Bihar - The election of conflicting Ideas

It has been a while since I put my political thoughts on Papers, but a honest disclosure to my readers, I subscribe to the ideology of so named Indian right wing. But let us stop for a min and ask what a right wing really is?  Most self claimed pundits jump at BJP as right wing, but is it really? The word dates to French revolution. In the first ever democratic govt formed in France, the nobles didn't want to sit beside the representatives from commons.  They sat to the right side of the room. What ever they spoke was reported back then as right wing. But is BJP a party of rich and nobles? I leave the question to my readers discretion, as this is neither a praise for BJP nor a critic for self claimed liberals. 

Let us leave the history of right and left in the para that passed and start talking about Bihar. A state that claims to be so politically active. I heard some where, any random discussion at any random place where people meet will never be far from politics. And yet I am left in a state of confusion when the state gave such a startling mandate. I claim neither to be a judge of democracy nor a champion of righteousness, but what I never understood from the mandate is, why Lalu?  I may not agree with Nitish on several grounds including the false sense of secularism that he and other self righteous minority protectors promote. But he certainly has been a beckon of  light after a 15 year Jungle Raj. He gave a new hope towards development. There is no question, he is the best in the flock of avaiable choice to lead Bihar to a better tomorrow. But what surprises me is how could he from alliance with the most controversial man convicted on charges of corruption and king of the Jungle Raj? What is the real ideology behind the grand alliance? Assuming even if there is some ideology, what makes Lalu become the single largest party?  How could the politically charged voter of Bihar fall for the grand drama that has been staged in front of him? Say as per earlier analysis assuming that Nitish is the best choice for CM and the man behind victory of grand alliance, why didn't JD(U) turn out to be the single largest party? The more I think, the more questions sprout. 

I leave several more questions to my readers, most media houses that term BJP a polarizing factor were discussing vote banks as Muslims, Dalits, Brahmins, Yadavs. The parties openly discussed the vote bank and offered perks based on communities and still are not termed communal.  A party that has not discussed anything more than the future of Bihar has been projected communal. An unfortunate incident in Dadri blown out of proportion while leaving out similar incident in Moodbidri. A staged award wapsi drama to defame the country on the world stage as if the central govt mans the police in UP. A something that has come handy for the conspiring BJP haters to stage a perfect drama right before the election.  A well played drama as if this is the first incident of intolerance that ever took place in India. After several failed attempts to stage intolerance from events like attacks on church, which proved internal, rape of nun which proved to be a illegal immigrant from Bangladesh, media and BJP haters found the right cause to stage a grand drama that can work to really polarize people. It is such a shame that media and opposition talk the language of polarization, while govt talks the language of development.  

Now come to the campaign, what was it really fought on? What did grand alliance really envision for Bihar? with Lalu as equal partner another era of corruption?  The media authorized certifying body of India, the AAP came right before the election to give a clean chit and certify the most corrupt man to be most honest. I still do not say Nitish is unworthy as person or leader and would not have expressed this anguish if he had come to be the largest party.  The campaign from the very beginning has been divisive. It feels more like people were inspired to vote their caste rather than casting their vote. It was fought on several fronts of caste, community religion. People discussed native and non native. An out right anti national ideology to call any citizen of India a non native and discriminate their right to represent and ask for a electoral mandate. 

I am not worried about the loss of BJP, but the celebrations of the pseudo-seculars and grudge and judge BJP media. I am more worried about the victory of RJD, I am worried about the celebrations in media and intellectual world for the loss of BJP and blind support for an alliance with corrupt partners to prove their egos right. A baised 4th estate of democracy is the worst thing that can happen in the digital age. The recent developments in country are the best examples of how any thing can be magnified to shed the tears of false sorrow. I don't have to ask these upholders of secular values on their existence from the exodus of Pundits in the Valley to Banning of Durga Pooja in Bengal on the event of a minority festival. Most of the readers have knowledge of all these with out me having to remind, but still get carried away with the false currents of fear that media has been creating. I am worried about where my country is being led to with the blind hatred spread by media.   In the wake of Bihar elections, it calls me to pray the verses of Tagore. 

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

Let my country really awake to a true secular world where people don't perceive secularism as minority appeasement and dividing people to make vote banks.
Jai Hind.  

All Hail NAG – The Jet Pilot Union.

Jet Airways, India’s largest private airline service probably has been the first to get hit for the corporate atrocities. Earlier this week Jet Air ways has laid off two pilots allegedly for forming a Union, though no official reason has been stated. It has been a new corporate culture to give pink slips to employees just on email with no prior notification, giving no reason for termination. The National Aviation Guild, the newly formed Jet Pilots union went on a mass sick leave following the termination of their colleagues. I would really appreciate the courage and patience shown by the pilots in fighting the corporate culture of the day.

The corporate sector in India is in peaks of labor exploitation, I shall here name several IT companies operating in India, who openly violate the labor laws of the land, asking their employees to work on Saturdays and Sundays and even on national holidays with out compensating any the additional work days of the employees. Associates are made to work at the peer pressure for more than eight, to a pitiable eighteen hours a day to bring down the labor cost and to maximize the profits of the company. The pity here is the law being violated by Indian players rather then the foreign ones in the industry. To the viewer outside, the IT Job or in fact any other corporate job means lavish life with only earning fat packages and irresponsible spending. But in reality most corporate employees earn a pay check less than 4Lakh per annum, sensing the horrors of the day to day corporate life complying with loads and loads of pressure from the peers, who in turn suffer from their. The chain ends at only the board of directors.

Amidst this chaos in the working class of the day, I shall term the first flag of union hoisted by Jet Pilots is definitely a courageous step towards a change in the attitude of the corporate. When companies let employees resign with only a notice more than a month prior, the same needs to be applied in converse also. The companies should notify their employees sufficiently prior before termination. It’s not just an email that should carry the message.

The laws of the land have also been unjust to the corporate employed people, leaving them no option to form a union by distancing them from the term working class that is vested in with a right to do so. The court calling the union of jet pilots illegal has been extremely unjust on the part of all the corporate workers. The definitions need to be broadened and redefined to include several other exploited employees in working class, providing them a right to form a union and fight against the exploitation of the day.

The government should itself change its way calling employees of the country as resources. The government and corporate sector should realize that humans are no natural resources like iron and coal to be exploited. The term resource it self has a right to be exploited and so be banned from usage. The new style of corporate should emerge with a respect to the emotions of the employees, recognizing them human rather than office operating modern robos.

To Sir With Love.. A tribute to YS Rajshekar Reddy

The most shocking and disappointing news to the people of AP and India came this morning as the death of beloved CM Andhra. Dear YS, though we had an ideological differences, sir our thoughts found a confluence in the welfare of people.

Of all the CMs who ruled India, Sir, you are the only one who really deserves to be knighted. Sir, who else in India could have dared to introduce welfare programs in the mass scale as u did. There was no CM in past to who cared so much for the health of people. May be it being a doctor personally that got your attention towards the health of people. Sir, people in lakhs were benefited by the health insurance scheme given by you. Sir you were the first to introduce the 108 service for the emergency health care to the needy.

Sir, I saw a CM by name NT Rama Rao who gave 2 Rs Kg rice in 1980 when rice was 10 Rs Kg in market. But Sir, even when the price of rice went sky rocketing at 40 Rs you filled the stomach of the poor common man of AP. Sir, you were the one who gave pensions to old, and you were the one who gave free power to irrigation purpose. Sir, it was only you who gave the fee waiver to the economically backward sections of society. You were the only CM who built houses for the under privileged and attempted to build houses to the middle class. Sir, you were the only one who cared no critics to implement what you believed is welfare to people.

Sir, there have been people who criticized you giving free perks to people. I also acknowledge the misuse of the schemes. But Sir, all your schemes intended not to lure people with perks, but meet the basic needs of poor and unprivileged. Sir, no country is called developed for the technological advancement alone, when half the population lacks the basic health needs, and is not able to feed one third of population. Sir, you were the one who laid the bricks to the progress of India as a developed country.

Long long ago, Sir I heard that there ruled a king by name Ashoka, who loved his people and dedicated his life for their welfare. The legendry king was praised “Deva naam piya (priya in Sanskrit)”, beloved of Gods. Sir, I know not if he was really loved by Gods, but Sir you are the one who is truly loved by his people and forever you live eternally in our hearts as the Ashoka of modern day.

May your soul rest in peace.

The 100 days of UPA.

Dr Manmohan Singh has created a history in Indian politics by winning the faith of the nation consecutively for the second time. He has been the second prime minister after Pundit Nehru to achieve this in the history of India.

For the UPA government led by Mr Singh, it has been 100 days since the reinstatement for the second time. The people of India has laid utmost faith in the Congress led UPA as evident form the better numbers gained in Parliament by Congress in battle 2009. The people of the country have reinstated Mr Singh back to power with a hope, a hope for betterment of the economy in the lieu of global economic melt down, a hope for better governance on a whole for a better tomorrow for the generations to come.

It shall not be right on the part of any critic to slam or praise the government for a mere hundred day rule or just less than one seventeenth of the total spam of entitlement to govern the nation. But for this has been a only a continuation of the previous term, I feel that Mr Singh deserves an appraisal for his performance over the past 6 years.

I shall start the process of appraisal with the department, for which Mr Singh is considered an expert of his contemporaries, the economy of the country. In the turmoil of the global economic melt down I shall appreciate Mr Singh for not letting the ill effects of recessions reach the average Indian so long, but I shall certainly term it a failure on his part for the sky rocketing prices of essential commodities. The price rise has not been an unusual phenomenon across the globe, but is defiantly an issue to be pointed in India for the reason, the price rise of the world has been by product of recession, where as in India it is set on run by the greed of the traders by illegal stocking of food grains in godowns. The performance of the government in this concern has been poor and deserves a rating below 4 on scale of 10.

The next on list is health ministry for the inefficiency to face the crisis like swine flu. It’s a matter of national shame that only 4 labs all across the country have been equipped for a long time when the disease was on spread to test this. Mr Azad also deserves no more than 4 for his poor show.

The other major aspect has been with security and defense, the government seemed to learn no lessons from the 26/11 attacks. An American national has recently traveled all over the country with an illegal possession of a gun in his baggage via air. This exposes the severity of security lapses across the country and the side effects of the VIP syndrome from being frisked in India. I am glad that there have been no significant terror attacks in the country in recent times, but I shall not call this an achievement of the government for the reason it may be a clam before a cyclone or the international pressure on terror breeding countries post Mumbai attacks.

The bilateral talks with Pak have been proved a diplomatic blunder by Mr Singh for the inclusion of Baluchistan issue which had rather been an internal headache of Pak for decades. It was a complete failure of diplomacy in this regard. Also the ways pursued by th government to put the master minds of 26/11 before bars has added to the failure of external affairs.

The drought had been yet another failure of the government. Though it has been anticipated by the end of June for the less rain fall to come in the days to follow, government has taken no steps for the drought relief to the farmers of the country. This has been yet another poor performance of the ruling body.

Amidst so many failures I term only one person successful in the whole government. None other than Mr Kapil Sibal for the educational reforms he structured for the sick educational system prevailing in India, which credit and torture students to score marks. He is the only one in the whole government who deserves applause from every section of society.

For the overall performance of the government has been very poor and far below the line of expectation of people of the country. To the end I would like to advise Mr Singh to not let down the people of the nation for giving him a historic second chance to rule the country. I shall remind him of the Independence Day speech for the special provisions being formulated for the minorities, its better in a secular country if he viewed the all the sections of society with eyes of equality for the reason there are many more people even with majority section who need a bail out package from government. I hope Mr Singh sets aside this minority appeasement and the vote game in the days to comes and reaches out to every deserving individual.

BJP and Jaswanth.

To the fact I have not read the book by Mr Jaswanth Singh on the partition of India, still the reviews in media provide enough air to speak of this. So I dare to write this blog.

Jaswanth Singh has raised the controversy of partition of the country again by claiming Nehru and Patel to have caused the partition of India than Jinnah. He opines, it was the reluctance of Nehru to share power with Jinnah that brought about the creation of Pakistan. Singh also has praised Jinnah to be an ambassador of Hindu- Muslim unity in early days of freedom struggle, only on his alienation in Congress has he moved into Muslim League. Jinnah no doubt was a great freedom fighter along with Gandhi and Nehru, and also an ambassador as termed by Jaswanth, to Hindu- Muslim unity in early days. But the fact still remains, that only on his call to Muslim League workers was the huge scale of communal violence instigated during partition.

Pakistan was no brain child of Mr Jinnah, but still to the end he was the leader who caused the difference by advocating the need of Pakistan. To be clear in words he made use of the opposition in Muslims towards a democratically elected Hindu Prime Minister to create Pakistan. He was the one who, to meet his own political desires brought about partition of India. Jinnah being senior to Nehru in Indian politics could not bare the dominance of Nehru during and after freedom struggle, also feared his political future. There by he went about with creation of Pakistan to sustain his political domination and supremacy. The means he used to attain his goals were definitely communal and he was the one behind the human slaughter during partition. Its a pity that leaders of BJP are taking turns to praise him secular. I fear the word secular may commit suicide for the way being attributed to communal people by modern politicians to meet their own ends.

Mr Singh also needs to be reminded of the basic principle of democracy, the one with majority backing can be called a leader and can hold the post such as Prime Minister. Nehru was the one who had the backing of masses than Jinnah during independence and he by no means can be blamed for not sharing power. Democracy is run by majority masses, but not by communities and communal leaders. Jinnah apart from creation of Pakistan, has left a long communal gulf in India that has ever lasted since Independence. So in no terms he deserves to be called secular.

The next controversy put forward by Mr Singh is the alienation of Muslims in India. I shall ask Mr Singh if he could list one right that Muslims have less than rest communities in India. When the world is learning rocket science and advancing to new shores of technology and living comforts with a progressive thought of liberty, whom does Mr Singh want to blame for the growing demand for Madarsas than Schools. Government has always tried for the upliftment of Muslims by recognising education in Madarsa equivalent to CBSE. I shall take the opportunity to ask which secular country in world funds all money for a religious tour like Haj. If he wants to speak of socio economic conditions, then i shall remind him the number of Hindus and Christians with similar conditions are more. I shall only term the claim another minority appeasement scheme in lines of Congress.

To conclude, Mr Singh has every right to publish his thoughts and do all the minority appeasement he whishes to as a citizen of India. But before hand he should have voluntarily resigned to BJP, when he found his ideas in contradiction to party's core principles. The media is only tyring to demonise BJP more than Jinnah and there by trying to project BJP as anti Muslim to gain its own TRP. The fuss raised is Media is not worth watching for the fact Mr Singh good or bad penned down his thoughts, which when found contradicting to party's ideology was expelled.

Tryst with destiny - First Words of Freedom

Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially. At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance. It is fitting that at this solemn moment we take the pledge of dedication to the service of India and her people and to the still larger cause of humanity.

At the dawn of history India started on her unending quest, and trackless centuries are filled with her striving and the grandeur of her success and her failures. Through good and ill fortune alike she has never lost sight of that quest or forgotten the ideals which gave her strength. We end today a period of ill fortune and India discovers herself again. The achievement we celebrate today is but a step, an opening of opportunity, to the greater triumphs and achievements that await us. Are we brave enough and wise enough to grasp this opportunity and accept the challenge of the future?

Freedom and power bring responsibility. The responsibility rests upon this Assembly, a sovereign body representing the sovereign people of India. Before the birth of freedom we have endured all the pains of labour and our hearts are heavy with the memory of this sorrow. Some of those pains continue even now. Nevertheless, the past is over and it is the future that beckons to us now.

That future is not one of ease or resting but of incessant striving so that we may fulfil the pledges we have so often taken and the one we shall take today. The service of India means the service of the millions who suffer. It means the ending of poverty and ignorance and disease and inequality of opportunity. The ambition of the greatest man of our generation has been to wipe every tear from every eye. That may be beyond us, but as long as there are tears and suffering, so long our work will not be over.

And so we have to labour and to work, and work hard, to give reality to our dreams. Those dreams are for India, but they are also for the world, for all the nations and peoples are too closely knit together today for any one of them to imagine that it can live apart Peace has been said to be indivisible; so is freedom, so is prosperity now, and so also is disaster in this One World that can no longer be split into isolated fragments.

To the people of India, whose representatives we are, we make an appeal to join us with faith and confidence in this great adventure. This is no time for petty and destructive criticism, no time for ill-will or blaming others. We have to build the noble mansion of free India where all her children may dwell.

The appointed day has come-the day appointed by destiny-and India stands forth again, after long slumber and struggle, awake, vital, free and independent. The past clings on to us still in some measure and we have to do much before we redeem the pledges we have so often taken. Yet the turning-point is past, and history begins anew for us, the history which we shall live and act and others will write about.

It is a fateful moment for us in India, for all Asia and for the world. A new star rises, the star of freedom in the East, a new hope comes into being, a vision long cherished materializes. May the star never set and that hope never be betrayed!

We rejoice in that freedom, even though clouds surround us, and many of our people are sorrowstricken and difficult problems encompass us. But freedom brings responsibilities and burdens and we have to face them in the spirit of a free and disciplined people.

On this day our first thoughts go to the architect of this freedom, the Father of our Nation [Gandhi], who, embodying the old spirit of India, held aloft the torch of freedom and lighted up the darkness that surrounded us. We have often been unworthy followers of his and have strayed from his message, but not only we but succeeding generations will remember this message and bear the imprint in their hearts of this great son of India, magnificent in his faith and strength and courage and humility. We shall never allow that torch of freedom to be blown out, however high the wind or stormy the tempest.

Our next thoughts must be of the unknown volunteers and soldiers of freedom who, without praise or reward, have served India even unto death.

We think also of our brothers and sisters who have been cut off from us by political boundaries and who unhappily cannot share at present in the freedom that has come. They are of us and will remain of us whatever may happen, and we shall be sharers in their good and ill fortune alike.

The future beckons to us. Whither do we go and what shall be our endeavour? To bring freedom and opportunity to the common man, to the peasants and workers of India; to fight and end poverty and ignorance and disease; to build up a prosperous, democratic and progressive nation, and to create social, economic and political institutions which will ensure justice and fullness of life to every man and woman.

We have hard work ahead. There is no resting for any one of us till we redeem our pledge in full, till we make all the people of India what destiny intended them to be. We are citizens of a great country on the verge of bold advance, and we have to live up to that high standard. All of us, to whatever religion we may belong, are equally the children of India with equal rights, privileges and obligations. We cannot encourage communalism or narrow-mindedness, for no nation can be great whose people are narrow in thought or in action.

To the nations and peoples of the world we send greetings and pledge ourselves to cooperate with them in furthering peace, freedom and democracy.

And to India, our much-loved motherland, the ancient, the eternal and the ever-new, we pay our reverent homage and we bind ourselves afresh to her service.

This was the first address to nation after Independence by Pundit Nehru.

Jai Hind.

Drought & Contingency

Drought or a situation of below normal rainfall is not some thing new to India today. There have been several such instances through out the world all through the history of man kind. The great Bengal famine as described by Pandit Nehru, in his autobiography, has claimed lives of thousands of people and livestock owing to the negligence of the then British government. There is no wonder learning some foreign government bestowing the step mother affection on the people whom it treated no less than slaves, but it is shocking to see that the later governments of Independent India have learnt no lesson from this, paid no attention to build in a contingency plan to the rain dependant farmers of India. It worries me more to see that even in the age where technology has grown drastically taking the world to new peaks, farming in India is still dependent on most uncertain monsoons which have been regularly skipping the course in recent years. Still to the amaze of the nation's populace the government has no plan to deal this situation, added to the astonishment of the people a popular leader of North has funds to erect statues but not to deal drought.

The country has been claiming to touch new heights in stock markets, calling itself a booming economy. The ground reality is out of proportion growth of prices of essential commodities. The cost of rice, the fundamental need of every Indian has gone up by 100% in the last five years, this alone explains the price hike of the rest commodities. The drought that has hit the country this year has already come in picture with the economic consequences to face. The cost of pulses have already started to soar high.

Government every year takes the pain to identify the drought effected districts in the country and provides the people with a minimum period of employment. It just clears the tears off the eyes, but is not the required healing touch. No government has acted on to take the challenge of liberating Indian farmers from the monsoon dependency. The rulers and leaders of the country may have asked the farming sections to switch towards electric pumps for irrigation, but still will the power production of the day meet the demands and needs of all the people even if this is to happen. The alarming fall of ground water levels is another big concern and a challenge to the Indian society. Governments may not be able to reach out to every village and colony to harvest rain water. But the attention paid towards creating an awareness in people towards ground water table and rain water harvesting techniques is poor and unsatisfactory.

Overcoming drought is not a overnight fight, it needs years of planning and hard work from each section of society. The central and state governments across the country now looking for a action plan is just a stunt to show people that it is a prime concern at the minute, where as the reality goes far different, and nothing is feasible to save the nation from clutches of this drought in this short span. Governments lacked professionalism to address such a key issue in a country like India where irrigation is the prime occupation to majority masses. Its time that governments wake up and come up with strong action plan to face future famines. The people of the country learn how foolishly they have been dependant on monsoons and should look for other options breaking the dependency. The awareness of the ground water table and the ways to harvest the rain water are the key stones to answer the situations like this in future.