Beating the Ghosts

 

The sweltering heat of India had blossomed a new flower. Mass-anger lynched India catapulted Modi to the Prime-ministerial chair with unprecedented gusto. Good days are coming, everybody firmly believed, only the irritated Congress spokespersons denied it. The guy from The Broken Dream, slogging invisibly in the publishing houses, felt avenged. After all, his destiny had been broken during the Congress rule both at the centre and in the state. He had had his tiny share in the anti-congress tirade in his unrelenting facebook posts, a convenient means of putting out your voice in the noisy clatter of the bigger world. His hate for the grand old party would not end with just this election debacle, there were many more fronts to be tackled.  

Modi Sir, Congress is yet to be defeated!

 

He was framing and formulating a letter to the prime minister, admonishing him of the bleaker scenario that might go in favour of the adversary. He was cutting, fumbling, rewriting and redrafting his efforts to sound meaningful to the man who was now leading India to a new horizon, as they claimed.

Sir, we are lucky to have you as the un-politician type Prime Minister of India. Your Majesty’s administration in Gujarat fetches you enough credit points to be taken as an administrator first and a politician second. The new educated generation has high hopes from you. Right from the evening of May 16 when the election results were declared you have been busy like a true son of mother India and have started drawing the roadmap for a better India for the majority of the Indians. We don’t have any reason to be sceptics regarding your capability to take India ahead on the path of multi-dimensional progress.

Sir, but there is a roadblock that you might face when you again fight for another innings in the year 2019. It is born of a certain Congress legacy. All of us do agree on taking Congress and Corruption as synonymous. And rightly so! But decades of Congress-type mis-governance ensured that the very roots of the tree got corrupted to the core. Corruption is not just about 2G Spectrum, Commonwealth Games and Coal Block distribution; it is also about the common Indians’ belief that without shortcuts nothing can be done. It generates a mentality that does not consider the shortcuts or the typical Indian jugadbaji as the means and mechanism of corruption, but the simple convenient facilitators. People have come to accept the extra costs as additional service charges; officials in various departments have come to consider it as their well deserved unofficial bonus. These officials have set up their budgetary benchmarks to keep their families. Unofficial bonus plays a major part in satisfying this excessive-consumer-lorn mentality. Any cut in this part, which clean governance surely will result into, will find them recalling good old days with nostalgia.

Ask anybody what does government service mean. They will say it is about having safe money, almost no work, and unofficial bonus for the small amount of work that one is supposed to perform officially. For this great facility people pay lump-sum amounts to get a government job. Since they start their journey after paying the unofficial bonus to somebody, they also claim it back when they get the governmental chair. But Sir, your-style governance will mean full work and no such bonus. That will find millions of government babus shaking their head in disapproval. Some of my friends are government teachers in Delhi. Their academic enthusiasm found them supporting Kejriwal vigorously. Straightaway Kejriwal talked of more effort by the idling government teachers. They were asked to stay in school for couple of extra hours daily to cover up the massive loopholes in public education system. Immediately their faces got shrunk. They started abusing Kejriwal and accepted their blunder in supporting him. So millions of public sector workers and their dependents will always prefer Congress-type work culture and governance. It will be very difficult to convince these guys in 2019 that the work they are being asked to perform without the unofficial bonus is a contribution to nation building.

Congress and its constituents abused power. But they were really kind in allowing it to be abused by anybody to the lowest rung. India is a free country in every sense. One can defecate by roadside, one can spit anywhere, one can cross red lights, one can call the prime minister a clown, one can molest women, etc., etc. Good governance will find things falling in place and people feeling cheated that their wings have been clipped. Manmohan government had a bad reputation and they allowed anybody to throw jibes in media in whatever form one wanted. The top office in the country has lost its dignity. You, Sir, will definitely try to get it back. But then people might start calling you a dictator, extremely sorry Sir to use the word. Even poor Manmohan will earn few credit points for being very lenient and allowing even beggars in Delhi to throw obscenities in his name.

Sum and summary is Congress leaves a ghost. Congress might be out of the seat, but it still survives in spirit in millions of Indians who are in a comfort zone based on the old mindset and its profits. Rectifying things in full vigour might see the Indian infrastructure improving, but Sir you might lose votes as well. How long the well-meaning Prime Minister can inspire people to come ahead for building the nation. It is bloody massively populated country. For one chapati there are ten claimants. At this level people cannot see the world beyond their home and hearth. So Sir your nationalistic agenda might see India progressing in infrastructure, but at the cost of massive indents in your popularity since Congress is ruling India in terms of work culture, narrow mentality and unofficial bonus! 

Getting 335 seats in the Parliament is no guarantee that whole of India has given a go ahead to the green signal of nation building. It is very easy to shout as a part of the crowd baying for revolution. But it is far more difficult to come out of the self-cantered zone and contribute extra for the nation in lieu of the same rewards. It is very easy to excite voters into a frenzy; but far more difficult to turn these frenzied zealots into responsible and self-governing citizens. Ask people to take extra responsibilities and their faces will shrink. I think already we have millions of shrunk faces because the public sector might now be open for six days a week. I have already heard many babus lamenting why did they voted for a particular party. Mother of all political evils, the Congress, may still have something to smile about!

The honorary Prime Minister will have to focus on self-governance apart from good-governance. Only self-governance can make unruly Indians as responsible citizens who will positively contribute something extra required for good governance leading to a better India.

Smiling Back at the Self

 

Nature is not with anybody. Neither is it against anyone. It is for us to decide whether we are with it or against it. The onus is on us! Since we are a part of it, it suits our purpose if we go with it! Going against it means going against ourselves. But that is what we are doing presently!

The pretty faced young environmentalist had spoken well at the environment seminar in a prestigious public school and concluded with the above well-meaning lines. She had studied environmental studies and was now working with an NGO fighting for environmental issues. The organisation ran a monthly environment and nature magazine as well and the young activist did more than her salary justified for the editorial part of the publication. There are various compartments of identities, hopes, aspirations and desires inside us. She loved the cause of the nature and environment, but then somewhere inside her, as a normal young girl, there was the innocent ambition of moving up on the material ladder of life, having a car, costlier mobile set, some flat of her own in future, and many such mundane hopes as any other educated girl in Delhi would have. Many of her colleagues in college who had chosen more convenient subjects like economics and business management appeared to have already taken a big leap in that direction getting good salaries and CTCs.

Possessing better knowledge, drive and debating skills than even the brightest girl she could recall from her circle, she always tried her best to compensate for the lower CTC—even lesser than the dimwit school friend who was now making more money in fashion designing—by thinking about the larger cause she worked for. The cause of mother earth! But the biggest cause is the cause of the self. So she always felt the pinch and many a time wished she should have chosen a better, more lucrative subject. The young girl in her had the soft dream of a comfortable life, having all the basic amenities around her. But given the fast-paced consumerism that comes tugging at our hearts and more so at our wallets, the resources are never sufficient. We have to have more. She was no exception to this. She had her little girl’s cute cynicism building in her.

Her manager who generally wrote the editorial for the monthly magazine was outstation and not in a position to write the piece this time and she had been given this extra responsibility to write editorial for this month’s issue focussing on poverty, hunger and environmental degradation. We have our own weapons and tools to criticise. The catapulting throw is powered by our little-little miseries as individuals. But then speaking for the common cause can provide us the safe route of justified cynicism, without sounding outright jealous cribbing. With her mind calculating the prospects of a better career, the heart-chores trying to reach the farthest limits of her purse to get the costliest gift for her boyfriend on his approaching birthday, she wrote with strength and conviction.       

 

Despite hogging some mediocre limelight for making advancements in various fields India still ranks at the bottom of the list in terms of quality of life. In fact even very poor African countries are better placed than India in this regard. The reason is simple: the economic statistics that put India in the league of rapidly developing economies are just limited to the economic fortunes of mere 1 percent of the total population. How has this miniscule section of Indian population come to grab almost 80 percent of the total wealth and give a very deceptive picture of the Indian growth and development? The answer is very simple! Political-industrialist nexus has allowed the plundering of natural resources to an unbelievable extent. Take for example coal. The industrial house acquiring a coal block has to spend just 100 rupees per ton (including royalty and extraction costs) and gets legal rights to sell it for 5000 rupees. This is plain theft! How can anyone justify such mammoth profit margin? It applies to the rest of the resources including minerals, forests, petroleum, natural gas, water bodies, lands, etc. All that a big industrial house is required to do is to take the particular minister heading a crucial resource ministry into confidence, set up a deal regarding the massive returns for the party, individuals and the institutions. That is how unimaginable sums of money get deposited in secret accounts abroad. This money is then used, not for development works, but in parochial ways meant to perpetuate the ways and means of the system that allows this loot. Consider a reverse scenario! Suppose rules and regulations are reformulated to increase the royalties to the extent that the industrialist is left with a logical profit margin on the basis of investment made. Like if the industrialist has to pay back 2500 rupees out of 5000 rupees made for per ton of coal. These 2500 rupees coming back into the governmental coffers as direct visible money can be used for developmental works directly related to the quality of life of the 99 percent of the population. It will avoid a situation where just 1 percent of the population sits on majority of the resources, directly or indirectly. This is no communist dream! It is pretty much based on the market principles. Let the investing industrialist have the best returns as per the money-making ratio in rest of manufacturing and services sectors where people put up best of their management skills to earn decent sums. If it is not done then we will definitely have scenarios where the Prime Minister has to eat humble pie at the hands of criminal coal ministers having nexus with coal mafia and big industrial houses.

These were very avid and pertinent questions and issues that she raised. Reading it again she felt proud for having spoken out so loudly to reach at least the two thousand magazine subscribers. With her sweet innocent ambitions taking a temporary backseat, she definitely enjoyed the dozens of appreciation mails from the readers praising the editorial. And of course, she believed a bit more that she should feel proud of earning her bread and contributing to a social cause. In the mirror of the self inside her, she peeped to find her face happily smiling back. At least today!   

   

                                               

 

 

The Boss must have been Watching Indian Elections

 

The dust and rabble of the Indian general elections definitely rose to get into many anxious eyes abroad. India after all is a massively crowded democracy, cramming the world with its people, culture and issues.  

Starting from the caves to the plans for settlement colonies on Moon and Mars, the evolution of human systems has been in synchronism with the evolution and nature of leaderships. Leaders, leadership and their functional support systems have changed over the ages at all levels beginning from family, village, state, province and international levels. Leadership is followed both through unwritten norms as well as duly established systems of governance and administration.

When you land up at an alien place, the US dollar in your pocket is the most assuring factor for your safety and upkeep. If the US dollar in every nook and corner of the world gives you a feeling of protection as a world citizen possessing some purchasing rights, then does not it speak about America as a world leader in more ways than one? Nothing wrong with that! The fight for the topmost-sayer in world affairs has not been assigned to the Americans by their constitution makers. They have managed and earned it.

America possesses a deep knowledge of the internal affairs of the nations whom it wants to manage in a broad spectrum of policies chosen to keep its position as the most influential player in the world affairs. By default this policy would not like too powerful nations to manage under its foreign affairs department. The American policy through its brilliant network of hundreds of thousand CIA operatives is based on the basic parameter of finding the contrasting shades prevailing in the world at all levels ranging from nationalities, religion, geographies, histories and many more. These antagonistic parts jutted against in an issue are the two fronts that can be made to keep staring into each other’s eyes at the cost of larger issues of peace, progress and prosperity. The American policy is to pick up these opposite elements in all issues across the world and keep them engaged in confrontation by either supporting one or suppressing the other.

When the divisions can be maintained, it stops the emergence of strong nation states. For example a violent South Asia with India and Pakistan as staunch enemies is a safer bet for the aspirant world leader than a peaceful region with both countries using their money and resources to become more stable and prosperous societies. Similarly India and China throwing pot-shots at each other is a better scenario for the world leader. For example, to stop an escapist approach by India regarding China, America may support India to give it a semblance of confidence against the Dragon. When the weaker opponent finds some support in the form of the superpower, it will definitely be less compelled to go to the negotiation table. It keeps the issues alive. That friction between the neighbours works as a sort of drag on their feet on the path of further peace and stability and consequent rise in the national power.

The same world leadership theory would also require creating hurdles in path of the emergence of strong, stable governments in countries across the world. China emerged to challenge America on account of the fact that they managed a very strong and stabilised system of governance over decades. State energy was used just in developing infrastructure, weaponry and industries. Consider it in relation to India’s tottering efforts with democracy. It has won us more praise in books for democratic values and less in terms of the results in implementation. Obviously we have been wasting too many resources on unnecessary issues.  

A vibrant India under a secure government run by a strong leader cannot fit well with the global theory of leadership that is presently being operated by America (simply because they are able to play it). Given the American efforts to manage the world in ways that are more suitable to them for the next coming decades, it is unthinkable that they would have been just uninterested spectators at a distance while the biggest democracy went for elections. Of course the Americans had, have and will have their set of priorities. Like any other country, they have certain things in their scheme that will keep them in a brighter position regarding India. And of course they do it subtly indirectly with the help of their vast networks at various levels. So crux of the matter is: A confident India under a stable BJP government under Modi is not a safer bet for America. As the world super cop it will any day prefer an India struggling politically under a motley mix of governing alliance run by some consensus choice. Whenever India had third party alternative governments, we had weakest short-term prime ministers.

Modi is now clearly running to the dawn of glory. After the UPA disaster it was just expected that the BJP might come to power with a comfortable majority. A strong nationalist leader having comfortable majority is always in a position to bring about major shifts in the plans and policies through constitutional provisions. To begin with, it is disastrous for the Congress whose old system of catching onto its deprived vote bank will become outdated. At the international level it may push India on a path taken by China under a strong stable government where it started even retorting America. So obviously a weaker India always needing American help to beat the Chinese nightmares is a safer bet for the Americans. Nothing exceptional! It is just fitting with the world theory of leadership!

 

The Mishits

 

As the heat and fervour was building up though the summers and smouldering political tempers, and India looked again to get a saviour from the conventional political corridors, there were many who agreed that Ramdev and Kejriwal missed it. In their failure India also missed the chance of putting in front certain individuals and personalities that would have changed the apparent face of events in a totally unexpected, unconventional way, as the eventful times during the couple of years preceding the general elections in 2014 promised.

 

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 about the drastic changes born of bloody battles and massacres. In contemporary times revolution basically connotes mass frustration reaching the boiling, effervescent point and the spilled-over froth carrying a few chosen individuals as the representatives of the surge for change.

The UPA-2 messed up things. Even the common man struggling on the path of survival felt its pinch. Scams, ever-rising costs of living and the deplorable living conditions of the people, the aam aadmi, whose representative the UPA government claimed to be, disgruntled the masses. These small-small agonies came to be voiced out by the civil society movements. And these small rivulets of common man’s frustration merged to form 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! The reasons have been that they came out too ambitious than they appeared initially. It boils down to their not doing justice to the image that people held them in.

A lot needs to be accomplished in the 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 customised 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. Sceptics grope around to find the financial aspects of this silence.

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 saviour of the country when he talked of bringing back the black money from Swiss accounts. Almost two hundred thousand people clamoured under his leadership at the Ramleela 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 eulogised on the stage. Today all common Indians believe him to be a smart businessman only.

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 the 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 civil society movement that was hitherto sidelined was portrayed in modern clairvoyance as channels competed with each other to increase their TRPs. The 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 Company jumped to another orbit as this movement showed signs of halting. In his stupendous success as a 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 the 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. The Aam Aadmi Party got 28 seats. But at this moment the common man’s juggernaut came to halt on account of still weightier plans of Arvind and group. 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 the CM and as ministers the AAP leadership could not come out of their revolutionary and activist mode. Governance is different. It’s very easy to shout slogans, and very difficult to bring effective changes.

 

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 the unexpected success in Delhi. The AAP leadership did not want to let go of their hold on the common man’s psyche. So just hyper-sensitised 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 the CM chair and again started with the typical noisy accusatory game of hitting the big fish with verbal pot-shots. A lesson here. It’s not possible to keep the graph of mass excitement at the same level for too long. 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 was a historic blunder on Kejriwal’s part to jump out of the 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 the Congress support. All his works would have set up a new criterion of clean and honest governance in the country.

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

A lot many people still wished both Ramdev and Kejriwal had turned out to be the way they proclaimed. Alas! Our retired, single, lonely social worker was again looking for the directions to dump his opinions, as his election victory-born enthusiasm for Kejriwal again nosedived to the dustbin of criticism, a sort of betrayal against the masses. He ended up voting for the BJP by the way. And when the famous single man of India acquired the highest decision-making chair in the country, he applauded, feeling proud for this man who had the whole country as his family and who would act as selflessly as he in his neighbourhood in feeding cows, stray dogs and homeless people. He indeed found a meaning in life again because he belonged to the select group of single-by-choice people in the country, who looked to a larger cause beyond the mundane confines of a domestic life involving clock-hand type circles around the same axis. Many people passing through his street had a sweet taste in their mouths.

 

 

The Mute Button Gone

 

It was February 2014. The sun had started to shine a bit more warmly across the fog. The atmospheric god had impregnated the late winter air with seeds of spring to smile in March. India was also waiting for a spring, a blossoming of hopes, rejuvenation of broken dreams, and avid aspirations for the ‘good days’ to come. There had been a thaw in the retired history professor’s frozen pension funds. After much hassles and bruises to his panicked self, he had the financial support meant for his old age. A new dream waited India in May after the whirlwind of multiple-phases of elections in April to May, when a billion people would go to vote, the mahakumbh of democracy!

 

For all that he had believed and consequently undergone, the professor had every reason to pitch for the BJP. With his knowledge and academic background, he was eligible to give what and whys of the more suitable political choice. The BJP candidate, been informed about ‘that’ episode, had canvassed his all out support. Nursing the injuries and consolidating his belief in his version of history, the old academician went overboard in his support to help India have a new dream in new hands, in Modi’s hands, who had single-handedly changed the fate of Gujarat.   

 

Why the BJP brand of politics is a safer bet for the Indian democracy at present? He used his ideas and opinions to woo the educated voters for the BJP. He had regained his confidence and no longer just wrote in the journals. He could thunder from the public platform. After all he was singing hymns to the rising sun only which would just provide him warmth after the frigid winters during the day. He spoke with authority, with conviction, as a politician:

 

Family politics is one of the biggest issues that plague the Indian democracy. The Congress led by Gandhi-Nehru clan and the smaller regional offshoots has checked the flow of democracy from reaching the grassroots level. That’s the reason Swaraj is still a distant, almost impossible, reality even after 66 years of independence. Even within the folds of democracy, only autocratic tricks can succeed in maintaining power concentrated in a particular family. In this regard Gandhi-Nehru type of manipulations have done the greatest harm to the spread of democracy and independence across the widespread strata in India. Consequently, things did not change much for the common man of India post-independence.

The BJP’s brand of politics is in sharp democratic contrast to the Congress in this regard. Atalji headed the NDA as the Prime Minister.  He could focus just on his democratic duties instead of wasting resources and institutional powers in consolidating family fiefdom to keep it floating across generations. The new BJP Prime Minister designate, Narender Modi, will be in a far better position to function as the topmost administrator of the country in comparison to let us say somebody from the Gandhi-Nehru clan. The latter will again have to go into undemocratic manipulations, directly and indirectly, to maintain their grip as the first political family in the country.

In the present conditions the BJP is the only option for the spread of democracy in India. Under Modi, the BJP will take the Indian democracy to the next stage when Swaraj will be a possibility under the care of the new rising son of mother India!