Vindictive 'Democracy"

Vindictive ‘democracy’

By  Vidya Bhushan Rawat

A priest was found to have ‘sacrificed’ his wife to please the God in Indore, a story revisited the gory tandoori murder of Naina Sahni by her politician husband Sushil Sharma, who is serving life imprisonment in the jail and wanted to spend time with his mother to perform his ‘sonly’ duties. Girls are being hanged to deaths after being gang raped and political class as a whole speak of controlling time and choices. It is not that we suggest here that all the ills of the country began with the current government but there are certain trends. Many of the moralists who have been raising stories and questioning for smallest things are quiet now. The story did not prick our nation as the ‘nation’ did not ‘want to know’ the horrors of it as they did on the two girls hanging from the branches of the tree through ropes. Yes, Uttar Pradesh is the ‘worst’ because a certain person is the chief minister of the state and once you have the CMs according to your fancy it will become the ‘best’. The crime against Dalits and marginalized is highest in states like Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Rajasthan, Gujarat but interestingly they never get reported and if they are found too, media completely ignores them. Why are these not horror stories of our time. If a priest burnt his wife live, shouldn’t our media question the very concept of the ‘puja’ to offer to the God. None ask if he loves God so much why is he offering his wife to him and why not his own self. Problem is, we are a society, a sick one, which does not raise a question and continue to work on age-old traditions in they were clear, the people would always offer their ‘dear’ things in ‘gift’, when they are too happy with God or when they want to please the ‘God’ and remember the ‘dearest’ ‘thing’ in this regard was always a daughter or a wife.

Pramod Muttalick, the self proclaimed moral guardian of Indians in Mangalore wanted that women should be guided and controlled to ‘protect’ Indian culture and a Goa Minister is unambiguously supporting him. In Bengal, Tapan Das, a former film star of Bengali cinema exhorts his supporters to kill the CPM workers and then rape their women at home.  In UP,  Mulayam Singh Yadav says that boys do ‘commit’ mistakes and hence should be forgiven while Shiv Sena in Maharastra and ABVP groups in Madhya Pradesh are already acting as moral guardians of young generations whenever the ‘opportunity’ comes.  Subrahmanyam Swamy says that Valentine day is a foreign festival and Hindus must do everything to protect its religion.

Swamy and others will continue as they throw one questions which are repeated hundreds of time on tweeter and then on radio and TV to convert it into a truth. They know well that India does not run on reasoning and questioning but on ‘perception’ and it could only be built through using ‘corporate’ media and other tools that are available to us in the form of ‘social media’. So, we do not question the wrong but find first the name of the person and his identity, which becomes the decisive factor of right and wrong of any thing.  Hence a rape in Mujaffarnagar or in Gujarat during the riots of the Muslim women is not a national outcry of shame and disgust as that in Uttar Pradesh now. The saffron party has not bothered to visit the Dalits of Bhagana in Haryana who are sitting for the past four months in Delhi against the assault on their daughters by the Jat perpetrators of Haryana. Why cant the party take it an issue and condemn it when it is using media and other things to shame Mulayam Singh Yadav in UP? Is it because the perpetrators of the alleged crimes are Jats and none want to antagonize them in the grand ‘democracy’ of the dominant? So, India speaks political correct language. It makes big laws to change under ‘pressure’ from ‘people’ when the Delhi’s India gate is stormed by the middle class youths .

Western Uttar Pradesh is facing unease at the moment. Some ‘responsible’ people wanted a caste panchayat and blamed that it has not been allowed to happen under ‘pressure’ from the others. Poor District Magistrate had to bear the brunt of violence. Now, one needs to understand, as how will there be peace when the ‘result’ of ‘riots’ is ‘Minister’.  It would be difficult to control them in the coming days as every body who join politics nurture an ambition of becoming Minister. Can we say such an ‘ambition’ is wrong ?

In Delhi, Deenanath Batra is busy establishing his contact with the saffron government asking the HRD Ministry to withdraw the books from syllabus of NCERT, which  ‘denigrate’ Hindus and exonerate the Islamic rulers for their misdeeds in India. Deenanath Batra’s ‘colleague’ Arun Shourie is back in action. After failing to get a birth in the cabinet, he has again started doing things in which he is ‘expert’ in which is abusing the academics terming them as leftists and targeting the Islam.  I was wondering why Arun Shourie so laboriously works on everything that is considered to be anti people. He should have been a lawyer and not a writer because his pieces are of no academic value but a lawyers ‘petition’ which is meant to ‘protect’ his client through ‘offensive’ ‘research’ on the ‘opponents’.

The intelligence Bureau has already ‘informed’ the government that Green Peace is a threat to peace in India and that a huge number of NGOs are engaged in anti Indian activities. The report may look ‘new’ to many but I can bet  Subrahmanyam Swamy can produce a much juicy report than IB. In fact, government must dismantle IB and give the entire ministry to Swamy as his only work remains targeting the individuals and giving certificate to every one as who is national and who is not. The Tamil Brahmin is still sulking for his inability to find a place in the Union Cabinet.

In Telangana we have seen parties have already started glorifying PV Narsimharao, as one of the greatest sons of the soil, a ‘poor’ man who did not have the money to keep his family going though he had enough to purchase MPs to save his government and run it shamelessly. The man who presided over a regime that saw demolition of Babari Masjid and riots subsequently is acknowledged as a ‘statesman’. He did not have the courage to ‘resign’ on this darkest chapter of India’s democratic history. But the identity of Rao suite the people who are promoting him today as a ‘great leader’ and ‘visionary’ is of ‘economic reform’ that he unleashed through his finance minister Dr Man Mohan Singh. Yes, we had a prime minister, who undid everything that the VP Singh government in 1990 did for the Dalits and OBCs through reservation. Narsimharao actually became the biggest hero of middle classes as his policies directly killed the livelihood of millions of Dalits and Aadivasis.  We saw glorification of man who stood before the nation on the evening of December 6^th 1992 promising that the Masjid would be rebuilt but never ever tried to fulfill that promise.

The appointment of the judges in the Supreme Court also saw the same kind of responses and we have people of a ‘particular’ ideology being promoted to the highest court while some one who is considered to be ‘anti’ was shunted out despite the recommendations by the Chief Justice of India.  The cases against Amit Shah and others have been withdrawn and an Ahmedabad court has also rejected any charges against prime minister despite finding him guilty prime facie in hiding his marital status.  The infamous snooping case is now being buried by Home Ministry as it feels that the case is not of ‘national’ importance. Governors are now being asked to resign as the new regime has taken over. It looks that other autonomous bodies will also face the same.

Shankaracharya has already started that Sai Baba was a Muslim by birth and hence worshipping in the temple is against Hindu Dharma and must be opposed. It is a conspiracy against Hindus he says and claimed that Akhadas of Ayodhya will fight battle against such an onslaught on Hinduism. The Ram Temple lobby is now happy and wants ‘constitutional’ mechanism to build a ‘grand’ Mandir at Ayodhya. Prime Minister already said that we must get rid of the mindset developed during the 1200 years old slavery. We normally speak slavery in terms of the British regime but the Sangh Parivar talks of Mughal rule too as part of slavery. Ofcourse, the Brahmins will never ever agree that they also created slaves and justified everything in the name of divinity and religion.

The height of Narmada has increased yet no word about those who will be submerged in its grandeur.  People are agitating in the Madhya Pradesh about the same yet the victory in Gujarat is big and that shows the power of politics. Those who enjoy the fruits of ‘development’ are different than those whose lives are ‘sacrificed’ and it reflect too why people are so insensitive towards them. India as a Republic has actually becoming a republic of self seekers.

A Muslim techie was killed in Pune and many young boys were arrested for posting ‘offensive’ material on Facebook. In the past 10 years, none has published the more offensive and abusive material than those who want to guide our destiny or teach us ‘discipline’. Ofcourse, I support wholeheartedly any effort to civilize the debate among people and throwing accusations and abuses must stop. Criticism must be welcomed but we have to be careful that people will always question as what is the ‘limit’ to it.  Even when it is a very delicate issue between our freedom of expression and a control over it, there is nothing wrong in being gracious even in criticism and with enough proof.

The daily tweeting prime minister had no time to condemn any incident of violence against women as well as the ghastly murder of the Muslim techie by a self proclaimed ‘protector’ of Hindu asmita in Pune.  While all this was not enough when the news came that prime minister wanted that all the tweets in the social media on behalf of different department must be provided in Hindi. It was an indirect call to you Hindi-Hindu-Hindustan slogan which proved quite costly, as Tamilnadu was the first state to officially oppose this move. There was discomfort in the other southern states.

The government has completed a month and it has been very productive for them as well as for the gossipers. The media which was looking very ‘vibrant’ by poking fun at Man Mohan Singh every moment seems to have been just following what the prime minister is tweeting. It has nothing to respond except how ‘great’ he is and what the ‘Americans’ want. During the Bhutan trip, prime minister did not take a big media crew along with him yet media reported that prime minister took a small flight to Paro ignoring the fact that the airport itself is too small.

The way four years courses at Delhi University scrapped by the Ministry of Human Resource Development, asking the Vice Chancellor who remained confident till end by trying to appease the Sangh Parivar through his advise to put  ‘Vaidik Mathematics’ as one subject in the curriculum. The government initially was openly threatening while after the criticism it put itself into the back and placed the UGC in the forefront whose chief Ved Prakash, was an avid ‘admirer’ of the vice chancellor till a few months back.

This government’s minister’s spoke on every issue, which they have been ‘grown up’ under their training in the Shakhas of RSS. They must but they spoke not the language of the government of India but of the Sangh Parivar, where they hail from.  Whether it was the first statement emerged from the Minister of State in the PMO Mr Jitender Singh regarding abrogation of article 370 which provide special status to J & K.

World over organisations fighting for HIV-AID suggest to people in having ‘protected sex’ but our Health Minister actually has virtually demolished the entire ‘safe sex’ theory as he want ‘committed’ relationship. So, through health too we can bring the religious agenda and I can assure the Health Minister, who is an honorable doctor that the Mullahs and the priests in the Churches will be equally happy in this ‘secular’ war against science and reasoning by you. Sangh Parivar can bring all the ‘religious gangs’ together who consider sex as an instrument to produce children and not an act of enjoyment. So ‘Bachhe to bhagwan kee den hote hain’, the children are God’ gift and they make ‘mistake’ as another ‘great’ leader says so the government will have support from all the champions of ‘morality’ in the country.  Obviously, India will definitely surpassing China in population if the government continue to advise ‘moral values’ of ‘abstinence’ like Gandhi did which will only end up in high growth rate in population in the coming years. For religious people, it is the best opportunity to extend their greater ‘vision’ of keeping people further subjugated and their vision truncated.

The retribution is so high that the government and its leader want to undo everything that has happened in past so many years. Interestingly, the poor has voted to the government and what we are hearing today is attempt to scrap many anti poor programs such as Food Security Act and National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme which the government feel has not done anything but actually created labor crisis in agrarian sector as the agricultural labors have now increased their wages. So, the government want that agricultural labors be paid as per the mercy of the ‘farmers’. Is this the way to ‘save’ farm sector or are they killing it further?  How obscene it looks when we are informed of huge pay packages of the individuals proudly on our television screens but at the same point of time people struggling to get even Rs 120/- a day. Is not it a shame that a government which come on huge promise that India will shine for all, is disturbed with even Rs 120/- per day for 8 hours of work for the agricultural worker? And who are these agricultural workers ? Yes, it is they who are the lowest of the low, the untouchables, who did not get land as promised by the Indian state and who continue to be victim of our apathy and hatred.

The modern socio economic order is not interested in addressing the basic issues of the people. It creates a few individuals from the denied identities to project them as ‘role model’. They are fetched well in the new set up but vast masses will continue to perish and remain out of bound for the government schemes. The inflation is already difficult to contain as we have created a system, which is profitable to the powerful, few even at the cost of majority poor and hence just change of the government will not work.

This is a republic of revenge at the moment.  ‘Revenge’ from its own people just because we differ in ideologies, perceptions and faith. The idea of the past was not the greatest and hence the poor of different castes and faiths formed the new government under mountains of hopes so that their expectations are fulfilled. The government must respect diversity of our thoughts, action and political beliefs. Every one who does not agree to a particular thought does not become an enemy of the nation. The attempt to ‘unify’ will boomerang on it and people will resist it. It is time the government does not bring a particular thought in everything that some of its leaders might have been trained during their younger days. India has changed now. It is a young aspiring India of different faiths and no faiths too and that apart, it is an India where millions of Dalits, Aadivasis, OBCs, Muslims too are aspiring high hence to deny them their right under any pretext will be opposed. India must shine for all as it belong to all and the government must be seen belonging to all sections of society. Revenge and retribution will only divide India further and create anarchy in the country. A government must not depend too much on its officials but to the political leadership which include opposition voices too, who are much grounded and will always warn it from doing wrong. The government too much depends on bureaucracy fast become highly unpopular and the example was the last government which every one wanted to get rid off at the end, a government which lost the legitimacy to even command.  The government must not allow the ruffians in the name of morality and culture to disturb our right to live our life in dignity according to our choices. As a citizen of India, I have this biggest right guaranteed in our constitution and government is duty bound to protect us that way.  There are others voices too who are raising their heads as they know their friends are in the government but that is where it need to act harder on them. Do not allow the atmosphere of the country vitiated by such calls against some one. Every citizen of this country need protection and encouragement by the government and if some of the government projects are intended to bring ‘growth’ to the country they too need approval of the local people as government has no right to destroy the livelihood and life of people just to ‘accelerate’ its growth. Therefore dissenters of the current economic models are not enemies of the nation but protector of its wealth and environment which we all will realize after some years when we will have no place to even breathe.  Our democracy must grow and must grow in treating criticism as acceptable norm of it, part of it to improve the life of the people and not consider those who disagree as enemies of the nation and a threat. It is shameful way of thinking.  The counter the activists if they are propagandists, the government must provide more democracy, more support to organisations and not act through intimidating tactics of police and intelligence. Indira Gandhi believed too much in her ‘intelligence’ and the result was complete rout of her party in 1975. Let us not make every one as a threat but learn to deal the issues politically and if people violate law of the land there are so many laws to catch them. Those who do not follow law will not come to the government and fight the battle themselves. Those who believe in constitution of India and all the international treaties will always follow. It is time for each one of us to grow and not give certificate of who is doing ‘great’ work and who is the most ‘genuine’. This whole problem start when we all claim to speak for so many ‘people’. Now these claims and counter claims actually kills everything. If there is violation of rights, we have a right to speak and government must counter it with producing evidences of what it has done. If it violate its own laws, its own traditions then just by intimidating individuals will not act. Government would have countered activists fighting against big project by producing its rehabilitation and resettlement of the affected people. What it did and how many people it got rehabilitated but as we know a majority of developmental projects in India failed to rehabilitate honorably the victims which constitute over 10 millions Aadivasis in the past fifty years. Will the government answer why it failed? Do those who are affected have no right to live with dignity and if they do not get their right than what are they expected to do?

The problem with the authorities is that they try to counter you through legal procedures, which were developed by British in such a way that anybody could be trapped into it. So people have become strangers in their own land, violators of their rights in their own place while big companies are there to grab the opportunity and helplessness of the people. Will the government assure people that they will not be displaced through these mega deals of projects?  Will the prime minister tell the people that whatever happens, all the projects will first have to give in writing and insurance of honorable rehabilitation of people. So those who challenge the entire process do not become anti national because you have not followed the process. So, to hide the weaknesses of the government authorities these intimidation are started and we must not succumb to that. A government must not carry forward the agenda unleashed by Manmohan Chidambaram-Montek team of corporate agents. We hope that the prime minister came on heavy people’s mandate and he definitely owe it to the people that he will not let them down in their expectations and promises.