ArtsAutosBooksBusinessEducationEntertainmentFamilyFashionFoodGamesGenderHealthHolidaysHomeHubPagesPersonal FinancePetsPoliticsReligionSportsTechnologyTravel

India - A Nation of Witty Wisecracks or Dour Morons

Updated on September 13, 2015

Laughter is the best medicine

Laughter is the best medicine’, claims modern medical science. Humour is the stimulus that induces laughter. Wit is humour in the cerebral form. Satire is humour in malevolent form. Pun is humour in circuitous form. Wit is the art of making a point without making a enemy. Satire is the art of criticizing someone without ruffling the feathers. Pun is the art of denigrating someone in the garb of eulogizing or vice versa. All three are humour in different forms. All induces laughter in different ways. They can take myriad shapes and forms. Superpose into one another, yet retain their identity.

Cattle Class and "Indian Netas - Holy Cows"

A few years back during the UPA-2 regime, austerity measures were placed by the Government due to then ongoing economic recession. That's when our the then Minister of State for External Affairs, Shashi Tharoor, a celebrated former diplomat, tweeted on Twitter, the ubiquitous social networking website that he was travelling cattle class in aerospace in solidarity with the holy cows. The undiplomatic comments of the ace diplomat almost cost him his job. The Poor Minister with rich pedigree, a greenhorn in politics, was nearly hooted out of his chair for not being austere with words in times of austerity. His own party was baying for his blood, for insulting the holy aam aadmi image of the party. Opposition, who are now in the hot seat was castigating him for mortifying the sentiments of the common man. The hapless minister became a villain overnight from a suave, sophisticated and dynamic young turk of the grand old party. Some old flag bearers of the party were imbued with new found enthusiasm to teach some lesson from the glorious Indian tradition of sacrifice to the new disciple, which has waned for public works.

Trivialized Media with Great Austerity Drive

The media, trivialized by the trivia of public discourse revolving around aggressive activism, powered by omniscient anchors with rhetorical oratory and reality TV, gave prime-time coverage to this humoresque public drama. At the end, the uninitiated enfant terrible was saved by none other than the most pedestrian, dull, workmanlike, gruffly old man, our venerable erstwhile Prime Minister Manmohan Singh himself, who termed the famous or rather infamous tweet as a simple joke. The situation still has not changed much though we now have witty, chest thumping, active, colorful Prime Minister with huge mandate and even bigger rhetoric at the helm.

The Great Austerity Drive at the expense of Tax-payers

Whether Mr. Modi conquers the final frontier by hard selling his 'Startup India, India dreams' on his upcoming visit to the silicon valley and turn the tables on former British Raj by holding a grand exhibition at historic Wembley stadium at tax payers’ expense or Rs.20 thousand crores of zero balance A/C savings of common man in London, only time can tell. But the truth remains whoever holds the reins of power at South Block in New Delhi, right of center or left of center, on an average, the taxpayers of this country spends about 3 crores a year for each member of parliament for looking after (read before) the interest of the citizens of this country (read own clan). Every day, around 3 crores is spent when the parliament is in session, half of which is lost in fisticuffs of both verbal and physical kind. Each year, the Hon’ble ministers of the government spend about half of the year outside India on official business (read personal errands). The list of expenditure of the 'netalog' and their minnions, the 'babulog', at the expense of the taxpayers, the ultimate financiers is so long that it will take a lifetime to finish this article. But that’s just the white list. It is the money that is accounted for. We haven’t taken into account the black list. The money which cannot be accounted for, because then we will surely get sucked into a black hole.

Austerity Drive: Real or Wit

Despite Modi government's policy of not allowing Ministers and Bureaucrats to visit abroad more than a certain limit per year without cogent reason, the much ado about austerity will certainly put two great peripatetic mendicants, who preached austerity to attain Moksha or Salvation more than two thousand years ago, Buddha and Mahavira to shame. That brings us to the larger question of public discourse in India with cattle class and holy cows acting as a metaphor and their correlation to humor. One thing for sure, the sharp-witted former MOS never meant it as a joke or even if he did, he deliberately camouflaged it as one to take a potshot at the hypocrisy and hype surrounding the so called austerity practiced by successive political dispensation in power.

Is there space for witty banter in public discourse in this nation

So, the poser ‘is there space for witty banter in public discourse in this nation’. If the answer is yes, then we have matured as a democracy. If the answer is no, then we have still some distance to travel. A country which does not permit humor in all forms in public domain is intellectually sterile. A intellectually sterile country cannot become a vibrant democracy, because democracy is government by discussion, where ideas, serious or humoresque emanate and propagate like a relay race which leads to a mutually acceptable healthy public opinion. Therefore let us not allow our holy cows (read netas) pollute the public discourse through their unholy hypocritical blathering and turn the cattle class (read common man) into a country of dour morons instead of witty wisecracks.

working

This website uses cookies

As a user in the EEA, your approval is needed on a few things. To provide a better website experience, hubpages.com uses cookies (and other similar technologies) and may collect, process, and share personal data. Please choose which areas of our service you consent to our doing so.

For more information on managing or withdrawing consents and how we handle data, visit our Privacy Policy at: https://corp.maven.io/privacy-policy

Show Details
Necessary
HubPages Device IDThis is used to identify particular browsers or devices when the access the service, and is used for security reasons.
LoginThis is necessary to sign in to the HubPages Service.
Google RecaptchaThis is used to prevent bots and spam. (Privacy Policy)
AkismetThis is used to detect comment spam. (Privacy Policy)
HubPages Google AnalyticsThis is used to provide data on traffic to our website, all personally identifyable data is anonymized. (Privacy Policy)
HubPages Traffic PixelThis is used to collect data on traffic to articles and other pages on our site. Unless you are signed in to a HubPages account, all personally identifiable information is anonymized.
Amazon Web ServicesThis is a cloud services platform that we used to host our service. (Privacy Policy)
CloudflareThis is a cloud CDN service that we use to efficiently deliver files required for our service to operate such as javascript, cascading style sheets, images, and videos. (Privacy Policy)
Google Hosted LibrariesJavascript software libraries such as jQuery are loaded at endpoints on the googleapis.com or gstatic.com domains, for performance and efficiency reasons. (Privacy Policy)
Features
Google Custom SearchThis is feature allows you to search the site. (Privacy Policy)
Google MapsSome articles have Google Maps embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
Google ChartsThis is used to display charts and graphs on articles and the author center. (Privacy Policy)
Google AdSense Host APIThis service allows you to sign up for or associate a Google AdSense account with HubPages, so that you can earn money from ads on your articles. No data is shared unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
Google YouTubeSome articles have YouTube videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
VimeoSome articles have Vimeo videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
PaypalThis is used for a registered author who enrolls in the HubPages Earnings program and requests to be paid via PayPal. No data is shared with Paypal unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
Facebook LoginYou can use this to streamline signing up for, or signing in to your Hubpages account. No data is shared with Facebook unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
MavenThis supports the Maven widget and search functionality. (Privacy Policy)
Marketing
Google AdSenseThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Google DoubleClickGoogle provides ad serving technology and runs an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Index ExchangeThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
SovrnThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Facebook AdsThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Amazon Unified Ad MarketplaceThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
AppNexusThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
OpenxThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Rubicon ProjectThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
TripleLiftThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Say MediaWe partner with Say Media to deliver ad campaigns on our sites. (Privacy Policy)
Remarketing PixelsWe may use remarketing pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to advertise the HubPages Service to people that have visited our sites.
Conversion Tracking PixelsWe may use conversion tracking pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to identify when an advertisement has successfully resulted in the desired action, such as signing up for the HubPages Service or publishing an article on the HubPages Service.
Statistics
Author Google AnalyticsThis is used to provide traffic data and reports to the authors of articles on the HubPages Service. (Privacy Policy)
ComscoreComScore is a media measurement and analytics company providing marketing data and analytics to enterprises, media and advertising agencies, and publishers. Non-consent will result in ComScore only processing obfuscated personal data. (Privacy Policy)
Amazon Tracking PixelSome articles display amazon products as part of the Amazon Affiliate program, this pixel provides traffic statistics for those products (Privacy Policy)
ClickscoThis is a data management platform studying reader behavior (Privacy Policy)