Reality Bites: Why our only leader refuses to meet farmers 

The farmers are on the march,
The farmers are on the march,
Hi-ho, the Derry-o,
The farmers are on the march.

Which makes absolutely no difference to the Dear Leader at all. He promptly escaped by leaping into his fancy new aeroplane, when irate farmers marched into Delhi. Once on board, he disguised himself as a world-famous infectious diseases expert, and visited as many serum institutes as he could in one day.

It was upsetting that none of the serum institutes he visited had ordered monogrammed or even pretty hazmat suits for him. I felt very sad, but I cheered up when I saw the headgear they had given him: shower caps. Everyone knows how much the Dear Leader loves headgear—the more ridiculous they make him look, the better.

The CEO of one of the institutes said he was amazed at the Dear Leader’s knowledge about vaccines and vaccine production, and the nation roared with laughter, because he was being sarcastic, right?

Then the Dear Leader went to Uttar Pradesh for some festival or the other, wore his usual Bollywood clothes, and told a huge gathering of non-farmers about the wonderful new laws he had made for farmers, implying that they had marched to Delhi to thank him in person.

At the end, he treated the non-farmers to a garish laser show with predominantly green flashing lights (to imply fields, I gather), to prove to non-farmers that he adores farmers. He loves them dearly, no matter what anti-nationals, Khalistanis, urban naxals, jihadis, Justin Trudeau, anti-Hindu Hindus, and members of the tukde tukde gang (and the Gupkar gang too) say

Now, we know just how much the Dear Leader loves talking about his acts of generosity, so I was surprised that he forgot to mention that he had ordered a lovely Atithi Devo Bhava-type welcome for the farmers at Delhi’s borders.

They were greeted with powerful water cannons to wash the dust off them after their long journey from their villages. Icy water, of course, because the dear man wanted them to experience Swedish spa treatment totally free of cost. Trenches were dug in the roads too, perhaps to remind them of ploughed fields to make them feel at home.

The farmers waited and waited for an audience with him, but the Dear Leader prides himself on being an excellent host, and he thought it was only polite to give them time to settle down. After they started clamouring for talks, a hunt was launched for the Union Agriculture Minister—that took a long time because nobody, not even his fellow cabinet ministers knew who he was. Why, even he was unaware that he was agriculture minister it seems, and it took him ages to put up his hand and say, “Oops, that’s me!”

In desperation, the government decided that the Defence Minister would be the best man to address the issues of the farmers. The country giggled again, wondering if the government thought guns, tanks and fighter jets grew in fields. Finally, a Twitter buddy who goes by the handle @ ElmaGoldwyn patiently explained why Rajnath Singh was the best man in the government to talk to farmers: “Raju is a farmer. Didn’t you see how nifty he is with Nimboo, Mirchi and Nariyal?”

While the nation waited eagerly to hear Singh plead with the farmers to diversify crops and grow lime, green chillies and coconuts instead (the best way to defend the nation from evil spirits), he was replaced at the last minute by Little Bo-Piyush, the Railway Minister who loses his trains frequently. Nobody has an explanation for the switch, but I suspect the devious Termite Minister was behind it: the plan must have been to herd the farmers into trains and lose them forever and ever, Amen.

As you know, I hate criticising the Dear Leader— the idea of being held indefinitely in jail under UAPA is not appealing. However, I do think it’s odd that he’s not meeting the farmers himself since he repeatedly says that the new farm laws were his amazing ideas. Maybe he’s frightened that the farmers will ask him questions and make him cry in public? Perhaps our Dear Leader is not as strong as he pretends to be—why, he’s even terrified of dadis from Shaheen Bagh.