Saga of ‘shoecide’ attacks

Muntadar Al Zaidi’s shoe-flinging act seems to have triggered a domino effect. After the Iraqi journalist threw the shoe at the then US President George Bush, quite a few audacious protestors around the world have emulated his act.

There was an incident in China. While the Chinese media underplayed the ‘shoecide’ attack on its Premier Wen Jiabao, the Indian media seemed to be more than delighted when a Sikh journalist Jarnail Singh flung a shoe at the country’s Home Minister P Chidambaram at a press conference in New Delhi over Congress ticket to an alleged accused in the anti-Sikh riots. Though visibly embarrassed, the Minister excused him, as otherwise, the incident would have been front page news for a long time. After playing the television footage of Singh’s ‘fling the shoe’ act all day and week over and over again, the Indian media is now prompt to record every single such incident.

An unidentified man flung a shoe at Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during an election rally in Ahmedabad recently, but the missile landed well short of the podium from where he was speaking. The Prime Minister stopped momentarily during his speech at Tagore Hall in Paldi locality as one of his Special Protection Group (SPG) personnel ran towards the spot where the shoe had landed. The shoe landed about 20 feet away. Police said the person who flung the white sneaker was near the press gallery in the first row. The man was pinned down by security personnel and taken away for questioning.

Interestingly many Indian politicians have been recently targeted by disgruntled members within their own political parties. First it was BJP leader LK Advani who artfully dodged a slipper hurled at him. And then it was Congress party member Naveen Jindal’s turn to avoid some leather. A retired school teacher decided he had had enough of the party’s political policies and decided to grab Jindal’s attention.

Congress Rajya Sabha MP Shantaram Naik joined the growing list of politicians dodging 'missiles' from the audience, after a food packet narrowly missed him during an election rally in a south Goa town recently. A Congress party worker, identified as Rama Desai, who was incidentally seated in the reporters' box, flung a food packet containing biryani, distributed to the workers, at him. As he flung the packet which narrowly missed Naik, Desai shouted: 'Tumhi sogle fatting (all of you are liars).'

Well, the usual victims of the politicians’ personal troubles – the policemen have an extra job on hand now – to provide ‘netted’ fences on the speaker’s dais as a protective measure. Gujarat’s Narendra Modi now has a occer-style net in front of the dais to stop any unexpected missiles! The journalists would have to remove shoes before going into press conference halls.

And as for the country’s politicians, they too know a thing or two about flinging things in legislatures. That TV camera grabbing gimmick has now trickled down to frustrated and disgruntled voters.

What do the general public think about it? They must be amused. Serves the politicians right, the people must be thinking. Because this kind of culture the politicians practice in the Parliament and Assemblies. In fact, many SMS jokes on the politicians’ latest plight are in circulation.

Sample this:
Q: What do you call a news reporter who hurls a shoe at a minister?
A: A Jarnailist!
Q: What prompted Jarnail Singh to hurl a shoe at Home Minister P Chidambaram?
A: Because his shoe brand said: “Just do it!”
May be it is time to do some “sole searching.”