The men and their message

Even as the Modi Express steamrolls its way to national prominence, fuelled by an evangelist's zeal, three other men made three high-profile and much discussed speeches in the past three weeks.

Ajit Pawar, Rahul Gandhi and Bill Clinton. Could there be three men with such vastly different speaking styles, agendas and careers?

And yet, as a consumer of popular culture and observers of public behaviour, one watched the three, culling from them what they tried to say, didn't say and the ultimate success of their effort.

First things first. Pawar, deputy chief minister of Maharashtra, a man with an SSC degree and many allegations of corruption, in an attempt to endear himself to his audience while referring to Maharashtra's severe drought situation at a public function near Pune said, "If there is no water in the dam... should we urinate into it?"

Setting aside the fact that Maharashtra is reeling under one of its severest and most ruinous drought situations and that Pawar has faced a slew of corruption charges that allege that his actions as minister for irrigation (1999-2003), rural development (2003-2004) and water resources (2004-2009) most likely created, or at least exacerbated, the situation, to give him the benefit of doubt (not drought), one wonders what prompted him to make such a statement of vile imbecility.

The only answer I can come up with is that in Maharashtra there exists a great clamour for wit, wordplay and repartee in public life, honed to a fine art by men of calibre and intelligence like the writer Pu La Deshpande, and used to score great political points and please crowds by the wily Bal Thackeray and his nephew Raj.

No such errors in Gandhi's deliverance at CII's Annual General Meeting and National Conference 2013 where, though he was facing an audience comprising industry leaders like Adi Godrej, Sunil Mittal, Rahul Bajaj, Shivinder Singh, S Gopalakrishnan and Naveen Jindal, he was clearly looking beyond at the vast multitude of voters in the 2014 general elections.

In a style that critics called rambling and sympathisers deemed 'anecdotal', Gandhi, called upon to explain his economic vision to this august gathering at a time when the economy was alarming even the most optimistic amongst them, chose to instead make a bid for the youth and populist vote: words like "Boss", "Dancing around" and "they think I'm nuts!" peppered his speech. Unsurprisingly his audience was not amused. And by the ringing of dismay on social networking sites, neither was his target audience.

Which brings me to Bill Clinton, former president of the United States of America, likely occupant of the White House again and one of the world's most sought after and highly-paid speakers on the international lecture circuit.

Speaking at the first Kotak Presidium in Mumbai last week, Clinton addressed an audience comprising some of the city's most preeminent citizens - drawn from the worlds of finance, industry, media and society.

Using a combination of high intelligence and his legendary persuasive powers and drawing from genomic science, medicine, and economics, Clinton attempted to sell to the audience the power of cooperation and philanthropy, making a subtle, but powerful, case for supporting The Bill Clinton Foundation.

Like Pawar's speech, his address was audience specific, but unlike Gandhi's it was also crafted to invoke a well-articulated word view. Needless to say that audiences emerged sprinkled with Clinton dust and newly inspired to do their bit for humanity.

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Three men, three speeches, three varying successes. All in the course of three weeks.

 

Malavika Sangghvi is a Mumbai-based writer malavikasangghvi@hotmail.com