How Ramdev and Kejriwal Missed it!!???

In the immediate Indian history two people have let the rope slip through their hands and fall back into the hole where they started from. They could have reached the summit being pushed and prodded up by the revolutionary fervour. Revolution is not just drastic changes borne of bloody battles and massacres. In contemporary times revolution basically connotes mass frustration reaching the boiling effervescent point and the spilling over froth carries a few chosen individuals as the representatives of the surge for change.

UPA-2 messed up things. Even the common man struggling on the path of survival felt its pinch. Scams, ever-rising cost of living and the deplorable living conditions of the people, the aam aadmi, whose representative UPA government claimed to be, disgruntled the masses. These small small agonies came to be voiced out by social movements. And these small rivulets of common man’s frustration merged to emerge as two streams that carried two individuals as the modern day revolutionaries. They seemed to hold the light leading out of the long cave of gloom and despair. Baba Ramdev and Arvind Kejriwal missed it!! Reasons have been that they ended too ambitious than they appeared. It boils down to their not doing justice to the image that people held them in.

A lot needs to be done in health sector in India. Inefficient health infrastructure, fake medicines, unethical ways and means adopted by the medical fraternity and on top of that stress and shortages of basic amenities of life mean that majority of Indians face health problems of all types across the year. Ramdev to begin with served a Yoga pill that appeared so easy and approachable even to the average Indian. His Yoga was customized for mass appeal. Given his vocal skills it was sold well. It caught mass fancy. People fed up with traditional system took a nosedive into the pool of Ramdev panacea. Ramdev also had very strong words against Pepsi and Cola. People in fact started to use these as toilet cleaners. Very surprising that he no longer talks about them. Skeptics say has he been silenced on account of some perks provided by the multinational giants??!!

Ramdev vaunted of mighty nationalism. People believed him as well. But we have to take it with a pinch of salt. If his Patanjali medicine outlets sell even his versions of sweetmeats then it shows more of business skills and less of a diehard nationalist. It comes down to make good profits as is proved by his millionaire status. Indians are very good followers. People raised him to the status of the savior of the country when he talked of bringing back black money from Swiss accounts. Almost 200 hundred thousand people clamoured under his leadership at Ramlila ground. People accepted him as a revolutionary taking India to a new dawn of major shift from a system allowing 10 percent individuals sitting over 90 percent of resources to a system where majority will get at least the basic needs of a common day. Such major shifts demand at least a few broken heads and bruises. Ramdev the nationalist then, scared out of his wits for his life, tried to run away from the show clad as a woman. The aura was punctured. Next day we saw the crying baba who had forgotten to change women clothes he was wearing and crying before the media. People just said this is no revolution and he is not the modern progeny of Bhagat Singh and Shubhash Bose he eulogized on the stage. Today all common Indians believe him to be a smart businessman.

Similarly, Kejriwal served a curing pill to the masses suffering from political illness and with no cure in sight. Social movements were just struggling as an ineffective appendage to Indian democracy. Then Anna was smartly portrayed as an icon figure by the smart group of people who voiced people’s frustration. Media is a new business. Its raw material is anything new and happening. So the Indian social movement that was hitherto sidelined was portrayed in modern clairvoyance as channels competed with each other to increase their TRPs. Whole of India saw a new creed of selfless Indians following Anna Hazare. They challenged the prevalent system in all its versions. Arvind Kejriwal and Co jumped to another orbit as this movement showed signs of halting. In his stupendous success as politician Arvind just cashed on the mass frustration at the collective level against the chosen few who were seen plundering the resources in various forms.

Kejriwal sold dreams. And rightly so. When things are effervescent you have to act as a catalyst to take it to the boiling point. When you can convince a common voter that you have equally bright chance to be an MP or MLA, it will at least ensure that people will come out of political apathy. Broom as a symbol and the very name of the party served as masterstrokes. In India symbolism is more powerful than the substance. So these symbols of cleaning the system and taking aam aadmi to the centre stage of development worked wonders for them in Delhi Assembly elections. People when conscious of themselves can spring a few surprises. And the surprise was thrown in the faces of mainstream political parties. AAP got 28 seats. But at this moment the common men’s juggernaut came to halt on account of still weightier plans of Arvind and Co. Delhi people had trusted them. They welcomed AAP’s decision to form a government even with Congress’ help!! People were expecting exemplary action. Unfortunately even as CM and ministers AAP leadership could not come out of their revolutionary and activist mode.

It was more than apparent that they were more interested in carrying on their movement that was catching mass fancy across India on account of unexpected success in Delhi. AAP leadership did not want to let go of their hold on common man’s psyche. So just hyper-sensitized all issues. The wheel of their popularity was rolling across India. So Kejriwal ever-eager to keep it rolling even during the parliamentary elections jumped out of CM chair and again started with the typical noisy accusatory game of hitting the big fish with verbal potshots. A lesson here. It is not possible to keep the graph of mass excitement at the same level for too level. As a leader you just cash on the temporary peaks of mass excitement like he did during the Delhi elections. But to expect it to spill over the coming months and do the same in parliamentary elections is like asking too much from the common man struggling and lost in the issues of bread and butter. It has been a historic blunder on Kejriwal’s part to jump out of CM chair and run for the PM chair. He could have done wonders as an honest administrator. People would have understood his handicap as the leader of a minority government surviving on Congress support. All his works would have set up a new criterion of clean and honest governance in the country.

Now when they slog it out across India there is hardly any difference between them and the other political parties except the cap they adorn. But how long common man will be impressed by the broom, tag of aam aadmi party, typical revolutionary accusatory shoutings, selling of mass dreams?? This distinction is going to be even more diluted as they take brave potshots with high and the mighty politicians. To sustain your visibility when the mass hysteria subsides, you need to have some accomplishments in your kitty. AAP could have achieved those small milestones in administering Delhi. But they have been dreaming too big and grossly overestimating the degree of mass hysteria.

How I wish Both Ramdev and Kejriwal had turned out to be the way they proclaimed. Alas!!!

Late Winter Cravings

Farmers are always done in...fucked in fact. Either it’s the impersonal hand of God that simply holds them by ears and smilingly makes them see the mysterious spectacle of undoing all their hard work. If God gets ready to do some more important undoings somewhere else, thus sparing the tillers for some time, Government does it from His side. Low prices hit the farmers even worse, because here they complete the crop cycle with certain dreams but return almost empty-handed from the market. So caught between these two supernatural forces, the poor farmer gets just one weather-saved and market-saved crop in four seasons. And that surplus keeps him on the path of survival. This time paddy has been fucked by the Govt.-cum-market forces. I have seen light in an old farmer's eyes, 12 years ago, when he sold Basmati rice at Rs. 2600/quintal. Mind it that was more than a decade ago. Can you believe the same stuff fetched a paltry 1400 to his son? Almost half! Meanwhile costs of farming inputs have skyrocketed. It just defies logic. Capitalism how can you leave a certain section in lurch like this. A landless farmer from my village had taken a portion of my land on rent for paddy farming. The sum we agreed upon was just on the basis of expected price of 1800/quintal. He returned from market and did as you can image. It was just a sentimental landvalla and a crying landless farmer. So I had to share his loss. But this act of philanthropy left a hole in my pocket. If market forces and the shining economy of India, for their survival, presume such acts of kindness from semi-poor guys like me, then to be hell with such a system. I think those who have lakhs of crores in Swiss accounts are better for this task. But you beat the Swami who talks of getting that money back. Another farmer, nursing the market insult, was just hatefully staring at the stunted growth of his winter tomatoes. An ex-serviceman, in late forties, this farmer has been working with all his army ethics on his small landholding. 'This country is up for bloodbath, I tell you!' he fretted. Gosh! Guys there was real fire in his eyes and practical intent in his words. 'The fuckers have stashed all the money in Swiss accounts. That’s our money man. While they cheat us through low agricultural product prices and very high cost of livelihood. The behen****s... ', sorry guys an angry farmer cannot do without gali-sali, 'have fucked farmers at all fronts.' 'Unemployment...these graduate farmers of 21st century India are not dumbos like their forefathers. Believe me man the day will come when they will just barge in Parliament and just kill the lawmakers there!' Dear-o-dear what a stormy spectacle it became. He was literally shaking as if we just had the first leader of peasant uprising from this part. Just imagine what if Anna-type movement is caught in the whirl-wind of such disgruntled hard workers! The future seems really up for some jerks and pulls.

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Why does truth pinch most of the time? Simple! Because it is no chocolate, sugar candy or mellowable sweetie-pie lump of ice cream. It is hard, sour, iron ball guys. It has pinching rough stony edges to its surface. Come into contact with them and they will take a few flakes from your skin leaving a red or purple bruise depending on the intensity of truth contained in it. Now the question arises, 'Why does it almost always leave a grimace on our face instead of a smile?' The simple fact that all of us almost always rub cold shoulders against this ironed ball having thorns for our soft skin, proves on fact: that we are not subjectively inclined to accept the objective reality as it stands in abstract. But does not that mean that we have moved poles apart from truth and its manifestations while going on the path of individual and collective improvisations at the subjective level. May be the reason for our success in emerging at the top of food chain in the game of 'survival of the fittest' is that we have institutionalized ourselves to negate and defy, and do without, certain basic truths that form the core of creation and nature. Nothing wrong with that! It, however, is paradoxical that most of these scions of truth--against which we have always been taking cudgels--form the core of our moral, humanistic, religious, spiritual and aesthetic vision enshrined in preach books. Strange!

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Late winter mornings are fresh even in the polluted and dirty sections of NCR. Heavily encumbered sectors in Noida do have their share of early-morning charm as they try to find out the order and symmetry meant for them in master plans. They cannot see much among the defecating, exciting, commercial, crash and crying hulla-bullo going around. The buildings are semi-daunting: a curious mix of residential-cum-commercial styles. You see a bit of house, a bit of manufacturing unit, a bit of service industry, a bit of business, a bit of exploitation, a bit of comfort, a bit of pain, a bit of life and a bit of death. It is a self-absorbed world, a cesspool, a whirling system drawing so many survival-lorn masses from nooks and corners of India. They live identity-less here. The enterprise thrives here. The malik goes smirk in his big car. The labourers go pitifully, deeply shackled by the duties and falling bodily and mental notions of being a human--and how can you expect to be Ganga-clean if you eat, drink and sleep at the very place where others and you defecate and procreate at the same time. You find a kid left alone in this non-caring world. A small sack on his back. The rag picker. He has manly eyes and a kid’s stature. When you are left alone so early in your life to enjoy or suffer life on your own terms, you just become one of the thousands of flies fighting for as pace on shit and sweets with the same relish. You just know one side of life--survival. By any means and at whatever cost. And what does this survival produce: stunted, frail. sick, dehumanized, spiritless multitudes who just add to the census sheets of India. But they serve a purpose. They carry the shining tag of economic boom and growth on their frail shoulders. They survive by any means. That is their biggest achievement. The widow, the prostitute, the raped girl, the mad women(carrying the sex toy for so many frustrated and hungry souls). They beg, pickup rags, sell their diseased bodies, operate tea stalls, try to pick out the moments of the day while someone ignores the cancer warnings to buy those poisonous sashes carrying gutka and tobacco. They even cock a snook at the great plans in the plan books for this great Delhi suburb, the pride of Uttar Pradesh. They just settle down at any place in between the industries. Their tiny hovels, a curious world of dwarfs. But they live as tall people who sleep and fuck proudly in congested hiccuping afraid air and bring about additions to their world like ant swarms. You will see their holy places as well. A drop of gangajal in the sewage nullah gurgling with puss and bacteria of uncaring humanity. The mandir stands nonchalantly. It’s Gods having forsaken it. It was never accepted as their earthly shelter at all. Anyhow a poor man's God is no God at all. It has been proved. The mosque minaret too sulks over this majestic swarm lost in a terrifying fatality just somehow holding onto faith like their broken spirit holds onto their more broken bodies. A mere purposeless appendage. They have their open shit plots. The stench too overbearing and thus fighting to retain its status and repel any encroacher coming with a non-shit purpose. Just imagine what will be the garbage dump site of this bigger garbage pit—it is literally a hell hole. It but serves as the playground-cum-business-cum-schooling arena for the orphans, half-orphans, bastards, urchins, nameless boys and futureless girls. In this hell of a hole, a fat pig brushes its shit-smeared muzzle against the holy mouth of a robust bull chewing the half-shit fodder and lying at ease in this kaliyuga playground. Well, well...you just have to pass through just one street and get the gist of life in these perilously throbbing veins. The blood is poisoned. The organs are diseased. What is its future? May be even God does not know. Probably, He is not concerned at all. And why should he be! Because He is the king of heaven. Why should He have any business with such hells?

                                                                     

The Mathematics of Super-rich Hindu Godmen!!

Ever wondered about super-rich Hindu godmen??!! All of us cannot escape being wonderstruck at the extensive material possessions religiously safe (always beyond the domain of tax and property laws that stalk the tiny material prospects of lesser mortals like yours truly) under the clutches of long list of Hindu religious figures. Well mendicancy that always reminds us of naked bearded Sadhus lost in meditative trance, it now instantly fetches us the image of gold-imbibed sages on whose feet both elites and the masses put their heads for seeking better prospects. Sadhus are doing good business man!!

It is one of the most predominant means of land grab in India ranging from prime locations in metros to the remote mountainous stretches. It is a very simple Hindu mathematics that functions on the parameters of blind faith and governmental incapacity to interfere into the religious affairs of the people who manage and organize religion for 80% population in this country. It starts with a smart bearded eagle who puts his ass by a holy fire near the vicinity of a suffering settlement full of people in need. You know why people’s faith in fate and God for a reprieve from their problems is not coming down as it should given the vast strides in science and technology? It is rather going up to turn into a blind race without any rhyme or reason. The reason is god dammed massive population in this country. People are crammed in a small space and fight over little resources. They ultimately have to spread out the corner of their apron for divine intervention. In ancient India that was rich in resources, faith was a means of spiritual pursuit. Now it is a mad rush to stand in the queue like sheep and humbly get blessings to fulfill needs. People have so many needs and uncountable frustrations that they are forced to drop logic at the end of a hard-cut day of struggles.

The mathematics of this Godman prosperity is very simple. Suppose ten people start going to a new religious sprout, the new Sadhu on the scene. They have their histories of disappointments, struggles, issues against man as well as God, trials and tribulations. When they decide to hit their forehead into the dust around the holy feet of this new blessing giver, even with a very weak probability law, some of them have already done enough to resolve some of their issues. Suppose out of ten, two people have been struggling long enough so that in any case they would have seen a positive change in their situation even if they had not visited this godman. But since they see a change in their situation after they started visiting this religious fellow, they forget the long trials and tribulations and their fight. They think that if it was not happening for so long, and now it materializes, so it must be born of this holy man’s blessings. So these two overzealous and over-obliged troubled souls turned followers become the publicity agents. Driven by a devotional spirit they will fetch 10 each fellow sufferers from the group of their acquaintances. And out of those 20 persons, at least 4 would have done enough to change their life positively anyway. But again these four will go ga ga about the Sadhu’s prowess in changing their lives. These four will get another 40 and so on. It grows with a very serious mathematics. A sort of nuclear chain reaction.

What about the rest 8 of the 10 people who visited initially? They will never doubt the powers of Sadhus as such. At the most they will think this particular one is not skilled enough to resolve their issues. So they will continue with their struggles against their causes as well as search for a skilled-enough holy figure who will ultimately deliver the goods for them. They will be scattered in the different levels of groups falling in the domain of various Sadhus. And those who realize that things have changed for them (which would have changed anyway given their long-road of struggles); they dump finally their loyalty at the feet of the holy figure that they are visiting at that time. In this way these godmen get their core group of loyal followers. So not surprising that most of these godmen are cut in the avatar of Aasharam and other cheats. A very simple religious mathematics, eh! 

If Gandhism is a philosophy, not individual legacy, Arvind Kejriwal, then, is the modern Gandhi!!

There is a cartel that has hijacked Indian democracy. It involves mighty politicians belonging to all the mainstream political parties, big business houses, senior officials and powerful antisocial elements. They complement each other and help each other in monopolizing things for mutual benefits and plunder the resources. Kejriwal challenged this criminal nexus. That's why he stands marginalized and stigmatized like this. All the thieves have started barking against him because he is their common enemy. Everybody knows how people like Mr Ambani control top ministries in India. And when Kejriwal shows fearlessness and puts them in dock they go for witch-hunting. Media is also controlled by these big economic and political tycoons. So the journos are also leaving no stone unturned in demeaning this new Gandhi fighting for the little little freedoms that have been denied to the common man of India. Hope people have their brains with them and won't be influenced by the propaganda organized by the exploiters.

Ground realities related to Khaps!!

Every community in India has its own type of social organization. Minority religions have their unique systems regarding marriage etc. These are so unique that some of them are even beyond the reach of civil and marriage acts. It means Indian constitution allows diversity of culture and thought. Khaps should basically be analyzed with a belief in this very concept. If so many distinct customs of marriage, divorce, property rights, which are even in stark contrast to other uniform laws in India, are allowed then why are khap panchayats judged with an exceptional, exclusive judgmental hammer ignoring so many unique cultural traits they define and defend regarding the Jat community. We have to understand that these are basically units of social organizations just like any other community in India and having its own utility and flaws.

Those who sit in the studios and blabber about the issue of honour killings should come out and see the ground realities related to honour killings. Ask the family where such incidences have taken place. They will tell it was the fear of getting marginalized by the mainstream society and the fear of stigma that drove them into the gruesome act. Very rarely Khaps will ordain honour killings. There have been some incidences when such injunctions were unfortunately ordained from Khap chabutra, but in those cases it happens when things somehow reach the larger domain of the community. In such cases these criminal acts have to be punished as per the law of the land. Don’t individuals commit murders? Does that mean that all of us should be put under scanner for being possible murders? Every individual, every institution in the domain of social, economic and political framework has its own versions of criminal acts. Does that mean that we should raise questions about their existence itself? Civilization thrives on reformation, not termination. Even Britishers thought of reforming so many unique customs instead of gross termination.

Right from Muslims to people in down south, marriage customs are different in India. If Khaps have a stand against same gotra marriages then what is wrong with that?? Genetically it has been proved that the more you move away from the genetic line of your parentage, the better are the offsprings. On what grounds we get judgmental? From the yardsticks of Hindu marriage customs, some customs related to certain communities will appear unacceptable. So just targeting a particular community regarding its marriage customs does not sound prudent and justified.

The biggest undoing with Khaps have been their spokesmen! Jats are basically farmers and count very low when it comes to being diplomatically correct. If put prudently even a slap may sound like a logical act born of some justified grievance. And if not put appropriately, even a justified act may appear like a gruesome act. That’s what Khap leaders have done to their system. Their ill-calculated statements regarding reduction of marriage age to cut down on rape, not allowing women to use mobile, codes regarding dress etc, have brought ill-repute to khaps. On the practical surface there is hardly any negative change in the lives of girls and women on account of such instructions, but yes after getting overhyped in the media Khaps sound like Taliban ever trying to enslave woman. Before getting panicked whenever there is such an injunction by some khap, kindly visit the respective areas and find out if there is a change in the lives of woman. You would not find any perceptible change. But yes Khaps will definitely get demonized. Khaps become just self-injurious in such matters. It happens just once in a while when some old patriarch of the headgear generations gets panicked possibly on ulterior grounds and ordains something funny which does not have any affect on the ground level. So Khaps should have diplomatically correct and educated people as their spokesman who know what they are saying and what might be the consequences.

 If we just strictly look from the prism of modernity then most of the unique aspects of different communities will appear redundant. We are here to preserve distinctness, not to smother down diversity. Doing that just against Khaps does not sound like treating Jats equally with other communities in India. So many customs and ways of life related to many other communities also repeatedly rub against the shoulders of law. So reformation is the key objective, not annihilation. In this regard Supreme Court’s observations on Khaps appear unjustified.

Every social system having historical roots has and will serve a role. So to say that Khaps have become redundant is quite farcical. Khaps are passing through a generational shift. The old patriarchs still clinging to its top leadership sometimes over buzz the panic button. It has to be understood that many things that are happening are beyond their imagination. So the reaction! But most of the times their reaction has not any effect at the practical level. Once this generation bows out, brighter young people who are more educated will take charge of Khaps. We have to facilitate this generational shift in Khap leadership instead of tabooing them Taliban way,