So what?

T.V.R. Shenoy writes an article in Rediff titled “Our minister for youth affairs is 71!” He calls the appointment of Shri M.S. Gill, who is just shy of his 72nd birthday, as the Union Minister for Youth Affairs “silly”.

My immediate reaction to that was that it was Mr. Shenoy who was being “silly”. There is a scene in Vasool Raja MBBS, where Kamal Hassan and his henchmen wait in the wrong queue in a hospital in order to get an admission to study medicine. One of the staff tells them that only patients get admission, for which Kamal retorts, “Oh, that is so unfair. Should one be a patient first to become a doctor? Or a robber first in order to become a policeman?” (I haven’t watched Munnabhai MBBS, but I’m sure there must be a similar scene.)

To think that the Minister for Youth Affairs should be in the prime of his youth is so indescribably silly! Newspaper columnists give bloggers condescending looks, and think they are incapable, inexperienced and ill-equipped. And then they go back to the comfort of their air-conditioned offices and write articles like these! If the (shadow) Prime Minister of the nation feels that someone is the right person for the job, then let us allow that person to have that job; and not complain about the establishmentarianism so deep-rooted in our polity.

The selfsame newspapers and websites which so clinically take apart Rahul Gandhi’s failures to deliver states let the more experienced leaders off the hook when they turn in similar, or more pathetic, results.

(The rest of Mr. Shenoy’s article belabors the nexus between the Election Commission and the executive branch of the government, and is part of the routine laundry list of disappointments that anyone with any remote idea of Indian politics has.)

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