‘Bastard, bloody bastard, bastard, bhosidi maga’

“Indian politics touches a new low,” is one of the enduring cliches of political reports. But a new, bottomless low was plumbed on Sunday, 10 January 2010, when a former prime minister of the country spoke the language of the gutter,  or darker areas beneath that, about another of his tribe.

The party of the first part is H.D. Deve Gowda for whom language like this is second nature as reporters covering the JDS beat will vouch. But to refer to a serving chief minister in first person; to call him “bastard”, “bloody bastard” and “bastard” in the space of a few words; and then to follow it up with a bhosidi maga, takes some doing.

Gowda doesn’t stop at second-guessing the parentage of denizens of the political landscape. He calls the advocate-general of Karnataka, Ashok Harnahalli, “bloody bastard” for a headline in the Kannada daily Samyukta Karnataka (the AG’s father, the late Harnahalli Ramaswamy, was chairman of the trust which runs the paper).

Gowda claims the swear words weren’t aimed at B.S. Yediyurappa although he refers to Shobha Karandlaje in the same breath. All this in opposition to the Bangalore-Mysore Infrastructure Corridor (BMIC), which has been the Gowda family’s raison d’etre in politics.

In a land which has produced the most number of Jnanpith Award winners, the only thing Gowda doesn’t do is lift up his patta-patti cheddi and slap his thigh. Mercy.

Video grab: courtesy TV9

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Also read: One question I’m dying to ask H.D. Deve Gowda

One question I’m dying to ask H.D. Kumaraswamy—I

One question I’m dying to ask H.D. Kumaraswamy—II