He Ram(dev)!

Baba Ramdev, of "Yog" fame has the whole country's knickers in a knot over his threat to fast against corruption. A wholly commendable aim, one would think.

Except, this are his list of demands. Some of his lesser known demands are:

— Replacing the British-inherited system of governance, administration, taxation, education, law and order with a swadeshi alternative
— Increasing substantially the Minimum Support Price of grains
— Making wages of different categories of labourers uniform across the country
— Promoting Hindi at the expense of English.

If you remove the stuff about the Lokpal and bringing back unaccounted money, it does bear more than a vague resemblance to an election manifesto from a loony bin somewhere in the cow-belt.

Sometimes, I'm amazed at how little things have changed over the centuries. Adi Shankaracharya - or his disciple Totakacharya, take your pick - once said (Bhajagovindam, Verse 14):

जटिलो मुण्डी लुञ्छितकेशः

काषायाम्बरबहुकृतवेषः

पश्यन्नपि चन पश्यति मूढः

उदरनिमित्तं बहुकृतवेषः

Loosely translated as:

    Watch out for Sadhu Baba types who're just out to fill their bellies. 

Touche.