This is the prelude to some of the posts that I intend to put up on this blog

This piece was sent to me by my good friend Pratap Antony who is himself an active blogger. After reading it I felt compelled to put up here and use this as a stimulus to shake myself out of the languid stupor into which I have otherwise fallen and start writing again, especially at a time when there seems to be so much to write. You can expect to see me back to activity very soon. This piece sent by my friend is the prelude to my writing again.

John Swinton, the former Chief of Staff at the NEW YORK TIMES who was asked to give a toast before the prestigious New York Press Club in 1953, made this candid confession [it's worth noting that Swinton was called "The Dean of His Profession" by other newsmen, who admired him greatly].

"There is no such thing, at this date of the world's history, as an independent press. You know it and I know it. There is not one of you who dares to write your honest opinions, and if you did, you know beforehand that it would never appear in print. I am paid weekly for keeping my honest opinions out of the paper I am connected with. Others of you are paid similar salaries for similar things, and any of you who would be so foolish as to write honest opinions would be out on the streets looking for another job.

"If I allowed my honest opinions to appear in one issue of my paper, before twenty-four hours my occupation would be gone. The business of the journalist is to destroy the truth; to lie outright; to pervert; to vilify; to fawn at the feet of mammon, and to sell the country for his daily bread. You know it and I know it and what folly is this toasting an independent press. We are the tools and vassals of the rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes."

Copyright of this belongs to whoever has copyrighted the piece (if at all).

The politics and politicians of India have at least become transparent. Maybe that is the good part of an otherwise murky system

I have not been posting on this blog for a long time now. That is mainly due to the fact that my job at another place, where I had gone on lien from Osmania University had given me so much grief that I lost all motivation for anything in life. Even though I started this blog to give my take on the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh, I had long ago said, that I had nothing more to say and therefore, there will be no more posts about that subject. I have been commenting on the wayward ways of politicians, though. But that to came to a stage where there was not much new happening there and so except for the occasional post jesting about them and their ways, I have not said much. All through I have maintained that I am from Telangana and that I will have no problems living in a Telangana State if and when it has become a reality. Well, it has now become a reality, and I have no problems with that or with living here; after all this is my home. But there are a few things that I have seen and experienced which do not portend well for the future of the people of what will now become two states.

I know that politicians have been saying that there will be peace and amity and KCR has even said that people from "Seemandhra" (I personally do not like this expression coined by the media, which most people have taken to as fish do to water) can live in peace without any fear of persecution. So many other politicians have said the same and I think it is a very good thing. Asaduddin Owaisi has even said that the word settler should not be used (this he did a few months ago, when it was clear that there was no stopping the division of the state). The Convener of the T-JAC has even said that the quarrel is not with the people of the other region but with the leadership of the Coastal region who had hijacked all the benefits including those which should have actually come to Telangana. He is probably right, and I do appreciate what he said to assuage the feelings of others who had come to Hyderabad from the other side. 

Let me now come to the point I made about my experiences. I quote these experiences to demonstrate that the politicians' utterances about how there is no divide among the people and that all is well in both regions. Perhaps that is true with a great percentage of people who live on both sides, but there are enough people today who are so aggressive that they do not mind hurling abuse. First let me quote the latest event. I was invited by a TV channel to discuss upon Federalism and its emergence in India. My two co-panelists were advocates one each from the Telangana and the Coastal Andhra regions. The topic was federalism but it took exactly 10 seconds for it to become all about Telangana and the two gentlemen wasted no time in making a slanging match and started shouted at each other calling each other names. I sat through the whole thing silently and came back after having spoken for about 40 seconds overall. I was very perturbed by how the two gentlemen had resorted to name calling. Cheats, land grabbers, unethical fellows, brutes, barbarians etc. Now one of the two gentlemen was from the Telugu Desam Party and the other apparently was leading the Telangana Lawyers JAC. So a party functionary from TDP who is also from Andhra kept talking about how the Telangana movement was rubbish and there were no truth to its claims while the other retorted in a similar vein. My question was what was Mr. Chandra Babu Naidu implying when he agreed to the bifurcation. It is a different matter that he has without withdrawing from the earlier position shifted to the Andhra side, probably for consolidation of his position in that region which was otherwise being captured by Y S Jaganmohan Reddy of the YSRCP. I will return to this point again a little later.

Let me now give you the second of my examples. I suddenly found that was somebody was tweeting that I am a settler ghost writing articles in the Mumbai Indian Express and that I am coward since I did not put my name on that article. I couldn't make sense of that whole thing at all until it struck me that a couple of weeks before I tweeted a URL of an article written by Sanjaya Baru (I am not sure if it is him, but it was someone equally famous if it was not Sanjaya Baru) and that this was what the person was referring to as a ghost written article by me. I tried to tell him that I did not write it at all and then he tweeted with my blog's URL. I told him I am from Telangana and that I am not a settler, but the tweets from his side continued. The man believed me (presumably because he stopped tweeting after this) when I sent out three or four tweets saying that I am originally for Nayeem Nagar, Hanmakonda, Warangal and that my grand father had launched the Brahma Samaj movement there and also the Scouts and Guides movements in schools and that my great grand uncle was the Auditor General of the Nizam's treasury. It took about 10 tweets and some family history of mine to make the man stop tweeting about me. I don't know if he believed me or not but I am glad that he stopped tweeting. But in the meanwhile some three others retweeted his tweets and a few from the other side started their own tweets about the Telangana twitterati. 

Then the third instance is the most bizarre. I had been asked to deliver a lecture on problems of representation which are inherent to democracy and why do they exist and what can they cause as things which are undemocratic. I went into the whole history of liberalism and how it was all about exclusion of people from decision making rather than inclusion and therefore despite the heightened pitch about inclusive politics, the model itself was not capable of supporting inclusive politics. I was saying that there is no accountability to politicians primarily because in a simple majority system those who voted against the winning candidate also get represented by him. Somehow this thing went into electoral politics and a lady kindly brought out the Telangana issue and how it could be seen as representing the people but it was the Coastal Andhra people who were not letting the Telangana representatives represent their constituents. I suggested that in such an instance when the representatives have stopped representing their constituents we could employ mechanisms such as referendum on an issue or recall of non-performing or badly performing elected representatives. Someone then decided to talk about Article 3. These were all teachers of Political Science and the way they were moving from one issue to the other was amazing. Then one man gets up and tell me it is enough (he is a colleague from my department) and tells everyone the session is over. Another persuades a couple of people who were discussing the constitution that they should also come out and bundled them all out. This too is a colleague of mine from the department in which I am employed. Then there was an old student who is now a colleague who also decided enough is enough. What is most interesting here is that I was scheduled to meet this group another time in a couple of days, and in the night I get a call from the coordinator that my lectures were postponed due to some reasons. I knew that this meant cancellation.

Later I was told that the three colleagues from the department were instrumental in cancelling my lectures since I was a settler!!! With this kind of intolerance among people what is the amity that we all live like brothers. One politician said we are only dividing territory not people. If people were not divided why would the question of division of territory come up at all. The general people may or may not be divided (there is no way of telling that with any certainty) but one thing is for sure that politicians are divided and to meet their targets they will divide whatever or whoever will come in the way. The Congress party by protracting the agitation for so long ensured that division percolated to all levels. The TDP supremo's two eyed theory culminated in two states. If he was against the division why did he give the letter of acceptance? He could have specified the terms and conditions on which he would agree to the division. Then there is the case of YSRCP. It was the Late Rajashekhar Reddy who instigated the separate Telangana movement in 1999 when he sent a delegation of elected representatives from the Congress to go to Delhi and ask for a separate Telangana. So why is his son protesting against the division? It is obvious that he seeks political gain. I personally believe that Chandra Babu Naidu may for once have spoken the truth when he said that in Telangana the TRS will merge with the Congress. That seems reasonable, given the speed (and lack of respect for democratic conventions) with which the Telangana Bill was passed. He is probably right when he says post election the YSRCP will merge with the Congress. This is all to shut him out. He could be right for once. That time will tell.

Meanwhile Mayawati wants to use the Telangana creation for bifurcation of UP into 4 more States. Gorkhaland agitators are getting ready to ask for a separate state and Mamata Banerjee is therefore saying that the process of Telangana creation was anti-constitutional. The really good thing to emerge out of all this is that it is now clear that the BJP and the Congress see eye to eye on many issues like smaller states (regionalism), communalism, casteism and any other divisions that are possible. The divisions are the ones that create spaces for politicians to emerge, rake up issues and later flourish. So to say people are not divided for me is nonsense. Politicians have been dividing people for various reasons for decades now and today that is there for all to see. It remains to be seen where all this will ultimately. One thing is for sure that our politicians are working overtime to prove Winston Churchill right, when at the time India became independent the man disdainfully said "India will remain an independent country but slowly it will come under the rule of scoundrels and all kinds of silly fellows whose goal will be anything but the well being of the people or the country". 

Dear Reader, please do not take this as a commentary on the bifurcation of AP. It is not. I am also not lamenting anything other than the nature of politics and leadership in this country. The country requires leaders with vision of development and the will to serve the people, not the other way round. Sadly, what we have is the other way round. I am not going to make doomsday predictions. Like you, I will wait and see which this country goes in the coming few years.

Meet the Politicians

For this post of mine, I draw inspiration from a song that Roger Waters wrote in his last record with Pink Floyd  which was called the Final Cut. The song I refer to is actually called "The Fletcher Memorial Home" which is about how all the tyrants and kings were confined in an imaginary home that was named after Eric Fletcher Waters, Roger Waters' dad who died when Roger Waters was three months old, in the Second World War. In this song there is a brief spoken word section where Waters makes fun of politicians and I have felt that the same lampooning can be done about our own politicians who are bent on destroying Andhra Pradesh first and later the country itself. So that you get the sense of what I am doing here is the spoken word section that Roger Waters wrote:

"Ladies and Gentlemen please welcome,

Reagan and Haig, Mrs Thatcher and Paisley,

Mr. Brezhnev and Party, Mr. Begin and friend,

The ghost of McCarthy and the memories of Nixon,

And now adding colour, here are a group of anonymous Latin American meat packing glitterati".

This song and the album were created after the Falklands War which was seen as a betrayal by Waters of the post second world war dream that England would fight no more wars. I am just going to paraphrase the lyrics with the names of all the great politicians who are doing their best to destroy Andhra Pradesh. Needless to say the names are too many to add into those 5 lines, so I will selectively pick up the ones that I think will make the most sense.

"Ladies and Gentlemen please welcome,

Sonia and Singh, Kiran and Ashok (NGO leader)

Mr. Naidu and party, Mr. Jagan and friend,

The ghost of Indira Gandhi and the memories of Channa Reddy,

And now adding colour here are Prof. Kodand and his group of anonymous state splitting literati".

Do they expect us to treat them with any respect?

I am not going to go into the twists and turns that this sordid drama is taking. All I know is that politicians from both sides are least bothered about common people and all that they want is something to satisfy their power for hunger, which I suppose is this city called Hyderabad. Today all those warring for this city and against each other see Hyderabad as a combination of gold+diamond+coal+mica mine that can be harvested to their advantage. What I see is that while they do this for their own benefit and satisfaction of their greed, for common people who live here the city is slowly turning into a big landmine that will blow up sooner or later and take their lives. How many more twists and how many more terms before anything concrete comes out of this imbroglio. My estimate is that they will be infinite in numbers. One side waits for the other side to get some assurance and then they will start playing their games. First when Telangana was burning, Coastal Andhraites were fiddling, now that Coastal Andhra (including Rayalaseema) is burning, the Telanganaites are fiddling.

I think this is an issue that is being kept alive. It is like a relay race where the baton is passed on to the next member of the team. Here it might appear that there are rival teams that are passing the baton on to each other. That is the chicanery of it all. In reality they are all aligned on the same side and are making hay when the sun is shining. And this is an endless relay race with newer members becoming part of the team. Now that YS Jagan claims that he stands for status quo, it is quite clear that there is a deep strategy here between his party and the Congress. In fact, there has been an allegation for a very long time that it was he and his father YS Rajashekhar Reddy who instigated the movement for a separate Telangana as a strategy to defeat Chandra Babu Naidu and the Telugu Desam Party that seemed invincible. Even now the Congress is using a strategy by which it will not lose too much in the new Telangana state and the residuary state of Andhra Pradesh.

Look at it this way, the Congress has a tie-up with the TRS here in Telangana. So they will sweep the polls in the Telangana region together. By granting a separate Telangana the Congress will have alienated a number of people in the Coastal Andhra side. There Jagan Reddy and his YSRCP have emerged as a strong force since it was Jagan and his mother who did the first volte face and pledged loyalty to keeping Andhra Pradesh undivided once Digvijay Singh made the announcement of a separate Telangana. The law courts have been very cooperative with Jagan Reddy once he has been given bail. He was first told not to leave Hyderabad and later it has come down to he can go anywhere as long as it is in India. So what did the courts now see that they did not in the past? Why did the CBI not oppose bail and all that followed vehemently. It is perhaps ironical that the High Court of Assam has held that the Central Bureau of Investigation is an unconstitutionally constituted body!!! Does this mean that Jagan and company are now free birds? I am waiting for some other court to say that the police in India is an unconstitutional body.

But to comeback to what I was saying, since the first about face was done by Jagan and YSRCP they are now favourites in the coastal Andhra side to perform well in the polls that are just a few months away. So here is the picture. The Congress is not likely to get too many seats from the cow belt. It will have to rely upon Andhra Pradesh to give it enough seats for it to head UPA - III.  We have seen that the Congress thinks that it will do well with the TRS in the Telangana region. Now if Jagan Reddy does well, slowly the cases will all be dropped and he will get a certificate of being squeaky clean, and to fight the communal forces and anti-national forces, he will sink his differences with the Congress party and give the party support either from outside or by merging with the Congress. And who knows he may even get that post of Chief Minister for which there are no great leaders available within the Congress. So the question is why do this? Just for this election?

I think there is another dimension to this as well. The Congress is trying to finish off the Telugu Desam Party and Chandra Babu Naidu in a big way. Chandra Babu Naidu and the TDP have no strategy and have been out of power for 10 years. If they are shut out in this election, it will be very difficult for Naidu to even run his party. Fifteen years of not being in power can hurt politicians very badly and where it matters most; their pockets. That could be the beginning of the end for the Telugu Desam. The MIM is another interesting case. They do not want a separate Telangana but if it is inevitable then Hyderabad should be an integral part of it; not a joint capital or a Union Territory. The reasoning here is simple. The MIM owes its existence to Hyderabad and its surrounding areas. If this becomes a UT or a Joint Capital in the control of the Central Government, where do these people go for their living? So that is why they have now revived the call for a Rayala Telangana so that they will have some constituencies where then can be in politics in the Kurnool and Anantapur districts. And so they are looking after their own interests.

The BJP is the biggest casualty in this. They have shouted themselves hoarse about how they will give Telangana if they come to power. Nobody heard their shouts. Now they have been saying that they will give full support to the bifurcation bill. This was until yesterday when finally someone switched on the light in their office. What does BJP gain by supporting the Congress? Nothing. On the other hand it will facilitate the Congress' strategy and its victory. So the BJP is now dithering on how to make things difficult for the Congress without appearing as if they are doing this deliberately. And ironically enough Sonia Gandhi went to Bastar in Chattisgarh and told the people there that the BJP was dividing them for its (BJP's) own gains. Now what was that English saying. Something about the pot calling the kettle black. Enjoy these games now. But remember they will comeback to bite us all and at least for that let us be ready.

P.S: Not proof read due to paucity of time. All errors of syntax, semantics and anything else may be excused. Thank you.

The politics of Andhra Pradesh are a preview of what is to come in the future of India

I have not been posting for a while because of some personal problems and also because I thought things will be repetitive. So I kept away from the blog even while the agitation for United Andhra Pradesh was on for more than two months. I told myself that there is no need for commentary on the filth that was taking place in the name of politics. However, upon reflection I have felt that if I did not comment on what happened in the last two months in the Andhra and Rayalaseema regions then it would seem as if I was more than happy to castigate things that were happening during the separate Telangana agitation but I did not react when something similar is happening in the other two regions in the name of keeping the State of Andhra Pradesh united. Therefore I shall make a commentary which I hope to keep short because all the things that I said about the separatist agitation in Telangana are valid for the integrationist movement which is still taking place on the other side.

I have always maintained that I stand for leaving the State of Andhra Pradesh as it is even though I come from the Telangana region. For me the games that are being played on either sides are those which are necessarily the ones that politicians want for their own survival. In some of the posts in the past I have said that bandhs and agitations that disrupt the lives of people are not Satyagraha but anti the principles of Satyagraha. I still maintain my position. It is at one level laughable that the so called practitioners of non-violence on both sides of the divide style themselves as satyagrahis who are peacefully agitating for the satisfaction of their demands. And these demands and the methodology adopted for making the demands are non-violent and peaceful. I would like to disagree. The inconveniences caused to the common people even in the Coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema areas due to the strike of the government employees has shaken me just as it did when similar things were done here. 

It hurt to see Intensive Care Units in hospitals not having electricity and water and patients not getting the care that they are entitled to. If this is not violence against people, then what is?  Paralysing the state administrative machinery and making sure that we the people take giant leaps backward in the developmental process is indication of how base and immoral politics have become.  Many people from the other side expressed awe at the way in which the employees kept the strike going despite not getting salaries. It goes without saying that salaried employees need salaries every month to keep their households running. It is obvious that some politicians have been funding the movement on the other side as well. 

One of the things that has surprised me most is the fact that the Congress has become such an opportunist party that it represents both sides, that of separatists and that of integrationists. The Union government wants the state to be divided and the State government does not want it to be divided. The agendas of both sides have been hijacked by Congress politicians making other political parties irrelevant. This is like the left hand fighting the right hand. And when the announcement came that a separate Telangana will be created parties like the YSR Congress Party headed by the son of former Chief Minister YS Rajashekhar Reddy decided that they would throw in their lot with the integrationists so that when the State does get divided they will have an advantage over every other party. 

Innocently or stupidly it is being believed that the Congress along with the TRS will sweep the Telangana state post the division of Andhra Pradesh and that the Congress will be routed out in the Coastal Andhra and the Rayalaseema region. This is nothing but underestimating the power of politics and the potency of the games that politicians play. The Chief Minister of  Andhra Pradesh has suddenly discovered his principles and now says that politics are not important but the lives of people are. Ministers at the state and union levels have sent in notional resignations. Not all only a few, while others like Chiranjeevi have been desperately clinging onto their chairs. Their logic? They need to be in the government to fight the government.

The chief of the TRS, Mr. K. Chandrashekhar Rao is the comedian who comes out occasionally to make terrible statements about the culture of Andhra or about how he is going to kick the Andhras out of Hyderabad and Telangana. Suddenly all attention gets diverted to his comments. While most people see this as a comedic sideshow I suspect is something far more sinister. The MIM and its silence is another thing that is baffling. The only thing that it really contends against is the making of Hyderabad into a Union Territory, for that would mean that the MIM party whose base is mainly in Hyderabad will suddenly become irrelevant. No wonder then that the MIM has been saying that it will reach out to more areas in the country.

The TDP and Mr. Chandra Babu Naidu have become clueless. I am reminded of the line from the Dire Straits song "Once upon a time in the West" which goes "Sitting on the fence is a dangerous course, you might even catch a bullet from a peace keeping force".  Everybody knows what Mr. Naidu stands for. So why not stand by one's own convictions and beliefs and face the people boldly? Mr. Naidu's image as an efficient administrator, as one who stood for some principles have all got eroded with time. I admired him when he famously said "I don't mind losing the elections and sitting in the opposition. It will not be my loss; it will be the loss of the people". Ratan Tata also said of him that "While other people are thinking about the next election, Mr. Naidu is thinking about the next generation". Now these are things only archivists like me remember and for most people he is no different from the regular politician; perhaps only worse, since he has to get into power by hook or crook.

The BJP is one party that has been singing the Telangana tune from the day it lost the 2004 elections. The day after the results came out, Mr. Arun Jaitley said that the reason why the BJP lost is because of the fact that it stood with the Telugu Desam and denied Telangana. And this in the nation wide general elections. Nobody searched their souls to see if the pogrom that they had initiated in Gujarat had any effects on the election results. Today the mastermind behind the pogrom is the party's candidate for Prime Ministership next year. And the candidate that is being pitted against him from the Congress Party's side is Mr. Rahul Gandhi, someone who says politics are so omnipresent that they are there in everybody's pants and shirts!!!

One thing is clear; any which way the fate of the people of Andhra Pradesh has been sealed by the short sightedness and blindness of politicians. Bifurcation or no bifurcation is not a matter anymore. The leadership and its abject lac of vision is the problem. The same political game that has been played out in Andhra Pradesh for the last nine years or so will be played at the national level from 2014 elections onwards. The issues may differ but the players are the same and their tactics in dealing with issues will remain the same, so what you see in Andhra Pradesh today is what you will see pan India starting with the next elections.

Why this mindless violence?

It has been a very long time since I made a blog post. I have been rather busy with a lot of work and so I have really not had the time to make blog posts, though there have been plenty of subjects on which I could have written.  But most of them could have been repetitions of the themes that I have already written about.  This blog post is also a theme that I have written about in the past, but somehow my conscience tells me that I should take time out and make a blog post about this.

This blog post concerns itself with the bomb blasts that took place in my home city of Hyderabad.  Last evening two bombs went of leaving several people dead and many injured, some of them critically.  In all probability some more will join the list of the dead.  The people who died are those who have nothing to do with anything about communal violence or with communalism itself. These are innocent people who were going about their daily life and have families that were waiting at home for them to return back in the evening after a day's work.  There were also some who came to Hyderabad to attend job interviews and thanks to the blasts, have died.  Instead of them going home alive, only their corporeal remains will go back.  Families will be devastated. And the situation could be that some of the people who died may be the sole bread winners of the family.  Some of them could have little children who will get deprived of a father and the love that the father would have given to them.  Some people may have left behind young widows with children and now the life of all of them will become a huge mountain to climb.  Time will heal their wounds, but the question is to what extent?  The grief may come down with time but the hatred for those who have perpetrated this crime will grow.  

The perpetrators have claimed that they are the Indian Mujahideen.  And this means that among the public those who lost people and those who are stunned by the random act of terrorist violence, there will be a growth in hatred for the religion to which the terrorists belong. Since violence begets violence this will reinforce typical stereotypical notions of that community and outfits from the other group will want revenge. So one may see that there is an increase in communal violence at various different levels. Does Indian society require this?  I know for a fact that most people, irrespective of their religion, live their life by being indifferent to other people and their religions.  However, these kinds of terrorist acts will make people notice each other, but in a suspicious way and that will contribute to the overall growth of intolerance in Indian society.

What baffles me is that what do the terrorists think they can achieve by killing people violently?  Acts of terrorism have been and are being perpetrated in India and other countries for many years now.  Have the terrorists ever looked back to see if these random incidents of violence have achieved any results in terms of what they want? How does their cause get helped by these actions?  That is the reason why I say this is mindless violence.  If people were to think about the consequences of their actions, they will see that other than devastating a few families and ensuring that general hatred for people belonging to one religion and making them vulnerable to similar attacks, nothing else is achieved.  As a peace loving person (and most of Indian society consists of people like me) and one with concern for the future of the country, I am dismayed that we are perhaps travelling back in time to the medieval period where religion based intolerance was at its peak.

I am deeply distressed by the fact that India is increasingly witnessing different kinds of violence on a daily basis. There are divisions in Indian society based on caste, religion and region. The caste division is something that is increasing exponentially with the passing of each day and this rate this division will only grow and not get wiped out. Region based intolerance is something that has been afflicting Hyderabad for a few years now. Due to this students who have been drawn into the movement have lost any chance of having some kind of a career. Religious intolerance which has always been the substratum of Indian society is breaking out increasingly into the open and the levels of intolerance have reached alarming levels. I shudder to think of the society in which I live becoming one where one does not know if someone who has gone out for work in the day will come back alive or dead.  Will the people who wait for their loved ones to return find that they have become victims of anxiety since they do not know if their family members will comeback alive?

I am fully aware that writing a blog post does not really change anything.  But I am hopeful that those who read my posts will at least start thinking about this issue as not an inter-religious issue but as something that is only connected with a few people who refuse to think and act as robots for the blood thirsty people whose minds are perhaps convoluted.  I find it ironic, that in the land of the Mahatma (Gandhi) who strove for peace and tranquility, violence is becoming a norm.  What legacy are we going to leave for the generations of the future. Are we going to leave a society in which violence and communal war will become the norm? Will we ensure that lives are lost over causes which are as empty as the heads of people who want to perpetrate violence? I would like to believe that there is hope, but you my dear reader decide if I am right in being optimistic about the future or if I am just living in a fool's paradise.

P.S: Not proof read.  Errors of syntax and any other may please be excused.  Thank you.

Democracy in India=Lumpen elements+extra constitutional authorities

Many years ago, Paul R Brass while studying Indian Democracy opined that the main driving force of Indian democracy were the thugs and goons that rich politicians used in order to take over the agenda of democracy itself.  More recently Amartya Sen made an observation that Indian democracy has little to do with people and their aspirations and that it was something which was run by pressure groups.  The statements emanating from both Brass and Sen have the same content; the difference being that while the former was starkly calling a spade a spade the latter was using a euphemism to describe the same phenomenon.  The creeping in of lumpen elements into the system of democracy is a pretty old phenomenon but what merits some attention now is that while in the past it was something very clandestine, in its latest garb it is out in the open and very proudly so. 

In one of my previous posts I had argued that Indian democracy was actually a legitimating facade for plutocracies.  I still argue the same but I will say that the thin veil of legitimacy that it wore has started tearing and giving insights about the truth of how democracy in India functions.  To explain this position of mine I will take two examples and the use of one of the examples is actually a reneging on my previous position that I shall stop writing about the Telangana imbroglio since there was nothing to gain by it. My retraction of the position has nothing to do with the necessity or the lack of it for a separate Telangana state.  But it has everything to do with the fact that it brings into the open certain disconcerting realities of what democracy and governance have become in India.  The other example pertains to the Great Side Show of Indian Politics that is enacted by Babu Rao Hazare and his cohorts.

Let me start with the latter.  For more than a year now Hazare and his little group of merry men and one woman have been trying to grab the headlines of the news of the country with their agitation for the passage of the Lok Pal bill, which they somehow want us to believe is the panacea for all the problems that this country is facing.  Everybody with an iota of sense will know that the idea if looked at very generously is naive and if seen in a more sinister light is draconian.  Hazare, Kejriwal, Ramdev and Kiran Bedi have no mandate of any sorts from any people to hold the Central Government at ransom however corrupt it maybe.  Ultimately there is no denying that the people have elected this government for right or for wrong (the answer will have to for wrong actually) and it is they who have the power of sending it out the next time out when elections happen in 2014.  That is in fact the logic of having elections at regular intervals so that people can show the way out to those who do not perform up to the expectations of the people (that any alternative to the present government is also likely to equally corrupt is a sad issue that faces the country today).

Despite knowing this Hazare and his group (which is most definitely dwindling from the original half dozen to about three now) persist with their demand for a Lok Pal who is not elected by the people and periodically carry out "Gandhian" Satyagraha methods.  It is a tragedy of epic proportions that in the country of Gandhi his methods which first called for "moral rectitude" before being implemented are freely used by all and sundry, including local goons and anti social elements.  It is not an exaggeration to say that Gandhian methods are now the exclusive prerogative of those type of people that the great man abhorred.  

Now to come to the issue of Telangana.  A year or more ago the "Million March" which comprised of a few thousand people some or most of whom were hired had destroyed the Tank Bund on the Hussain Sagar lake.  Again a few days ago the same strategy of a "Million March" was announced.  Again some thousand came and this time since they had no access to the Tank Bund they vandalized a few vehicles and burnt some.  But the point of this post is not that.  It is about the complete lack of governance in the State.  The Convenor of the Telangana Joint Action Committee is a government servant and yet he publicly not only criticises the government but also gives it all kinds of ultimatums.  What is intriguing is how did the government fall for the assurances that this will be a peaceful Gandhian march when there is enough history to suggest that it would be anything but that.  The timing of the march itself was amazing.

Every year Hyderabad is witnessing a growing nuisance in the form of the Ganapati immersions. The idols are getting bigger and bigger and increasing in number with political parties and religious groups pumping more and more money into the festival.  What used to be a one day peaceful festival has now taken on gargantuan proportions with immersions now exceeding two days sometimes.  On a daily basis idols are brought onto the tank bund and the necklace road disrupting traffic and life for nearly two weeks. So when the march is coincided with the immersion procession, how did the government even believe that the processions would be peaceful?  The poignancy of the whole thing is heightened by the fact that the very next day the United Nations Summit on Biodiversity was set to begin and a number of dignitaries from across the world had reached the city.

Why cannot the government restrict the size and number of idols of Ganapati?   Now the Ganapati pandals are no longer removed.  In a few days the place of Ganapati is occupied by Durga and the process begins all over again.  More processions more immersions, all conducted by gangs of youth who are drunk and throw various things on public who are travelling on the roads.  

So in India a legitimately elected government can be held to ransom by a few individuals like Hazare or by Government servants who have the backing of lumpen elements who number a few thousand or by religious groupings who will show one upmanship by defying the Government and doing the opposite of what it wants to do.  Governments cannot do anything because there are no leaders with rectitude, integrity and honesty in the country anymore.  Everyone has come to be where they are using the same methodologies that are now being used.  Some of them have even forgotten that they have become legislators and therefore feel free to break microphones in the Legislature.  

The picture is grim and those who think that life will go on could be making a big mistake, since increasing lumpenism only signifies a sick society that can collapse.  New festivals like Hanuman Jayanti how have youth on motorcycles marauding across the city with saffron flags and so to counter this youth belonging to the other religion do exactly the same with green flags on the birthday of Prophet Mohammed.  People cannot look for some divine force to come and set things right. They too will have to take some initiative to make their sane voices heard over the din of this insanity.  But I do not see that happening.  Therefore what lies in store for this country is anyone's guess.

P.S: Not proof read.  Errors of spelling and grammar may please be forgiven

Live Citizen

This is the letter I have received from Corrine Graham.  In the past her colleague Elizabeth Potter also has written to me about communal harmony.  I have been posting their agenda on this blog because I broadly concur with what is being done by this group.  But I am an Indian citizen living in India and therefore an unaffected by the things that probably effect American citizens.  I WOULD ALSO LIKE TO CATEGORICALLY STATE THAT I DO NOT KNOW THE MEMBERS OF THE GROUP PERSONALLY AND SINCE THIS PARTICULAR POST ALSO INVOLVES A MONETARY COMPONENT I LEAVE IT TO YOU DEAR READER TO DECIDE ON WHAT YOU SHOULD DO.  I AM NOT ENDORSING ANYTHING HERE, SINCE I DO NOT HAVE ANY IDEA ABOUT THIS GROUP OTHER THAN MY INTERACTION WITH THEM ON THE WWW. 

For further queries you may write to Corrine Graham at corrine@ahftp.com

I shall return with my own blog posts in a day or two.  Thank you

Satish

Hi Satish

I wanted to try to catch you one last time, I know October can be a crazy time of year so I just wanted to follow up on my previous emails.  Around this time last year a colleague of mine, Elizabeth Potter, got in touch with you about covering the My Fellow American YouTube video. A story came my way about a politically geared social networking site that I thought might also interest you.

The platform is called LiveCitizen and they are currently running a contest called Fix*Us. LiveCitizen lets users weigh in on current political and social issues that our nation is facing. Fix*us encourages users to chime in with their solution to 5 different current issues that are being widely discussed going into this presidential election. One winner is selected from each category and will receive a $1,000 donation to the charity of their choice.

Here is a link to a social media news release we have put together on the Fix*us campaign - http://www.fixus.us/

Given the upcoming election, and the debate this week I thought this might be a timely story for you to consider sharing. Let me know if you are interested, I'd love your feedback!

Best,

Corrine