Ah Populism!

6

I am sure P Chidambaram didn't fret much when it came to deciding that Rs 60,000 crore loan waiver for the farmers. For anyone who understands the dynamics of rural vote bank in this country of ours this would have been the easiest decision to make, especially if there is a Lok Sabha election next year. And here's a short story that explains my possible enlightenment in this front. While covering the electioneering in Tripura in northeastern India, I happened to meet Rakhal Das, farmer, in a rally of Congress President Sonia Gandhi. As I got chitchatting with Das, he confided that he was a former commie. He had been a staunch leftist till the Indo-Bangladesh border fence crisscrossed his tiny piece of land on the border. And almost half of his farm stuck on the other side of the fence rendering it almost useless for him.....