Sunday Musings 19/01/14: The Empire Strikes Back!

The panjandrum of the national press and the talking heads on TV have the cudgels out for AAP. And after the initial shock, the major political formations have got their dirty tricks departments’ working day and night targeting it. But the biggest strike that threatens the AAP phenomenon is from within. Not just within the party in the shape of sundry moles like Binny but from within the consciousness of AAP’s best people. The ministers in Delhi’s state cabinet need to dig deeper to find the right response to a state of being that is ipso facto alien to them: that of being in power. Are they doing so? One would think not. Except for Kejriwal who seems to have found an angle of repose, the others seem to be floundering. History tells us that successful rebellions carry the seeds of failure within their very success that they fought so hard for. In fact this is the most potent weapon of the empire of power in its effort to crush all newcomers. The empire not only strikes back it strikes within. Whether or not AAP survives the assault, there is no doubt that AAP has already done what all successful rebellions do that is change the frame of reference. Those in power are now uneasy. They must learn this new frame of reference and those who enjoy power and pelf find learning the hardest thing to do. It is the wedding season and I have attended my fair share already. Over the past couple of years I have noticed a trend at Indian weddings that has the amateur anthropologist in me thinking. Traditionally it is the groom that comes to the wedding venue with much sound and fury accompanied by loud music, firecrackers and raucous dance by accompanying friends and relatives. Traditionally the bride waits demurely for all this circus to reach its conclusion so that she can garland the cock-a-hoop groom. This seems to be changing. Now at quite a few weddings, the bride gets her moment of glory too. After the groom’s arrival at the wedding venue he is made to cool his heels as the bride is carried to him in a colorful and somewhat noisy parade. I am told that the longer the procession, the longer the groom waits, the greater the glory of the bride. Is this a sign of the rising power of the woman even in the strata of Indian society that likes to celebrate and conduct weddings lavishly (that is 98% of the rich, the poor and everybody in between)? Or is the wedding procession of the bride just another facet of the rising macho competitiveness in Indian society – the bride’s father asserting his masculinity in the face of the increasingly boorish dance of the groom’s arrival?