Some of the jawans injured during the landmine blast at Dumaria being treated at the Tata Main Hospital. Picture by Bhola Prasad

Lend us your ears...

Even if the gods, whose generosity the entire Munda government had travelled all the way to Rajasthan to thank, blessed them, the police jawans in the state certainly didn?t.

Instead, they were seething with rage as they attended to their injured colleagues at the Tata Main Hospital. It naturally infuriated them that while they were here laying down their lives for the state, their leaders were far away, seemingly not much bothered. While bombasting the government is usually the role of the Opposition, here it was being done by those who are part of the government machinery itself.

?Our ministers are making merry in Rajasthan, leaving us alone to face the Naxalite bullets,? some jawans were heard grumbling, after the bomb blast in the Ghurabandha area of East Singhbhum. They were heard wondering as to of what use was their hard work and sacrifice if the reaction of the ministers to their problems was so casual. They do have a point, but are the state ministers listening?

Strike, indeed!

As soon as one hears that people are on a hunger strike, one thinks of starving people, on the verge of collapsing perhaps.

But that?s not always the case. Not if the strike begins at 9 in the morning and is over by five in the evening, as it was during the relay hunger strike called by the lawyers of the district civil court.

That doesn?t sound too torturous a ritual to bear. But it had to be kept easy, considering that most of the lawyers on strike had to be cajoled into it. Leading a client, who had come to the court for an affidavit, to very rightfully ask as to: ?What kind of a strike was it??

Indeed, what kind? It had left many lawyers, too, irked that they were specially, repeatedly, requested to join in, leaving them with little options to do otherwise.

Profit talkers

What’s definitely profitable is being able to speak well. And by well, one means being able to turn around what one has spoken before with a straight face.

Cabinet secretary Aditya Swarup, when asked by a journalist if the government was contemplating any Act like Uttar Pradesh which could save the Jharkhand MLAs who too have come under the scanner for holding offices of profits, reportedly said the existing Bihar Act was good enough to allow all legislators to hold any post in the board or corporation.

He insisted there was no need for a fresh Act. When the journalist insisted on seeing a copy of the Act, Swarup pointed out that it was freely available in the law books and on the internet as well.

After the Bill was tabled, the journalist called up Swarup again, asking if the existing Act was good enough, where was the need for the Bill? The cabinet secretary is learnt to have said he had no role to play since all the work was done by the law department

The Advocate General Anil Kumar Sinha, too, had feigned ignorance about the Bill, claiming the Bihar Act was fine enough. But later, he, too, could be heard speaking effusively about the Bill, and its advantages.

Earning game

While on most issues the MLAs across party lines disagree, at least publicly, the office-of-profit issue is definitely one issue they are all going to agree on. Though they earn enough, they all yearn for more by holding on to such posts. After all, to get where they have got, they apparently had to spend a minor fortune, and by the time they leave it all, they obviously want to leave many times richer. Logical, isn’t it?

MP Bagun Sumbrai talks to a group of villagers while giving them moral support in their struggle.Picture by Bhola Prasad

Popular humour

Making tongue-in-cheek statements, or funny asides, have always been common moves used by those in power, or those aspiring for it, to win popularity.

People generally do not want to hear long, boring speeches. They want them to be generously laced with humour, the naughtier the better! And there are enough people willing to oblige. Like the congress MP from Singhbhum, Bagun Sumbrui. He was addressing a meeting of villagers near the National Institute of Technology(NIT), Jamshedpur, giving moral support to their fight over a road. While pledging his support, Sumbrui kept repeating he will continue his support even if the NIT were his father-in-law. ?Though, I do not count how many fathers-in-law do I have,? he added, grinning, knowing those who know will understand the joke. Got it?