The fine art of turning ire into political satire

Finally, some Tamil Nadu politicians seem to be discovering the joy of sarcasm. And the credit should go to BJP state president K Annamalai. When Tamil Nadu Congress Committee announced that it would hold a protest in front of the BJP headquarters in Chennai (against Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s statement that the ‘missing’ keys of the Puri Jagannath Temple’s ‘ratna bhandar’ (treasure trove) were in Tamil Nadu), Annamalai said his party would serve food to the protesters (also implying how few the protesters would be). Congress leader E V K S Elangovan was quick to reply: “Please serve beef.”

This is a welcome change from the crass insults some of our politicians who suffer from poverty of imagination hurl at each other. I was reminded of the famous exchange between Bernard Shaw and Winston Churchill, who was considered virtually friendless. “I am enclosing two tickets for the first night of my new play,” Shaw wrote to Churchill. “Bring a friend … if you have one.” Churchill replied: “Cannot possibly attend the first night, will attend the second … if there is one.”

Former DMK president M Karunanidhi was arguably the last master of political repartee in Tamil Nadu politics. After winning the 1996 assembly election in the company of Tamil Maanila Congress (TMC), Karunanidhi was the chief minister when a TMC member in the assembly waxed eloquent on hardware and software development. When the MLA showed no sign of stopping, the chief minister butted in: “Long ago, I used to watch English movies. Whenever the audience laughed, I also laughed, so the others didn’t know I understood nothing.” The legislator silently took his seat.

In 2004, when chief minister J Jayalalithaa ordered the arrest of Kanchi Sankaracharya Jayendra Saraswathi in connection with a murder, reporters asked Karunanidhi, then opposition leader, if he would have done the same if he were the chief minister. “If I were CM,” he said, “the murder wouldn’t have happened.”

In October 2012, police denied permission for DMK’s human chain protest (the protestors were to wear black) against then J Jayalalithaa’s government, Karunanidhi thanked the AIADMK general secretary and asked his cadres, dressed in black, to distribute pamphlets against the government, across the state. “I thank Jayalalithaa for denying police permission for the human chain in Chennai,” Karunanidhi said. “Now our campaign won’t be confined to the city; it will be spread all over the state.”

Sarcasm in politics has been a subject of sociological research. In a research paper, Lori J Duchama of University of Georgia, says sarcasm and humour are two forms of problematic yet functional communication which have received the attention of sociologists. “While a wide range of variation in humorous interaction has been uncovered, the complexities of sarcasm have been largely neglected. This neglect stems in part from a disagreement as to how the relationship between these two communicative resources should be conceptualised. Some distinguish sarcasm and humour on the basis of their perceived positive and negative qualities: It is assumed that humour is affiliative, while sarcasm is often a source of estrangement.”

Karunanidhi was matchless, thus depriving the political audience an opportunity to watch an even match. Elangovan’s ‘beef’ comment was meaty enough. If Annamalai chooses to employ more satire and sarcasm, he may find a better opponent in Udhayanidhi Stalin who at times fails to hide his inherent urge to crack a quip under the veneer of a serious politician. Gregor Mendel, the father of genetics, proved how some of the genes express themselves in a later generation, but the grandson will have to broaden his world view and expand his political knowledge to graduate from a practitioner of boyish banter to a master of political repartee.

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