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POLITICAL DIARY
Heartbreak Of Andher Nagri
LITTLE FOR AAM AADMI TO CELEBRATE
By Poonam I Kaushish
New Delhi, January 01, 2008
Roll out the drums. Uncork champagne and welcome the New
Year. New hopes. New dreams and new promises. Do you really
think I am serious? Is there truly something to cheer and
cherish? To look forward to?
Jokes apart, how should one begin an epitaph of the year gone
by? Twelve agonizing months of anger and anguish. Of an
all-round decline, barring, of course the booming economic
front, with the rich getting filthy rich. Wherein things hit
the rock bottom politically, administratively and socially. Of
a disparate India searching for her soul under the increasing
onslaught of immorality, and criminalization. With little
thought for the aam janata, growing minority appeasement,
casteism and terrorism. That, dear countrymen, is what the New
Year is all about. Underscoring much that continues to be
wrong in India.
One does not need to look far. Let’s start with our polity.
After all, everything begins and ends with them in our
democracy. And it needs no reiteration that the way they are
going we might as well sound the bugle of the beginning of the
end. No, I am not being pessimistic or insensitive. I am only
stating a harsh reality. Former President Abdul Kalam was ever
so right when he lashed out at India’s “decision makers with
small minds” and deeply grieved over the “shortage of
leadership with nobility.”
Think. Isn’t it ridiculous that a country as vast as India and
boasting of a billion-and-growing population is swinging like
a yo-yo between hope and despair, thanks to the fracas between
partners. The Left has the Congress-led UPA profusely sweating
over the Indo-US nuclear deal. Wherein it has threatened to
pull the plug if the Government goes ahead with it. This
eyeball to eyeball confrontation between gentleman Manmohan
Singh and the thorny Left has pushed the country into
suspended animation.
Today, post the BJP’s resounding victories in Gujarat and
Himachal, the basic issue is not the Indo-US nuclear deal or
whether the UPA Government stays or goes. Or, who is to blame
and why? But the most striking aspect of this crass episode is
the sad spectacle of today’s political class capriciously
exposing their hollowness and hypocrisy of political
commitment and subordinating national interest to petty
personal interests and egos. Thus undermining further the
people’s eroding faith in democracy as a desirable system.
Just see. The country is in the throes of deadly terrorism and
instead of coming to grips with it, the UPA and the Left are
both humming about a mid-term poll, not about national
interest, stability and good governance. Last week, former
Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto’s brutal assassination
underscored as never before that India is in the crosshairs of
terrorists, serious and deadly terrorists. Please note. Of the
670 districts in the country, as many as 270 are terror-prone
and 70 of these have already been ravaged by terrorists.
Terror has already cost India more than 72,000 civilians and
12,000 security personnel.
More worrisome is the fact that 15 States are Naxalite-hit and
there are 40 Naxalite groups active in India. Having links
with Pakistan’s ISI and the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). Making even
the semblance of governance virtually impossible in half the
country. Worse, they are running a state within a state, with
their own parallel revenues. In Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh,
teenagers are busy romancing the Naxalites. The terrorists’
war games of “robbing Peter to pay Paul” have earned them more
cadres. Even if it is for two square meals a day and chicken
thrice a week.
Are these merely stray incidents of violence? No, a big no.
They are just torch-bearers of the rising peoples anger and
discontent against the widening disparities sweeping across
the country. They have seen through the “sham of democracy”
and refuse to say die. Call it the Chak De effect, they have
made poverty their USP. Whereby they no longer will tolerate
injustice or inequality. The lathi and gun is now the symbol
of their disillusionment with the polity.
Tragically, nobody has time for the aam aadmi’s growing
disillusionment with the system which explodes in rage. Turn
to any mohalla, district or state in the country, the story is
mournfully the same. Resulting in more and more people taking
law into their own hands. Borne out by the increasing chakka
jams, rioting, looting and burning of buses. Capital Delhi is
replete with gory tales of road rage resulting in murders. The
system has become so sick that women today are being raped in
crowded trains with co-passengers as mute spectators.
Sporadically converting the country into andher nagri.
Another sad reflection of the times is that minorityism and
reservations are the flavours of the season. Anyone and
everyone is busy wooing the minorities in the garb of
reservations in the educational institutions, recruitment in
Government services and bank loans if one is a Muslim. More.
The Muslims now have the first claim on Government largesse, a
la Manmohan Singh. Are the majority of Indians second class
citizens?
Nothing epitomizes this better than the brazen communal
campaigning witnessed in the just concluded Gujarat Assembly
poll. Astonishingly, the ball was set rolling by the Congress
supremo, Sonia Gandhi. Wherein she denounced Modi as a maut ke
saudagar. Why? Because the police killed ‘terrorist’
Soharrabdin in a fake encounter. Retaliated Modi, “It is they
who are hand in glove' with maut ke saudagar. Till today,
Afzal Guru, who masterminded the attack on Parliament, hasn't
been hanged, defying the Supreme Court. “Gujarat ke dharti pe
maut ke saudagar nahin rahne doonga!”
Raising a basic question: Should democratic elections be
fought merely on the negative and ill-defined premise that my
enemy is a maut ka saudagar? Why? Because Modi refuses to fall
in line with the Congress’s so-called pseudo-secularism? Does
he not head a democratically elected Government? Sadly, as oft
is the case, power breeds arrogance and absolute power breeds
absolute arrogance. Intoxicated by power, all forget that this
arrogance often leads to defeat. The BJP’s victory in Gujarat
and Himachal should be a lesson to Sonia and her chamchu
brigade!
Not only that. Rebellion is brewing in the countryside. From
Singur and Nandigram in West Bengal to Pune and Vidarbha in
Maharashtra, the reaction of the farmers to the Special
Economic Zones, the battle of the illiterate village woman in
Meerut for her pension or of the weaver in Kancheepuram for
his pay are a sure give-away that the aam aadmi is angry, very
angry. Either he too partakes the economic cake or else he
will stop you from doing so. Anger will no longer be dormant
or their life treated as their tryst with destiny. The Asli
Bharat wants its share of Brand India.
True, the intelligentsia and political pundits will dismiss
the foregone as an over-reaction. But that would be both
myopic and tragic for the country. The polity’s callous and
lackadaisical reaction to the farmers suicide says it all.
Compensation is virtually non-existent. Where have the
hundreds of crores gone? Even the Prime Minister has rued the
fact that the monies are not percolating down to the end user.
Yet for our polity, India is Incredible! Economically
speaking, our cash tellers are overflowing. Multinationals are
wooing everything Indian as never before. India is the flavour
and toast globally and on the threshold of becoming a super
power. Indian tycoons are the new international takeover
kings. The 200 million rich and powerful exult in the luxury
of Brand Reel India.
Trust our politicians to lap it up and yell from the rooftops:
India is set to rule the world, it has arrived. Where? More to
the point, from where? Sadly, beyond the financial might of
overflowing tillers et al of Brand India lies the squalor and
the filth that is the reality of Brand Asli Bharat. Which no
amount of sops or verbosity of Mera Bharat Mahan can disguise.
Shockingly, 77 per cent of India’s population of more than one
billion lives on just Rs 20 a day. Not only that. A staggering
86 per cent of our working population is in the unorganized
sector without any security cover. There are over 12 lakh
manual scavengers who load human excreta with their bare
hands. These scandalous facts have been compiled by Arjun
Sengupta’s National Commission for Enterprises in the
Unorganised Sector. Yet, neither the UPA Government or
Parliament has so far bothered to respond.
Worse, nearly 44 million children aged 5-14 years are engaged
in economic activities and domestic and non-remunerative work.
Another 74 million children are neither enrolled in schools
nor accounted in the labour force and come under the category
of ‘Nowhere Children’. And yet we talk of a good deal for Gen
Next? Mera Bharat is indeed Mahan!
In sum, the country stands at the crossroads of destiny. It is
time for the masses, especially its silent majority, to think
beyond the country’s petty power-at-all-cost polity, throw out
the scoundrels and look at the perilous implications for
India’s unity, integrity and the future. True, a people, get
the leaders and the Government they deserve. But, at the end
of the day, are we going to mortgage our conscience to ‘small
minds’? We need leaders and people with grit and
determination. To build a new and honourable India in 2008.
---- INFA
(Copyright India News & Feature Alliance)
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