10 Most Loathsome People in India: 2007

12.23.07 | 73 Comments | Filed Under Indian Politics, Media Watch

This post is courtesy an inspiration I got from this superb list of (deservedly) loathsome public figures in the US (thanks, Atanu).

I don’t have time or patience to do brief, dirty-writeups on fifty most loathsome public figures of India. I’m limiting that number to just ten.

You might disagree with my selections….

10. Manmohan Singh

Loathsome for a solitary reason: spinelessness. Everything else flows from there. Decency is not equal to cowardice. This accidental Prime Minister persists in pusillanimity despite just calls for resignation.

9. Musharraff

Admitted, he’s not an Indian but let’s give him a place in this hall because he was relevant till recently. A word suffices why he is loathsome: opportunism.

8. Girish Karnad

A bounteous intellectual career built by raping classics in the garb of literary freedom demolished by repeatedly scoring lamentable self-goals. The shameful volte face on the Bababudangiri/Datta Peeta issue pried his integrity–the lack of it–wide open. And he should have really not tried to save Tipu Sultan’s secular credentials. Tipu wasn’t around when Karnad’s bottom was irreparably thwacked. Karnad shouldn’t have invited people to loathe him.

7. Sanjay Leela Bhansali

He should have retired in silence after Khamoshi, his only intelligible movie till date. Much superior ink has been employed to show why this non-director invites our collective puke.

6. Shahrukh Khan

Just how does one get to and get away with being called King? The answer is Shahrukh Khan. He stretches the boundaries of Paid Praise beyond nausea. Together with Karan Johar, he has expensively reduced filmmaking standards to a new low. Here’s just the latest crap: a million bucks to anybody who can tell me what dard-e-disco means.

5. Shilpa Shetty

Or how to use phony grief to compensate a dead “acting” career with easy money. Her manufactured sorrow over the racism charge apart, she mouthed that a trashy show like Celebrity Big Brother was a great opportunity to “make India proud.” An out-of-work “actress” trying to honour her country by doing…I’m not sure if winning CBB is an achivement of any consequence. Shilpa Shetty deserves only our unmitigated contempt.

4. Tarun Tejpal/Tehelka

Or the sting that never stung. His game was over the moment he began to “justify” the “expose.” The Gujarat “expose” is the filthiest evidence of what he really is: a political parasite. That in itself wouldn’t qualify him for our loathing. He is a dangerous political paraiste. Even there, that’s not because of his sleazy links with the ISI and similar outfits but more because he is a conscientious liar. He deserves more than mere loathing.

3. The Indian Media

A million faceless Tarun Tejpals. The English language media in India commonly does disservice to democracy and is bereft of principles–there is no other way to say this. Ever since the crawling experience during the Emergency, the media has realized that it is both safe and rewarding to open its legs.

2. Buddhadeb Bhattacharya

I’m almost tempted to call him the Nero of Nandigram. He nullified all valiant attempts of his talented spin doctors to project him as an industry-friendly visionary, etc. In Nandigram, this Buddha showed exactly what he understood by (Marxist) Enlightenment.

1. Deve Gowda

I’m a little passionate about my state so Deve Gowda is my obvious choice to fill the top slot. Gowda’s self-righteous conviction of his own invincibility has cost him excessively. He holds a nearly-unbeatable record of a hugely successful career in treachery. In three years, he has destroyed Bangalore by doing nothing. He has pushed the state back by more than a decade by mortgaging it to the welfare of his family. His unique knack for stifling any good has given Karnataka 3 chief ministers in 3 years. His place at #1 will be pretty firm the next time I make this list.

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