Which party were you born in?

Whoever said ignorance is bliss was blissfully ignorant of the age-old itch to know. We all have been blessed with that itch and when it itches you forget the world till you get the answer to the question itching in the back of your mind.

My latest itch is to know what party I was born into. And it’s killing me.

Learned legal eagle and honourable Congress Party spokesman Abhishek Singhvi has said that Rahul Gandhi and
Priyanka Vadra were in the party by birth. “Though they have not formally joined it,” he told reporters in Delhi today.

And all this while I thought I knew about who I am. Mr Singhvi’s statement made me completely itchy and itchingly incomplete, as I don’t know even the basics about my own self. I know I’m an Indian by birth, the horoscope says I am of Vatsa gotra, born in Sanatan Dharma (popularly known as Hindu), but I don’t know which political party I am in by birth.

I called up and asked my dad. He said he didn’t know. My mom too has no idea what party would I be in by birth. They pretty much didn’t know about themselves and their parents, my grandparents.

One of my uncles is a Congressman but uncles apparently don’t matter. Arun Nehru, one of Rahul’s uncles, was in the Janata Dal, but Rahul as Singhvi says was born in the Congress. One of his aunts has given birth to a political party and her son, Rahul's cousin, was born in that. Aunts too don’t matter.

Feeling disgusted, I called up my friend Veeru and asked him whether he knew what party he was in by birth. He had no idea as he was born into an Army family. “Army, I suppose,” he said.

One by one I called up all my friends and barring two, none of them knew what party he/she belonged to by birth. Are we all bastards of the political system? Do we have no roots in the country’s political field?

The feeling that I may be one of the ‘political bastards’, with no trace of my political gene pool. Simply being an Indian may not be enough. It’s a democracy and democracy is the rule of the people through political parties. And voting for a party is not enough; you have to be born in one. And my god, I have no idea.

What if Singhvi becomes the law minister and Sonia Gandhi becomes the Prime Minister and decides to enact a law where we might be asked our janam patri for our janam party. I am no Rahul Gandhi for whom the question doesn’t arise.

“I don’t think this question arises for persons who are born in the party... Persons who have lived in the party and whose parents and grandparents have been in the party... They are in the party from their birth,” Singhvi has already told the media, and assured Rahul and Priyanka that they need not worry.

My friend Veeru said I too should not worry. “At least eighty per cent of India has no idea. So don’t worry,” he told me.

Is it true that eighty per cent of us have no claim to be part of the political system where people like Singhvi are? The system where people are born in a political party? They need not join a party. Are most of us ignorant assholes who believe in our democracy that doesn't guarantee you a position before you prove you are worth it? Are we a nation of political bastards with no idea which party we are born to be in?

But I am still confused about Singhvi? He is in the BJP by birth but is a Congress spokesman. What does that make him? Well, I seem to have no idea about anything at all.