how the people of the state needed to approach this exercise to begin with. Too many people are talking too much in too angry an idiom for the well wishers of the state to feel at ease about the present and, even more importantly, about the future of this great state otherwise full of zest for life. For some reason, everyone likes to look angry and everyone says he has a different reason for being angry and a different target to vent this anger on.

The Opposition parties, chiefly the Congress and Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Admi Party (AAP) would naturally want everyone to believe that the anger which they keep talking about one rally after another is an expression of the people’s disgust with the present regime which both the Congress and the AAP leaders describe in Punjabi idiom which would seem floral except that it is too thorny and malignant to bear even a distant resemblance to flowers. The entire campaign seems to be powered by language of fake wrath, the Opposition clearly faking it to convince the people that it is they who are really angry. Neither the people nor the opposition can be oblivious of the massive all round development that has taken place in the state. And yet, listen to these worthies on the state of affairs in Punjab, and you will get the impression that this earth has no place hotter and uglier than Punjab to show. How cruelly unfair this is to the people of this great land can be judged from the paradox of political parties claiming “Sara Punjab saade naal” (The whole of Punjab is with us) and yet calling 70% of that Punjab as the land of drug addicts and criminals!