Humour in politics

Governance is a serious business, and by no means an easy task. In a large, vibrant, and often raucous democracy like ours, the excitement and satisfaction of serving constituents is often tempered by the frustrations, delays, and setbacks one faces while getting things done. This makes it all the more important to retain a sense of humour and take a few moments to laugh.

Unfortunately, in our politically charged contemporary India, irony or humour seems to be lost. Instead, there is always someone or the other waiting to get offended. This 'right to be offended' is a new national characteristic that makes humour unsafe for many to resort to, for fear of attracting lawsuits and worse. With this increasing trend of highly vocal righteous indignation, Indians are fast acquiring a reputation for lacking a sense of humour. In our private lives, most Indians enjoy a good joke. But in public life the political class no longer seems to have the sense to see that a joke, however weak it may be, is a joke.

Sadly, issues are created out of comments that deserve nothing more than a grin or smile. On other occasions, comments are completely misunderstood. I can say this somewhat ruefully from personal experience of the needless controversy created by my now infamous 'cattle class' comment, which was unduly blown out of proportion. During the 2009 austerity drive by the government, a BJP-leaning journalist asked me on Twitter, 'Tell us, Mr Minister, next time you travel to Kerala, will it be cattle class?' And I responded using the same expression—which in my experience had been commonplace for decades, and is clearly understood throughout the English-speaking world to refer not to passengers, but to airlines herding people into economy class like cattle: 'Yes, I will travel cattle class in solidarity with all our holy cows!' I was quite unprepared for the way the dung hit the fan over this badinage. In the days that followed, the comment was maliciously taken out of context, made front-page news for days, and literally translated into so many Indian languages that by the end most people thought I had called Indian economy travellers cattle! By the time this innocent banter was translated into multiple Indian languages, it was front-page news and provoked calls for my resignation from my own party colleagues. To this day I am portrayed by my critics as a snooty upper-class elitist unsympathetic to those who can only afford to travel in economy. The misinterpretation of that unfortunate attempt at humour is still flung at me several times a day.

Consequently, in a country of multiple languages and multiple political agendas, I have learned the wisdom of Shakespeare's sage observation that the success of a jest lies in the ear of the hearer, not the tongue of the teller. For politicians, it's less important what you intended to say than what people think they heard.

Our new culture of offence-taking betrays our own great tradition of humour. Mahatma Gandhi, for instance, enjoyed a chuckle, though his puckish sense of humour has not been inherited by his political heirs. Asked once what he thought of Western civilization, the Mahatma replied, 'It would be a good idea.' Upbraided for going to Buckingham Palace in his loincloth for an audience with the king–emperor, Gandhi retorted, 'His Majesty had on enough clothes for the two of us.'

Among the Mahatma's contemporaries during the national movement, the poet Sarojini Naidu, 'the nightingale of India', came up with a couple of good cracks: her classic comment about Mahatma Gandhi's frugal lifestyle and his army of aides—'if only he knew how much it costs us to keep him in poverty'—is one of the great one-liners of the independence struggle. Some also ascribe to her a crack about a North Indian nationalist figure: 'The only culture he knows is agriculture.' Today that would cause degrees of offence that one shudders to contemplate.

Gandhi and Sarojini Naidu were perhaps exceptions: the Indian nationalist leaders and the politicians who followed them were in general a pretty humourless lot. I yield to no one in my admiration for the extraordinary intellect of Jawaharlal Nehru, who was in private known to be a charming and witty raconteur, but dig deep into his writings and speeches and you would be hard pressed to come up with a good joke. The best might be the one classic epigram that he uttered. Reacting with undisguised culture-shock to his discovery of America after a trip there in 1949, Nehru said, 'One should never visit America for the first time.'

But Nehru could take a good joke, even when he was the target of it. When Nehru was caricatured by the inimitable R. K. Laxman after the Sino–Indian war in 1962 he did not react as our present rulers are reacting to criticism of their failures on the borders with China. Instead of being attacked by trolls or hired goons, R. K. Laxman was pleasantly surprised by a phone call from Jawaharlal Nehru. The prime minister said to him, 'Mr Laxman, I so enjoyed your cartoon this morning. Can I have a signed enlarged copy to frame?'

Nehru's talent for parliamentary repartee also stood him in good stead when the fiery socialist Ram Manohar Lohia declared that the prime minister was descended from a long line of chaprasis in the Mughal courts. Instead of bristling at the insult to his ancestors, Nehru benignly responded that 'the honourable member has at last accepted what I have been saying all along, that I am a man of the people'.

In 2013, our parliament erupted in near-unanimous indignation over a 1954 cartoon by Shankar portraying Nehru and Ambedkar. Yet neither man was offended when the cartoon originally appeared, and Nehru went on to give Shankar no less an honour than the Padma Vibhushan, the nation's second highest award. His famous line to the often-critical cartoonist was, 'Don't spare me, Shankar!'

Parliament was not a humourless place under Nehru, even on serious subjects. In a parliamentary debate on the war with China in 1962, he told parliament that Aksai Chin, which the Chinese had occupied, was an area where 'not a blade of grass grows'. Thereupon, Mahavir Tyagi, a senior Congress MP, pointed to his own bald pate and exclaimed: 'Not a hair grows on my head. Does it mean that the head has no value?'

Nehru's daughter, Indira Gandhi, was not much known for her humour, but there are a few examples that reflect well on her wit. She once remarked about Indian businessmen, 'our private enterprise is usually more private than enterprising'. Sharper still was her answer to an American journalist in 1971 about why she had refused to meet with Pakistan's General Yahya Khan: 'You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist.' Both these remarks have the merit of provoking thought beyond the immediate reaction to their cleverness.

In his shoddy Reminiscences of the Nehru Age, the former secretary to our first prime minister, M. O. Mathai, cited one anecdote that revealed Mrs Gandhi's sharp wit. When Nehru and Indira expressed astonishment that Mathai had slept so soundly after the death of his mother, he apparently replied, 'That shows I have a clear conscience.' To which Indiraji retorted, 'It can also mean that you have none.'

(Excerpted with permission from Shashi Tharoor's Pride, Prejudice, and Punditry; published by Aleph Book Company)