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In Parliamentary elections of 2004, the spin doctors of Congress and Akali Dal hit new lows with every ad, but what was more amusing, and grave, was their propensity to dig deeper and deeper into history to find something still more stinking than what the rival could manage. In The Indian Express, I wrote this to exhibit some such efforts. But as some friends in the political domain tell me, the next Assembly elections would be even worse. So watch out!

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	“Newspapers always excite curiosity. No one ever lays one down without a feeling of disappointment.” Charles Lamb, 1833 “Frankly, despite my horror of the press, I’d love to rise from the grave every ten years or so and go buy a few newspapers.” Luis Buñuel, Spanish filmmaker “I often wonder what future historians will say about us. One sentence will suffice to describe modern man: he fornicated and he read newspapers.” Albert Camus, French novelist, dramatist, philosopher, 1956

Congress, Akali spin doctors rummage through history to
find garbage

S P Singh

Chandigarh

BOORISHNESS masquerading as newly-researched history. Below-the-belt attacks quoting misdeeds allegedly done by the rival’s forefathers hundreds of years ago. Election 2004 has witnessed the advent of the phenomenon of conducting political discourse by hurling abuse.

It was just a step short of that ubiquitous Punjabi way of communicating: “Teri Ma Di …"

Thinly-veiled surrogate advertisements with a political message subtle enough for the dumbest have become the order of the day, and backroom doctors of both Congress and Akali Dal are poring over obscure texts to find dirt to be flung at the rivals.

With a ‘Miri-Piri Sewa Dal’ headed by Gurinderpal Singh Dhanaula, whose contempt for the Akali Dal headed by Parkash Singh Badal was never a secret, initially firing a volley of ads targeting the Badal family, particularly the former CM and his Rajya Sabha MP son Sukhbir Singh Badal, the Akalis were quick to respond.

With a surrogate advertiser Desh Punjab Bachao Front soon dropping the veil and Akali Dal itself, or president of its Delhi unit Avtar Singh Hit taking responsibility for the ads, the battle became rather straight.

But with the electioneering moving into peak gears and balloting only 3-4 days away, ad war has become intense, and personal.

Sources say both parties are actively pursuing the ad wars, and while ads targeting Badal and Akali Dal are being churned out from the offices of an advertisement agency in Sector 22 of Chandigarh and a flat in Sector 4, the anti-Congress ads are being created by a young Akali leader who is a kin of the Badals. A couple of veteran journalists and men from the government’s Public Relations Department have also been helping the proxy Congress campaign, though D.S. Jaspal, Principal Secretary, PR denied any government PR officer was involved in political activity.

After an ad attacking the Badal family alleged that the Akali Dal president’s grandfather Fateh Singh had poisoned a water pond during Jaito Morcha in 1924 in order to cause death of freedom-fighters and was awarded hundreds of acres of land by the British rulers, a Badal family kin now in Congress, Mahesh Inder Singh Badal, issued a legal notice to advertiser Charanjit Singh Channi of Khalsa Panchayat.

"This is totally distorted history. And Fateh Singh was not even grandfather of Parkash Singh. Besides, he died years before the Jaito Morcha. We will not let family honour to be tarnished in this way,” Mahesh Inder told The Indian Express.

But Akali Dal found its own way of hitting back, and consistently kept Chief Minister Amarinder Singh as the prime target. Akalis pored over texts like Sir Lepel Griffin’s 'The Rajas of Punjab’ and Gazateers of Punjab dated circa 1904, and named Patiala royals starting from Baba Ala Singh (1745 AD) down till Amarinder Singh for being hand-in-glove with the invading Mughals, harming the panth and even sending police into Sikh gurdwaras.

Conveniently, both sides have overlooked that the same Amarinder Singh had accepted the leadership of Parkash Singh Badal, who in turn had welcomed the Patiala scion into Akali Dal.

Amarinder was even made a Minister in the Akali regime of S.S. Barnala. But this is only immediate past, and spin doctors are busy searching for muck in obscure places, like finding references to a bull let loose by a Baba to allegedly kill the Tenth Sikh Guru Gobind Singh! Copy writers were always an imaginative lot, and imagining history in bitter political times is becoming easier with every ad rolling off the drawing board.■

May 6, 2004

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Punctuated Equilibrium?

In 1802, Timothy Dexter, the American writer published a twenty-four page pamphlet (entitled "A Pickle for the Knowing Ones") entirely devoid of periods, commas, and other punctuation. In subsequent editions, in deference to demanding readers, Dexter agreed to add some punctuation.

There was, however, a small catch: rather than disperse punctuation throughout the text, the author had simply added an extra page containing nothing but punctuation, preceded by a short message:

"the nowing ones complane of my book the fust edition had no stops I put in a nuf here and thay may peper and solt it as they please"!

(Source: Columbia Encyclopedia)

Two versions, slight modifications only

Two versions of a letter (illustrating the importance of punctuation) once circulated on the Internet:

#1: "Dear John: I want a man who knows what love is all about. You are generous, kind, thoughtful. People who are not like you admit to being useless and inferior. You have ruined me for other men. I yearn for you. I have no feelings whatsoever when we're apart. I can be forever happy -- will you let me be yours? Gloria"

#2: "Dear John: I want a man who knows what love is. All about you are generous, kind, thoughtful people who are not like you. Admit to being useless and inferior. You have ruined me. For other men, I yearn. For you, I have no feelings whatsoever. When we're apart, I can be forever happy. Will you let me be? Yours, Gloria"]

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