This is  the story of Jayakumar, a free TV and hope…Read on…Extracts from Gnani Sankaran’s “The king has no clothes, only freebies“:

Jayakumar, a humble farmer of Kothamangalam village in the Pudukottai district of Tamil Nadu, has shamed the intellectuals of the state who dare not speak openly about the freebie culture unleashed by Karunanidhi’s regime to corner the votes.

He was one of the ‘beneficiaries’ listed to get a free colour television set on December 23. When his name was called, he went to the stage, took the set, then immediately returned it to the VIP — a local  DMK politician along with a letter. The letter hit like a bombshell.

The letter said television was a luxury that should come only after attaining self-sufficiency in food, shelter, clothing and electricity. With various problems surrounding him — power shortage, rising prices, water shortage, corruption, et al, he had become a walking corpse. How can I peacefully watch TV, Jayakumar asked.

He said the government should have used the money spent on free TV sets to provide proper infrastructure and power and once that was done the citizens would be able to achieve  their own purchasing power to buy everything from television sets to cars.

Finally, he said, he was returning the television set to the chief minister. The VIPs on stage were dumbstruck on reading the letter but managed to get Jayakumar out of the scene without further flutter.

People like Jayakumar – and their stories continue to give me hope…as do the election results in Bihar, Kathlal and Thiruvananthapuram.  By the way, such free TV distribution is nothing new – certainly not in Tamil Nadu. Here is a report from 2006:

…Speaking after the inauguration at the Periyar Memorial Samathuvapuram..at Thundal Kazhani, Karasangal (Kancheepuram district), Mr. Karunanidhi said that as many as 25,245 television sets would be distributed across the State beginning on Friday.

…This year, the State Government provided Rs.750 crore in the budget for distributing television sets to the poor.

..”Even if one crore people need to be given television sets, we will give them,” he said.

Somewhat related: First Shashi Tharoor, next Kathlal now Nitish Kumar and the NDA alliance…

Image Courtesy: M Vedhan, The Hindu