The state faces large scale farmer suicides due to crop failure brought about by drought and lack of irrigation facilities. Pawar probably thought he did a Jaspal Bhatti or a Navjot Singh Sidhu spoof that would make everybody laugh.

Bhatti was good at what he did. There are varied opinions about Sidhu. But, politicians in India, apart from doing a bad job with the country, generally have a bad sense of humor. As a matter of fact, they are so seeped in making illegal money and playing narrow electoral politics that they don’t know a bad joke from a very bad joke.

Pawar’s gibe was a very, very bad one. You don’t gag about an issue that is so serious and has cost so many lives, like you don’t say that a girl was raped as she was asking for the horrible crime to happen when she was wore jeans and lipstick and was out in the evening, as many politicians have insinuated.

And, this is when Pawar, himself, as a minister in Maharashtra, is responsible for irrigation projects to ensure water supply to farmers. Worse, the water is unavailable as it is pilfered to industry, construction, hospitality, farmhouses with swimming pools that are venues of lavish parties hosted by the rich.

Such large scale organized diversion of water is not possible without the blessings of people at the top such as Pawar, who then try and sidetrack their failures by cracking cruel jokes that makes nobody laugh, except their own silly selves and cronies that guffaw at anecdotes that most normal humans would consider grossly offensive.

Pawar has since regretted his remark and went on a one day fast as penance. This is nothing for such a well-fed man. I suggest he should not pee for one day, while eating and drinking as much as he wants.

No cheating. That would be some atonement. This way he will probably feel some of the pain and pressure that the poor farmer has to endure. Still, it will not repair the inner, deeper self-serving Indian political class today.

Or maybe, Pawar should use his large family wealth to feed impoverished farmers ensuring there is no suicide this summer. That too could be an acceptable apology.

Maybe he should be fired from his current job and designated as ‘Minister for Pee’ with independent charge. His job would be to study why Indians like to pee in the open, even when there is a toilet in the vicinity? Where does this habit originate? Is it historical or ancestral? It’s a whodunit.

Given political ingenuity, there will probably be ways to make money here too. Maybe, a BPL biometric card pee card will be instituted that will entitle the poor to continue to do susu anywhere they wish, given their tough lavatory-less living conditions. The card will, of course, never be made, while the huge budgetary allocation will fatten more political pockets via some bogus contractor.

Pawar, in a way, is symptomatic of the low standards of large sections of India’s opportunistic politicians that think nothing of turning power into a thriving personal business, whether by controlling the education sector, real estate, natural resources such as land, water, coal or telecom spectrum.

Large government contracts are handed to crony capitalists and benami companies that are secretly owned by political dynasties. In India today, no business is bigger than running the government as a self-owned enterprise involving the nefarious art of transferring of taxpayers’ money into one’s own pocket, by hook or by crook.

The solution ultimately lies with the voter who needs to exorcise those leaders who mean nothing to him or her. They should be peed out.