On Pepper Spray and other things......

Last fortnight was tumultuous to say the very least. The Congress lawmaker Lagadapati Rajagopal earned notoriety last week when he jumped into the well of the Lok Sabha, India's lower house of parliament and unleashed an aerosol from which he splashed pepper spray on his colleagues during an unprecedented five minutes of vicious, violence and vandalism. Members of Parliament rushed out the hallowed house of Indian Democracy holding handkerchiefs to their face. Many, including Mr Rajagopal, were taken to hospital. He said he acted in the heat of the moment and in self-defence. What nobody could answer was how did he have the chutzpah to carry the can into the house, in the first place? Later, Rajagopal was among 16 MPs from across parties who were suspended for the violence and so were not present in the Lok Sabha when the Telangana bill was passed. These MPs belong to Seemandhra - the non-Telangana regions of Andhra Pradesh that oppose bifurcating the state. Mr Rajagopal had vowed he would do all he can to block the Telangana bill in Parliament and has since quit politics as he says he has lost all interest in politics on the compromise of the Telugu Nation.Hailed as a hero in his constituency, maybe it is for the best. A couple of days ago, Celebrity Cricket League ( Film Folk ) team Kerala Strikers' members were deplaned at the Kochi airport after they allegedly misbehaved with the crew of a Hyderabad-bound flight. The flight, scheduled to take off at 1 pm, eventually took off one-and-a-half hours late. Apparently, the aircraft had taxied on to the runway when the incident happened. The captain brought the plane back to the apron, and ordered them to disembark. The team of about 30 members denied any wrongdoing but it is alleged that they kept applauding safety announcements made by the cabin crew and did so to announcements made by the Captain too.Construed as a threat to safety the airplanes Captain acted decisively and deplaned these seemingly unruly passengers. Two very different events, but in some ways it indicates the the lack of respect that people have for process or institutions, when they live in an unreal world. Both politicians and actors unfortunately feel they belong to a more exalted, different universe, where rules don't apply to them. Unfortunately too, both categories provide for extremely poor role models and it is going to get worse unless the Indian state decides that the penalty is going to be stronger than just a rap on the knuckles.....