The title of this post is a line from a song by the British Rock Band, Black Sabbath. That seems so apt to describe the political situation in this country in general and this state (Andhra Pradesh) in particular. Everyday the newspaper carries stories of scams of different variety where wily politicians have siphoned off thousands of crores of rupees, or about violence and bandhs and threats. The TV channels are the same. The sensationalism that the TV channels resort to would make one think that we are living in a war ravaged part of the world. While that is sensational the underpinnings of what is happening in this country and Andhra Pradesh are probably portends to what might be in the future. The Telangana imbroglio continues with no signs of any action or serious thought being given to this issue. Everybody seems to be waiting for Sonia Gandhi to make up her mind and tell us what the future holds for us. I cannot help but think, who is Sonia Gandhi to decide? I am not alluding to her Italian origins when I say that. I am only questioning as to why one individual has to be given the power and authority to decide the fate of people.
Talking of people, it is very disheartening and sad to see rabble rousing of one set of people against the other and the statements of the Osmania University Students Joint Action Committee that they will start an "Andhra Go Back" movement and throw out the "outsiders" and attack their properties are distressing, to say the least. What kind of a country are we living in when Indian citizens are not allowed the right to live anywhere of their choice without fear and anxiety? The beating up of various Government functionaries by TRS leaders is indication of the tendencies of fascism creeping into the so called people's movement. Buses carrying government employees being attacked and government not being allowed to function are all indications of the fascist tendencies and measures of desperation. Xenophobia levels are mounting and those are being further fuelled by opportunistic politicians.
I have never named people and I will continue that tradition of mine. But what I find unbelievable is that an academician has decided to become a politician (nothing wrong with that, but he should quit academics and join politics full time and not do this thing of taking leave occasionally, signing the register and go off on jaunts to politic) and has also decided to every half an opportunity warn various sections of the population of "dire consequences" if they do not fall in line with his dictats. The man who teaches the virtues of democracy has himself become a "Great Dictator". Perhaps the greatest cause of sadness should be the TRS strategy of emulating the LTTE and bringing small children into the fray. A little more than a year ago I had seen the TRS bring scores of little children to the famed Arts College in Osmania University. I had even made a post about that. Now in newspapers I see little children carrying Telangana flags and shouting slogans. This hit me much harder when I saw something a few days ago.
I had been asked to travel to neighbouring Karnataka to deliver a valedictory address for a seminar organized by a government college there. I had to travel by road to get there and the good people from the college said that I can travel by a taxi and that they would pay the fare. I found that all along the way, there were problems. People had parked tractors across the road. When asked as to why they were doing this since there was no rasta roko, they said that their villages were getting erratic power supply and that they wanted the electricity staff to come to them. They were being told by the police (who were about 2 in number at every place where this was happening) that the electricity department staff were on strike the people kept saying that is not our problem. Long queues of traffic were forming on either side of the road and at most places ultimately it was brawls that settled matters. In one or two places, the striking non-gazetted officers of the Government of Andhra Pradesh had pitched tents in the middle of the highway and only letting small vehicles through from one side. Trucks were parked for kilometres on both sides and I heard some truckers pleading that they were carrying perishable cargo and that since they did not even belong to this state they should be allowed to go and these people were told that they have to endure hardships if we (the agitators) had to have our demands satisfied. When I finally reached the venue of the seminar, the time for the valedictory was long gone and only a few students were made to sit and listen to me. One of the people there pointedly asked me why people in Karnataka had to put up with the Telangana bull shit (his words, not mine) when they had nothing to do with it. Apparently he was stuck there because his train to Bangalore was cancelled due to the rail roko in the Telangana region. I can go on about these incidents but these will suffice.
If one looks at the anatomy of the problem one can see the cause of all this. First of all we have politicians who are mainly goons and thugs and are most avaricious. They require thousands of crores. Elections and being elected are for them means to satisfy their hunger for power and money. They are incapable of understanding finer things such as development, people's aspirations etc. Then there are the upper and middle classes. The upper classes are so rich that they will not be affected by anything. If things take a bad turn here they will fly to some other country till such time things are conducive for their return. The middle classes are very much like the politicians. Full of themselves, greedy for more of everything and aspiring to be like the upper classes. What matters to them is which fashion designer is hogging the lime light, which actor is doing what and they are constantly trying to break into the rarefied portals which are used by the glitteratti. They are also not satisfied with the pay packets that they have. Their pay packets already run into several lakhs of rupees but it is not enough. Armed with this stupidity they are quite happy to declare their support to half baked people like Anna Hazare who thinks he has the magic wand to get rid of corruption from this country. The support of the middle classes to the Hazares of the world (and the Hazares do not have enough intelligence to tell their front from their rear) is also limited to stupid posts on Facebook or the occasional jaunt to a public place where there will be a candle light vigil while a rock band belts out popular songs which have nothing to do with anything.
It is this attitude that has been widening the gap between the rich and the poor and the properly educated and the improperly educated (and the uneducated). It is in this gap, in this emptiness that the lumpen elements to society grow. Profile the lumpen person. He has no access to anything. No education, no medicare, no comfort of a home, no comfort of a family, nothing. It is this lumpen person who becomes the mercenary and the weapon in the hands of the politicians who are anyway thugs themselves. This lumpen person is least bothered about the fact that children are losing education and their future (for him there is only a present, no future), that people are dying due to neglect (death is an everyday occurrence and does not move him emotionally), that the state is losing thousands of crores of rupees (he does not even understand the numbers and sees no reason to try and understand them) and that the country is suffering (so what is new in that? he would ask since that is the one thing he understands). The self righteous, self consumed and socially irresponsible rich and middle classes have to pay this price. When there is a fire raging it is stupid to think that it will only consume the others and not the self. It is this inability of the afore mentioned classes to see beyond their noses that has landed this country in this quandary. It is these classes that have proved Mahatma Gandhi and Winston Churchill right. Gandhi said that there was not enough for greed even though there was enough for every man's need in this world. It is the greedy and avaricious attitude of the rich and the middle classes that has made them numb to other people. So how can they expect the others to be anything but numb to their problems? Churchill famously said that after independence India would ultimately be ruled by scoundrels and all sorts of silly fellows. I suppose I do not have say anything more on that. So the fools are the rich and the middle classes and therefore the lumpen mob (which is their illegitimate heir) rules.
P.S. Short of time did not proof read. Mistakes maybe excused. Thank you.
