I get six papers every morning. I go through their content, absorb a few items which I think are important and dump their supplements in the waste-paper basket without opening them. Nothing in papers riles me more than the government ads, all of which, if they are from the Congress-ruled states, carry pictures of chief ministers and other ministers along with those of Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh, with claims of achievements in agriculture, industry, education and so on. We know that these claims are exaggerated. States ruled by opposition parties do not lag behind in self-aggrandizement and their ads also come with pictures of their ministers. Only Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh are missing there. The claims of the Opposition-ruled states of having made advances in every field are no more credit-worthy than those of the states ruled by the Congress. Since every full-page ad in any of our national dailies costs a lakh or more, the total amount spent on governmental self-publicity runs into crores of rupees every day —enough to set up dozens of schools and clinics. Who pays for this extravagant waste of money? The taxpayer, that is, you and I, because all governmental public relations departments are integral parts of our bureaucracy maintained by tax-payers’ money.
Newspapers are not in any position to object to this practice as their sustenance comes from advertising and the government is the single-largest advertiser in the country. But, surely, something has to be done by somebody to rectify this sorry state of affairs. The only thing that occurs to me is the setting up of a regulatory body which will define limits beyond which government departments cannot go to advertise themselves and check their claims of achievements before they are published. The Bureau of Indian Standards does this in the case of products put in the market and verifies their claims before it issues them a permit. A body like the BIS could be instituted with similar powers regarding government advertisements.
Come to think of it, talking about oneself is regarded as bad manners; praising oneself as an extreme form of vulgarity. Mayavati erecting her own statues at public expense has been castigated by everyone and has been made into a laughing stock. Why spare netas who impose their pictures on us everyday and make us pay for them?
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| Feeling guilty |
Awkward questions
Pranab Mukherjee’s advice to the foreign minister, S.M. Krishna, and to his deputy, Shashi Tharoor, to get out of five-star hotels and occupy the bungalows allotted to them shows all concerned to be a bunch of humbugs. The two were paying for their board and lodging out of their own pockets and not out of the public exchequer. If taken to its logical conclusion, no minister should be eating at a five-star hotel or restaurant because that also appears to be a vulgar display of opulence. Neither Pranabda nor any of his ministerial colleagues is known to refuse to being lavishly entertained. A gourmet meal with drinks costs over Rs 5,000 per head. No one cares if somebody else is paying for it. However, both the ministers looked very shame-faced when they quit their hotels.
They have a few awkward questions to answer. Why did they not move into the bungalows allotted to them? All the tale about the bungalows being renovated according to their needs is nonsense. The bungalows are well maintained by the public works department and are habitable. If the ministers wanted some changes, those could have been made while they were in residence. Unless, of course, their vaastu experts advised them to change entrances, doors and the directions of their toilet seats. We can assume that neither minister is a believer in vaastu.
And who has the right to tell another how he or she should be spending their money? Most certainly, not media persons. Journalists are the biggest free-loaders in our society today. Have you ever seen the editor of a national daily pay for his meal in a five-star hotel? Not even the self-righteous editor of the newspaper that carried the ‘news’ of Krishna staying at the ITC Maurya and Tharoor at the Taj Mahal Hotel. Baby-faced Tharoor looked suitably guilty as if his mom had nabbed him stealing a carton of ice-cream from the family fridge.
Another life
A few years ago, my sister’s son, Tanuj Leekha, got married to Abhilasha in New Delhi. I saw her only once during the marriage festivity, but was charmed by her looks and looked forward to seeing her again. A few days ago, she died in New York. Her parents, husband and father-in-law brought her ashes to be immersed in the holy Ganga. While we were taking her ashes to Hardwar, I read a couplet on the rear of a truck:
“Zindagi rahi to baar baar milengey Nahin to Haridwar milengey.”
(Contributed by Jagjit Puri, Panchkula)
