TIME TO LET GO THE CHAIWALA

COMMENTS ON March 3, 2014

TIME TO LET GO THE CHAIWALA;

Often it does not help the purpose if you try to explain any idea with an example.  People opposed to the idea are more likely to get involved with the example than focusing on the idea under discussion. You can say that in the US milk and honey flow in rivers. Obviously milk and honey cannot flow in rivers anywhere; but the proposed idea that the US is very prosperous, is understood. But if you say the US is like Ayodhya under Maharaja Dasrath's rule immediately someone will question saying: Dasrath is said to have given a thousand cows a day to the poor; if there were so many poor in Ayodhya at that time, how could you assume Ayodhya was prosperous at all? The point is one should always choose an example which EXPLAINS the idea. As far as possible, it should not be anything identifiable which might bring to mind the other attributes than the one which is sought to be explained.

We have a great discussion going on for the last several weeks about Modi and Chaiwala. The point Modi was trying to explain is anyone should be able to aspire to become the PM of India and such an aspiration should not be limited to members of any particular family. He wanted to reinforce the argument by giving his own example of a chaiwala aspiring to become the PM. Instead of chaiwala, if he had chosen any teacher, any farmer, any dalit, etc. it would have conveyed correctly the sense that he intended: someone who is not too high in the social order or too rich or too educated, etc. but one of the millions of ordinary Indians, man in the street. In that case, people hearing him would have surely imagined someone who is anyone, but Rahul Gandhi! But putting himself as an example, Modi opened his 'chaiwala' example for comparison with all the right or wrong ideas about him. Once that happened the attributes of a 'chaiwala' which were not favourable to his becoming a PM were highlighted to show Modi is not suitable for the post. Chaiwala is no more identified in the sense Modi wanted him to be identified, i.e. any person without genealogy or silver spoon at birth. Now he has been given a name 'Modi, the chaiwla' and an impression, albeit wrongly again, is being created that Modi also has all the 'other' attributes of 'chaiwala' i.e. low in education, not familiar with high finance, etc.

 All this unnecessary and unseemingly discussion would not have taken place if Modi has explained that an ordinary chaiwala can aspire to become a PM if he acquires beforehand necessary experience and knowledge of governance, as he has done himself. Since he did not explain the connotation, the opposition is limiting his example to the very specific chaiwala as every knows. Depending upon one's liking or otherwise, when the speaker says anything about the 'chaiwala' in a loud thundering voice, the crowd reacts with a roar in favour or against that chaiwala according to their perception! Time we moved on to specific programs than personalities.

I would recommend the small book "The Straight and Crooked Thinking" by R. H. Thouless published I think somewhere around 1950 or so will be quite useful to think clearly. I believe the book has been revised and recently published by his son C.R. Thouless.