Freudian Politics

Why have our political parties been running amok?Amateur psychoanalysis suggests a few answers.Kesri's Attention Problem. He's like a spoilt schoolboy with a destructive ego, quite happy to throw the ball down the gutter if he's not given the first batting. The first time with Gowda he flung it into the nullah, but it was retrieved, cleaned and put back into play. This time he's torn the very stuffings out of it, so it just can't be patched back together. Everyone's forced to look for a new game. Kesri, idiot schoolboy, is examining the stuffings.

Gujral's Pretension Problem. Occasionally a Punjabi strays into the world of art and culture and, worse still, into the rarefied regions of higher morality. (Of course, always armed with pragmatism, business acumen and an eye wide open for the main chance.) Artistic pretension was a nice cap to wear in the Nehru-Indira era, but makes for a lousy qualification in contemporary politics. Witness Kesri, who in the era of cultural pretension played doorkeeper, but is now the president of the Congress. What can one say of a PM who'd rather be IIC president?

The Left's Retention Problem. To tell a story one heard in junior school. The chief's squaw goes to the witch-doctor. "Big chief, no shit." The doc gives her a pill. She returns next day. "Big chief, no shit." He gives her five pills. She's back the next day. "Big chief, no shit." The good doc hands her the entire jar. She's back next morning, running, shouting. "Big shit, no chief." The left's constipation keeps its body and soul together. The tension is just right. The laxative of too much freedom, too much power, too much glasnost, and kaput. Big shit, no chief.

The BJP's Shun-Shun Problem. What does it do to the psyche of a high-caste party when it becomes an untouchable? What is it to be looked down upon by even Sitaram Kesri? And Laloo Yadav? How can you be big and small at the same time? And how can you be both BJP and Hindu?