The entire nation knows Arvind Kejriwal’s blood sugar levels. On April 21, at 7.30 am, it was 217. On April 23, at 8 pm, it had shot up to 320. There were intense debates on TV studios with panels of diabetes experts countering each other as to when insulin should be given. Should it be at 200 or at 230? Kejriwal’s rivals asked why he was eating mangoes in jail if he is diabetic. His lawyer Abhishek Manu Singhvi had to tell the Rouse Avenue Court in Delhi: “Mangoes have been made to look like sugar bullets.” Apparently, Kejriwal also had halwa and aloo puri on the occasion of Ram Navami. Is that what a diabetic should be eating? Newspapers and websites had ‘explainers’—the go-to toolkit to bait the readers to click—where nutritionists weighed in on the molecular make-up of halwa, sugar content of potatoes, harmful effects of deep-fried items like puris. Their collective conclusion was that if eaten in moderation, it was alright.
When he finally did get the insulin shot, his party, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), posted on X: “This has been possible only due to the blessings of Lord Hanuman and the struggle of the people of Delhi. We have succeeded in delivering insulin to our Chief Minister.” This could be the exact message Lord Ram could have posted during the time of the Ramayana: “This has been possible only due to the blessings of Lord Hanuman and the struggle of the people of Ayodhya. We succeded in delivering the Sanjeevani herb to our brother Lakshman.” Outside the AAP office, a supporter was dressed as Hanuman (all this fuss about Hanuman because Kejriwal is an avowed Bajrang Bali bhakht, or at least in the AAP’s attempt at soft-Hindutva) with two giant insulin vials cut-outs, along with the AAP leader and minister of health for Delhi, Saurabh Bharadwaj.
After Kejriwal’s sugar levels somewhat stabilised, next came this bolt from Prime Minister Narendra Modi: “The royal family’s prince’s advisor has said that more taxes should be imposed on the middle class. Now, these people have gone one step further than this… the Congress says that it will impose an Inheritance Tax, and it will also impose tax on the inheritance received from parents. The property you have accumulated through your hard work will not be given to your children,” he thundered.
All hell broke loose—what on earth is this Inheritance Tax? All the rich children caring for old parents choked on their cool, tall summer drinks. Will it all go to the government? they quaked. Many thought the nepotism controversy of Bollywood was back. Do all the star kids have to pay a tax now? Had Kangana Ranaut raked up something again, in her fervent campaigning in Mandi?
And who is this Congress advisor Modi was referring to, ushering in such groundbreaking tax reforms? It was the good old Sam Pitroda—one of the few gents who dyes his French beard jet black and leaves his hair snow white—a relic in the Congress as the STD/PCO booths he is credited with spreading all over the country, and currently leader of the Indian Overseas Congress, sitting somewhere in Illinois. Sam, who? Many in the Congress asked before they hurried to dissociate themselves with the statement. Dutifully, all the websites did explainers on ‘What is Inheritance Tax?’ and ‘Who Is Sam Pitroda?’ Is Inheritance Tax the most burning issue in these elections, will any party dare to introduce it if elected to power, least of all the Congress, with its wealth of inheritance? Just before this, the nation’s eyes were glued on Tejashwi Yadav’s plate of fried fish. There was righteous indignation that he was chomping on fish during the Navaratri festival, at least in what’s called the cow belt region, as nobody much cares for this fasting period in the east or the south. To mend his non-sanskari ways, Tejashwi promptly released another video on X that showed him eating oranges. I am sure there were explainers on the importance of fasting, benefits of omega-3 acid in fish and immunity-boosting abilities of oranges.
The BJP and the INDIA bloc are fighting this election visionless. On the plus side, there is no jingoistic nationalism in the campaign speeches like there was five years ago, boosted by the Balakot airstrike. But on the negative, no party is raising the issues of unemployment, health, education, corruption, sanitation, violence against women, abysmal social indices, climate change—yes, it’s a recurring lament, they are all dull and dour subjects for TV brawls, but what perhaps matter most to the voters. That’s why Outlook will hold on to its journalistic standards and our reporters will continue to bring stories from the ground in this edition—on the changing ethos of Varanasi, red-sand mining in the Naxal areas of Gadchiroli, Adivasi identity in Maharashtra, polarisation in Karnataka, disillusionment in Bihar, water scarcity in Rajasthan, the ghettos in Gujarat, fewer voters in Kerala and political machinations in Kashmir.
