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Wit and mockery necessary antidote to politicians' occupational hazard of taking themselves too seriously
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Twitter has turned out to be a great leveller. The Aam Aadmi Party’s advertisements promoting itself in Punjab are the latest target of the social media platform’s collective amusement and mockery.
There have been plenty of others over the past few years, all along the political spectrum.
This is all to the good—a display of democracy in action with a little digital aid.
It’s too easy, particularly in India, for politicians to exist in a bubble.
Twitter and other social media ensure that public opinion penetrates the corridors of power, to an extent at least.
Enough so that politicians have been making canny use of it themselves for canvassing opinion and reaching out to the public—from Prime Minister Narendra Modi to prolific tweeters such as Shashi Tharoor—and, naturally, sniping at each other.
So bring on the wit and the mockery.
It’s a necessary antidote to politicians’ occupational hazard of taking themselves too seriously.
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