Old Men At Sea

Moving right along past the 70-plus home minister and defence minister, we come to our octogenarian prime minister who makes Abraham Lincoln look like a New Age punk rocker. Archaic Atal’s still with his Ram Lila ground speeches, his ’50s bandgala and his walk—which is only slightly faster than the eternal way of life of India’s eternal villages. Poor Atalji. I love him dearly. But he’s a sepia-tinted gulab jamun in this snappy new century, when planes might be hijacked during an afternoon siesta.

(Remember when pictures of masked men dropping down from IC-814 parked in Kandahar appeared on TV, minister Chaman Lal Gupta had sleepily assured the nation that he had information to the contrary?)

Why do Indians adore old age? Perhaps it’s a Hindu thing. The Dhritarashtra syndrome. Even angry old man George Fernandes has been outwitted by information technology and related nasties like hidden cameras.

Antique jurists are delivering cantankerous judgements. State governors, in a haze of glucose, are absent-minded about the Constitution. Other oldies in liberal arts institutions are furiously working to restore the country to its BC prestige. L.M Singhvi, who tries to sound like Lord Denning and ends up sounding like Shatrughan Sinha, betrays the dazzling pomposity of the truly passe.

Raisina Hill’s become an old-age home. The cabinet committee on security—comprising Jaswant, George, K.C. Pant, Brajesh and Advani—are all in their 70s. With pensioners in charge, the country’s security is living on borrowed time.

There’s hope, though. State chief ministers appear to be getting younger even as the national leadership ages. Ashok Gehlot, Digvijay Singh, Vilasrao Deshmukh, Rajnath Singh and IT-man Chandrababu Naidu are thankfully not heroes from the freedom struggle.