What AAM aadami thinks about the nuclear deal

[Guest dada_rocks]

Not talking about blackberry owners of india real aam aadmi the ones who actually care to vote.. http://www.indianexpress.com/story/337816.html When the debate on the nuclear deal degenerated last week into counting the votes of convicted murderers to save the Government and analysing whether a Lok Sabha MP would sell for Rs 10 crore or Rs 25 crore, I went in search of the aam aadmi. Not just because I needed a break from the dark and dirty doings in Delhi’s political circles but also because the aam aadmi or common man has been the mascot of the Government that could fall next week. Every time the Government has been in trouble it has evoked the common man. Sonia Gandhi did it again last week at a rally in Nellore where she explained her understanding of the nuclear deal. It was being signed so that the common man could be spared the daily power cuts that he is forced to endure. Tricky. But easier I suppose than explaining to rural Indians the existence of the international nuclear club and strategic equations in a post Cold War world. Anyway, off I went in search of the common man. The first common person I spoke to was buying vegetables in a Delhi bazaar. Had he heard of the nuclear deal, I asked using the Hindi words parmanu karaar for it. He said he knew nothing about it, but when I explained that it could become the main issue in the next general election, he told me firmly that the only issue for him was prices. He could not remember a time, he said, when they had risen so fast and it was ruining his monthly budget and future hopes. My first common man was illiterate, so I next sought out a more politically aware, socially concerned common man who reads a Hindi newspaper everyday. What did he think of the parmanu karaar, I asked and he said, “I don’t think about it because I don’t understand it. What I understand is that potatoes cost more than Rs 20 and dal costs so much more than it did a year ago that people can barely afford to eat it now. Something has to be wrong with Government policies”. Everyone I talked to complained about high prices and said they understood nothing about the nuclear deal. At the end of a morning of vox populi I, a passionate supporter of the nuclear deal, was forced to concede that the common man could not care less. .