The Ramdev saga

Until a couple weeks ago, for me, Baba Ramdev was someone who woke up people at 3 in the morning to teach them how to sleep well. I am essentially a lazy man, and I occasionally walk the treadmill at home only because I happened to spend a small fortune on the stupid walking machine. For this reason, the Baba mattered to me as much as Mungerilal did (whoever he is). However, of late, the poor Baba has managed to be on national television on times other than his allotted slot of 3AM to 6 AM. In fact, in the last few days Baba Ramdev went off air on TV news channels only for commercial breaks and the weather report. He had purportedly turned his ‘yoga shivir’ into a protest ground at the Ramlila maidan in New delhi, where the Baba started an indefinite fast, demanding from the government stringent and sure-shot measures to bring back crores of black money stashed away in clandestine foreign banks. The ruling UPA government (read Congress), quite sheepishly went on the back-foot ever since the Baba made his intentions public, what with the senior cabinet ministers including the finance minister Pranab da meeting up with the Baba at Delhi airport to win him over with negotiations. This panicky attitude of the Congress bigwigs made the top brass in the opposition sit up and take notice. It may be recalled that the matter of Indian black money in foreign banks was first brought out by Mr LK Advani, the perpetual prime-minister-in-waiting. They were in awe of a simple yogi who suddenly seemed to have more than a fair chance of doing what Mr advani couldn’t do in so many years. And better still, he was immediately seen to have the potential to pull away the voters from the congress- an invaluable feat for the opposition in context with the next general elections. And Lo and behold! All of the BJP, along with the sangh parivar band-wagon, started supporting Baba Ramdev openly, the Baba's claims of being 'politically neutral' notwithstanding. Everything was going on fine, and the government really did not have much to worry about; it had ruled too long to be bogged down by protests like this one.  But suddenly, the government lost its mind and cracked down on the peaceful protesters in the middle of the night with lathis and tear-gas shells. While this caused physical and mental harassment for the protesters, and one can only thank God for saving those gathered from a major mishap like fire or a stampede, the opposition got on platter a fully baked issue to pounce upon the government on, which it did without mercy. The condition of the injured members of the public is not known as the plight of the common man does not make good news material for the media, and the focus immediately shifted to the blame game- BJP sitting on Dharna at Rajghat with Sushma Swaraj dancing to patriotic songs, and Diggy Raja calling her a 'nachania'. Meanwhile, the Baba, having been driven out of Delhi, and denied permission by UP government to protest in Noida, commenced his fast at his Haridwar ashram, and according to the latest news, he has been shifted to a Dehradun hospital for his deteriorating condition owing to a seven day long fast. I am sure the politicians on both sides are busy calculating their gains and losses from this episode, while the Yogi Baba  battles with starvation-related maladies for the country's cause...May God help the Baba...