New Year messages

“The most important lesson that the outgoing year teaches us is that India cannot afford to have a government in which the prime minister has no real authority, and the leader who has the authority has no accountability…[The events of 2008] have taught an important lesson to India: to have a strong leader.”
That was the New Year message to his nation from Lal Krishna Advani, issued on January 1, 2009.
The sneer at Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the swipe at Congress party president and United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson Sonia Gandhi were obvious. Not so obvious then was the dramatic irony of the declaration.
It was to become so only five months later, when an electorate under the spell of pseudo-secularism failed to see that prime minister-in-waiting Advani was the answer to all of India’s problems.
We cannot claim — as every television channel does about every document that its lone, legitimate owner “leaks” to the entire electronic media — that we have obtained an exclusive copy of the message from the former deputy prime minister to his dear motherland. But we do know — sorry we cannot disclose our dependable sources in Nagpur (headquarters of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh where all such statements are henceforth to be vetted) — what the message will NOT be.
It will not read: “The most important lesson the outgoing year teaches us is that the Bharatiya Janata Party cannot afford to have a shadow prime minister without substance. The voters do not want a government in which the prime minister will have no real authority, and the RSS wielding the authority will have no accountability.”
Our sources have positive indications to offer as well. According to them, the message on the same occasion from Nitin Gadkari, the brand-new BJP president, may quite possibly read: “The painful events of 2008 have taught an important lesson to the party: to have a strong leader from the RSS.” Who, after all, can be stronger than a product of the supreme body of India’s far right, who has completed the course of culturally nationalist exercises, in a pair of khaki half-pants, come sun or rain?
On to other bright stars of the BJP firmament.
The message from Sushma Swaraj, new Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha (Lower House of India’s Parliament), is likely to move many to tears. It may run on the following lines: “With a heavy heart, I send you all New Year greetings that you should have rightfully received from the great Advaniji. For one more year, we have kept a person of foreign origin away from the prime minister’s post. My earlier threat to cut off my tresses if this calamity befell the nation, has continued to work. Should the need arise in the coming year, I vow again to make the supreme sacrifice.”
The message from Arun Jaitley, Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha (Upper House of India’s Parliament) may be more buoyant for a manifest reason. He also presides over the Delhi District Cricket Association (DDCA), which has covered itself with glory by laying too dangerous a pitch in its Ferozeshah Kotla stadium for an India-Sri Lanka one-day match to be completed the other day.
Jaitley may be duly modest in his message: “We will never let laws of the game prevail over love of our country. We tried our very best to give our bowlers and their bouncers a chance in a batsman’s game, especially of batters like Tillakaratne Dilshan and Kumar Sangakkara. Even the best-laid plans and worst-laid pitches, however, fail to work at times and the match has been abandoned. On this New Year Day, we renew our resolve to serve the nation in ground-breaking ways.”
As Jaitley’s proclamation causes jubilation in the patriotic camp, Bal Thackeray of the Shiv Sena may well be expected to send him the following message, with a copy to the nation: “Keep it up, Arun. We dug up Mumbai’s Wankhede Stadium pitch once, to keep cross-border enemies out. You have outdone us by doing it officially. Congrats. Let no penalty from the International Cricket Council deter you from trying the same tactic on Pakistan’s next India tour, if we ever allow it.”
On publication of this statement, Raj Thackeray of the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena can be counted upon to send something like the following missive to Balasaheb, with a copy to the Maratha Manoos (the Maratha Man): “Let us not dwell too long on the victory of vandalism at Wankhede. If you and I join hands, we can do a Jaitley to all visiting north Indian teams in Mumbai.”
The common Indian can send this common message to Advani, Gadkari, Sushma, Jaitley, and the two Thackerays: “I showed in 2009 that I had learnt the lesson from 2008. Will you show in 2010 that you have learnt your lesson from 2009?”

The writer is a journalist based in Chennai, India. A peace activist, he is also the author of a sheaf of poems titled At Gunpoint