World wide, with the rise of populist right wing leaders, it would certainly seem so. Donald Trump of the US fights like a foul-mouthed six year old, giving some of his speeches, especially those made to his blue collar base, the flavor of a First Graders’ brawl. Crooked Hillary, lying James Comey, Animal Assad, Rocket Man, leaking (whoever), the fake NYT (or Washington Post), Liddle and Schitt instead Adam Schiff, of whom he has also said he has a skinny pencil neck.
Last week I checked You Tube and listened in fascinated horror as CBS’s Steven Colbert came on and, to the great delight of his studio audience, came back on that one. “I’d rather be a pencil neck than a mushroom d**k”, he said, looking straight at the camera. He was referring to the description of the organ made famous by former porn star Stormy Daniels, who has accused Trump of paying her $130,000 (subsequently returned) in an attempt-cum-threat to get her to shut her mouth about their sexual shenanigans undertaken just after his third wife gave birth to his youngest child.
US President Donald Trump attends the inaugural meeting of the White House Opportunity and Revitalization Council at the White House in Washington, DC, on April 4, 2019. (Photo by Jim WATSON / AFP)
In the Philippines, President Duterte makes Trump sound like a six-year-old. He called the current Pope and President Obama SOBs, used expletives against the Church, invited people to “kill” Catholic Bishops in his country “for criticizing all the time”. Then he called God “stupid” and apparently that was that. His popularity shot downwards to the extent that he had to apologise. After prevaricating about “which God I meant”.
Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro is a piece of work, who uses expletives and cuss words routinely to tell you what he thinks of black people, gays, women. It’s too depressing to quote him. Suffice it to say that the reason I list these leaders is to show that in comparison with them, our leaders and politicians in the main come off as practically courtly, majestic, kingly.
I discovered this when, fed up about something the prime minister said about (surprise, surprise!) Rahul Gandhi, and about the nth time his lieutenant and chief strategist Amit Shah accused someone of insulting the Army and Hindus, I skimmed through news of the last month to see how much abuse had been hurled at politicians by each other. I was looking for real abuse, like “your mother was a prostitute” and “your father is unknown”. I’m being polite but then, everyone knows the words I mean.
All in all, we are much better off than the US, the Philippines and Brazil, that’s for sure. There is much jeering from our prime minister, about Rahul baba, references galore to betrayers, anti-nationals and separatists, plenty of harking back to mythology. Chandrababu Naidu, also known as U- turn chief minister, is like Bhallala Devi from Baahubali, the NCP-Congress is Kumbhakaran, wanting to swallow everything.
The CMP mouth piece in Kerala, Deshabhimani, referred to young Gandhi’s decision to fight from Wayanad as well as Amethi in the forthcoming elections, as a “Pappu strike”, but it is obvious that the hold that the epithet had, when it was coined for 2014 has lost its power. Pappu is now a personality in his own right. Feku trips of the tongue, as does tukde tukde gang.
Chowkidar still has its frisson, especially when juxtaposed with chor. We have to give Pappu that one, like his mother scored with Maut ka Saudagar earlier.
But there is time, with more than a month to go. Who knows, it may be our brave media, in the form of our television channels, that will give us the best and most memorable epithet of this election. Except that I am following the advice of Ravish Kumar and I don’t watch what passes for news on television. Not even NDTV India. It’s a question of retaining one’s sanity.