Rumours are like ripples in a cornfield

THERE are more rumours reverberating through this land of ours than there are stars in the sky. Every crime is complicated, every corruption is convoluted and every crisis is circuitous. And rumours are leading to speculations as abidingly as faith leads to worship. A Jewish proverb says that we shouldn't witness with our mouths what we don't see with our eyes. But when it comes to an absorbing speculation that gives this government anywhere between three and six months, it's hard to tell who is living in his mouth and who is living in his eyes.

This political uncertainty that hangs in suspense over us is comparable to a block of marble that can be sculpted by anyone as he pleases. Be it the Freudian slip of prime minister's advisor, or internecine battles pitched by the student wing of the ruling party, or the controversy over the arrest of an axed minister who sneaked into the country from his temporary exile, every twist and turn of events is providing grist to the roaring rumour mill that weaves them into a coherent purpose. Like all roads lead to Rome, most rumours lead to the same compulsive conclusion: The days of this government are numbered.

How is it going to happen? Different deductions inhabit different mouths but the onion peels down to the same ominous nub: Foreign powers are once again working to refurbish our political landscape. How is that possible? India, which has zealously protected this government so far, is ready to cut some slack to give foreign hands enough room so that they can engineer the change. Proof of that pudding is in the eating. Modi and Obama are getting dangerously close. The US president has even agreed to grace the Republic Day of India as chief guest. Rumours are always quick to connect the dots!

Who is going to win and who is going to lose? One compelling version has it that this government will be forced to announce midterm elections and whoever wins the majority will come to power. Another version sees the ruling party completely out of the picture. Yet, the third one sees the sphinx of a third force rising from the ashes of the two large political parties and their alliance partners. BNP leaders are longing for the change to favour them. The ruling party leaders rule out these rumours as nothing but harebrained concoctions of disgruntled rivals.

What are the ordinary people thinking? They are like the prisoners in Plato's Allegory of the Cave, who spend their lives facing a blank wall. These prisoners are constrained to guess the name of shadows projected on that wall by things passing in front of a fire burning behind them.Trapped between unrelenting past and unforeseeable future, they couldn't care less. Deep inside their heart they are frustrated that politicians don't give a flying fig about them. These politicians no longer even need their votes to call it a government!

How does it matter then if this government goes or stays? Some people are not so sure. They don't want to see yet another 1/11, because they believe this nation is still paying dearly for the distortions created by that interregnum. Those who had famously vowed to put the derailed train back on track left in a hurry after the track itself started to get damaged.

The skeptics argue that if the improvised elections of January 5 proved anything it was that the track is now even more disjointed. BNP had conspired to hijack that track in 2006, and the caretaker government fiddled with it for two years. A notch above them, the present government is creating magic: Their train is running on an invisible track.

The rumours on the expiry of this government have legs. For the umpteenth time, the BNP chairperson said last week that the end of this government is drawing near. Other opposition politicians are also making similar predictions. Talk show guests are regularly practising it like Goebbelsian propaganda, as if repeating it too many times is going to bring it on.

Rumours are always rooted in intentions. Their next step is speculation, which may or may not always reach its logical conclusion. But rumours work like a harsh sea that throws back to the shore the garbage dumped into it.

Conspiracy theories are a cottage industry in this country, not only because we have got credulous minds but also because we lack credibility. The change may or may not come, but the appetite for it is certainly there. Susan J. Palmer explains in her book Aliens Adored that rumours are like ripples in a cornfield, which may be ephemeral but they do indicate which way the wind is blowing.

More than our mouths and eyes, we have been witnessing with our ears.

The writer is Editor, First News and an opinion writer for The Daily Star.
Email: badrul151@yahoo.com