I’m not saying American voters are wiser than Indian voters in their choice of leaders.
That’d be laughable.
I’m not saying their politicians are more honest, educated, or competent than ours.
Far from it.
I’m not saying their democracy functions better than ours in every way.
I’m not going there at all.
I’m not even making a point about the quality of politicians anywhere. Or that any of this is anything more than a performace.
I am not stupid, you know.
I’m just asking four simple questions:
- In India, this Mother of Democracy, do we have any system that publicly, transparently, and rigorously vets someone before they are appointed to a position of power and responsibility?
- When was the last time a politician from an Indian ruling party openly questioned the ability or—heaven forbid—the intent of an appointee chosen by their own party leader and the sitting Head of Government?
- When was the last time you heard an Indian politician speak with this level of clarity, logic, and articulation, and even while being aggressively questioning, even inquisitorial, but never impolite? And no, Shashi Tharoor’s verbose rhetoric, stringing together obscure words like a Victorian dictionary on steroids, does not count.
- When did you see, at any time in your lifetime, any Indian politician sit quietly and listen to a question being put to them, without interrupting, shouting, or walking away—least of all a politician that has the sort of family history that a Kennedy commands in the USA?
And I am not even getting into how he, a man of science, is sticking to being, well, a man of science rather than giving in to his party’s rather well-known and well-publicised anti-science stance. That is an outlier, whether here or in the USA. So, let us ignore that. For this instance.
But the rest of it? I was mesmerised. Watching a Republican politician grill a Republican nominee of a freshly minted Republican President, both of them exhibiting civilised behaviour even while the entire exchange (if it may be called as such) was adversarial and combative, as it was meant to be. And not just the nominee of any Republican President. But a man with a god complex. And a fanbase that worships at his altar.
It was beautiful.
Video source: CNN on Instagram.
