Fearless Leader and Foreign Hand

On February 18th, Shri Mulayam Singh Yadav, the who-knows-whether-and-for-how-long Chief Minister of UP, delivered a speech which has made me shake my head in wonder and awe. He alleged that foreign hands were involved in the conspiracy to topple his government (details here).

No wonder that even for the likes of non- resident UPite like me, he remains our Fearless Leader. Simple folks like us may well have imagined that the Foreign Hand had been somewhat busy over the past few years in hot-spots like Iraq, Afghanistan, North Korea and Darfur. Only Fearless Leader's wisdom and subtle intelligence could see through the cunning deception of Foreign Hand and lay it bare for mere mortals, you and me, who now stand chastened for our rash conclusions about the non- involvement of the foreign hand.

All the while we thought that billions of dollars were funding the 'war against terror,' Foreign Hand had been planning covert operations to destabilise Fearless Leader's glorious reign. Surely, in a few years, we will see another Oliver North-like testimony, "The President didn't know, but we were (again) selling drugs to fund destabilization of Mr. Yadav's regime."

Now that I can clearly think about the threat, I find the co-incidence very suspicious: Did you notice that recently Foreign Hand has given up destabilising another fearless leader, Kim Jong-il? Could it be that Foreign Hand is getting increasingly desperate?

Or perhaps I am entirely mistaken. Perhaps Fearless Leader was referring to Ms. Sonia Gandhi? Or Bhutan (why not, after all)? ... Or 'foreigners' like me?