Bell the motormouths

Is it the lure of attracting attention and being noticed on the social media that drives Indian politicians to periodically make outrageous and politically incorrect statements? Or is it genuine ignorance of history, science and sociology that transforms them into veritable motormouths? If the latter is true then they urgently require to be instructed to think before they speak.

Just last week the new Chief Minister of Tripura, Biplab Deb, a confirmed serial sensationalist, did it yet again. He astounded the audience at a function to mark the birth anniversary of Rabindranath Tagore in Udaipur when he said that the poet laureate returned the Nobel Prize to protest British Rule. Deb had not done his homework and got his history wrong. Tagore had returned his knighthood to condemn the Jallianwala Bagh massacre.

Earlier the Tripura CM made news when he claimed that Internet and satellite communication existed during the Mahabharata era. He followed that up with the pronouncement that mechanical engineers were not suited for the civil services and that only civil engineers were qualified for the job! But Deb is not alone in this. His fellow travellers in the BJP, some of them minsters in the Union cabinet, have distorted both history and science in their effort to extol ancient Indian wisdom.

And almost as if to prove that all politicians are susceptible to similar follies, we have had leaders from across the political divide making statements that are embarrassing and insensitive. Some years ago, there was outrage over Mulayam Singh Yadav’s statement, “Boys will be boys” when commenting on rape. On the same subject khaap panchayat leader, Jitender Chhatar attributed sex crimes against women to consuming fast food such as chowmein.

Such outlandish statements should not be seen as a fringe benefit by our political class. It is indeed time that political parties impress on their leaders to refrain from loose talk that attracts ridicule.

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