Tamasha turns into tragedy at AAP rally

With nothing exciting as in TRPfetching eyeballgrabbing exciting happening in Lutyensrsquo Delhi our national media especially television channels pounced upon the rather tragic incident at AAPrsquos rally on Wednesday Thanks to saturation coverage for the past 72 hours everybody knows the basic facts a man from Rajasthan died during the rally ostensibly organised to protest against the Land Acquisition OrdinanceAfter enthralling volunteers and mediapersons at the AAP rally with his antics atop a tree waving a broom shouting slogans he made a show of using his gamchha to tie a noose around his neck and commit suicide What was meant to be a madeforcameras farce turned into a real life tragedy He slipped and died PicPTIIt is really not material though arguably a point could be made that Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had no business organising an ldquoall India rallyrdquo against a proposed law He would be serving AAPrsquos constituents and Delhi far better were he to focus on his remit The few farmers left with land in Delhi are waiting for the right buyer with the right amount though not necessarily the right kind of moneyNor are those who have bought agricultural land in Delhi to build fabulous sprawling farmhouses terribly bothered about their land being acquired by the government lsquoagainst their wishesrsquo Such terrible things do not happen in Delhi The Supreme Court which wants Campa Cola flats demolished for FSI violation has shown no inclination to be equally evenhanded with the lsquofarmersrsquo among them the NehruGandhis of Sainik Farms and ChhattarpurThere are farmers and farmers in India There are farmers who use their loose change to buy BMWs and Range Rovers and can be spotted at the fanciest watering holes of Indiarsquos National Capital Region Then there are farmers who have leased their land to others work for corporates and wax eloquent on Indiarsquos farm crisis We also have politicians who describe themselves as agriculturists and pose as spokesmen for those who till their fieldsYet another category of farmers small marginalised at times even landless exists There are also those who belong somewhere in between the swaggering Gucciclad big farmer and impoverished bhukhananga marginal farmer The kulaks as Communists would refer to them Caste community class and control over land fuse seamlessly in the categorisation of Indiarsquos kisansBut let us return to AAPrsquos rally in Delhi We donrsquot quite know which category of farmers AAP wants to fight for though it would appear from those who turned up for the rally Kejriwal and his chosen loyalists wouldnrsquot know the marginal farmer from the BMW ownerSuch nuances proved to be meaningless as the show was stolen literally and metaphorically by Gajendra Singh Kalyanwat from Dausa district in Rajasthan After enthralling AAP volunteers and mediapersons with his antics atop a tree waving a broom shouting slogans he made a show of using his gamchha to tie a noose around his neck and commit suicide What was meant to be a madeforcameras farce turned into a real life tragedy He slipped and diedKejriwal did not abandon the rally He kept on exhorting farmers to resist the Modi government I doubt he has even read or understood the amendments to the Land Law Later AAP spokesmen responded with cynical caustic comments while everybody else jumped in to shed tears over a poor farmer committing suicideThe tragedy was not manufactured it was accidental But there is nothing accidental about the mediarsquos hyenalike response and the treacly sentiments voiced by politicians A narrative was manufactured in TV studios it was then tailored by each party to its own seeming advantage Lost in the cacophony of voices were facts that should have been upfrontGajendra Singh was not an impoverished farmer His family owns substantial land a gooseberry orchard and a teak plantation and is politically powerful He was as Hindustan Times rightly described him a lsquoreluctant farmerrsquo who wanted to become a politician He was a party hopper he had contested elections twice on a SP ticket he had recently migrated to AAPYet his death is being showcased as the leitmotif of Indiarsquos hapless farmers who commit suicide by the scores The New York Times ran a story reminiscent of the purple prose of Manohar Kahaniyan our desi media did not lag behind Who is to stand up and say farmers do not necessarily commit suicide because of crop failure That reasons of impoverishment are not limited to land or crop price or crop failureWe live in strange times when truth is truly stranger than fiction and strangest of all is the ease with which media and politicians can forcefeed the masses with garbage day after day relentlessly without even the slightest trace of remorse For evidence look at AAPrsquos tamasha after Wednesdayrsquos tragedy And how media is going to town projecting it as lsquonew politicsrsquoThe writer is a senior journalist based in the National Capital Region His Twitter handle is KanchanGupta