The Silent Spectator: A note on the Current Events

My country is in a turmoil.
The markets are in a free fall, the students are up in arms, and there are "Jats", who think that they are being short changed and not given equal opportunity.
There is also the annual budget, and the budget session of the Parliament, where as I write this, an uproar has already happened.

Let us start with JNU, and the politics of sedition. A handful of students felt that the country is going to the dogs (which it is) and they decide to do a protest inside the university campus, where they are just discussing and shouting (like how it happens on the News Channels these days); reports suggest that police is there and don't give a fuck (because at the end of the day it was just a bunch of kids going against the successive governments and how the country is going to the dogs). A news channel covers it, and in the fight of who sensationalizes it more calls it an anti national activity.

The feed is picked up the over zealous other new channels, and a small event of plain dissent is turned into a mob fury and a way to vent out the frustration at students who know a lot more (because they study and understand). The police because the content was anti-modi has to take cognizance (see, news channels trump the police and that becomes an ego issue) and arrest a person who is shouting hoarse that he did not say anything anti national.
More goons from BJP (who unfortunately happened to be the chatri wale do takke ke lawyers at the lower courts) bash up the guy inside the court premises (for the record: I am totally appalled and condemn the acts of these so called lawyers, and it is thanks to them that our name goes down the drain. Hence they should be barred permanently) and the spineless bar council of India (apex body for the lawyers), is hesitating to take any action.
The courts in the meanwhile have become wary of all the drama and tell two others who have been accused to follow the damn procedure. Which they do.

In all of the above, the social media has added fuel to fire. There are half truths, an overwhelming amount of half baked theories and analysis has been doing rounds. The country of the Mob Mentality has been given more food to fuel their mob mentality and pseudo nationalism.

It is sad that people have started reacting first, and reading later. Somehow, the national sentiment is never first priority when they pee and poop in public, demand dowry, kill and rape the women of their own and other countries, or commit female feticide, or when they deface the walls, the rivers and everything else that our country is made of. A few alleged slogans got their nationalism to a level of 100%.....!!!!!! MOB MENTALITY!

On the south west side of Delhi in the neighbouring city of Haryana, the Jats decided that fuck the economy, water, food and travel to the capital or other northern regions, let us just sit on the dharna. Let us hold the government at ransom. Burn the shops, kill people and smash the public transport. Also dam the canal so that Delhi doesn't have water. HA!
For what?
For asking the government to declare them as a backward class.
That they are. They do not respect their women. Or Men. Or anyone. They own lands and lands and pajeros and fortuners and havelis and cows.. BUT they are backward, and special, and should be given special treatment.
Now, the funny thing is that their actions, of holding the government, and the people for the ransom for reservations happens to be more anti national than a few alleged slogans in a university campus. But guess what? They may just get what they want, and a regular tax payer like you and me will be further suppressed because of these fucking reservations.

The Country is in turmoil. The so called strong PM of the masses, has not spoken a word when all of this is happening. The budget session is round the corner literally, and these distractions are going to help the NDA government which is probably going to present a totally lackluster budget without helping any one of the common man.

We are country swayed by slogans, and not by the work done by the Governments. We are being taken for a ride, and no one is seeing the storm building over our heads. 

Political Musings

There was a long debate on a Firstpost Article that the Husband had shared on his FB feed, which unlike the rest of the media made a little bit more sense about the "intolerance" remark.

For all that it is worth, the whole initial debate which started with SRK saying that we are becoming intolerant, followed by Aamir saying the same. Somewhere during the statements that were made by these two celebrities, their were the others from the community of actors, producers, writers, scholars, and other intelligentsia who decided that they would return the state honours that have been given to them as a mark of protest against the rising tempers and "intolerance" in the country.

As soon as the intelligentsia opened their mouth to protect their own integrity as the people of art and their own interest, it sparked an outrage. An outrage that was uncalled for, an outrage that questioned the nationality and patriotism of the actors and the other award givers.

Can someone, anyone, please explain to me, how is this being "tolerant". How is it that the Government decides to use these very celebrities to spread the messages of awareness in the public, and when these celebrities say something which actually means something, the public in general instead of really applying their minds, just start trolling.

And this is why we end up having morons as our leaders.

We are a country that gets swayed by wherever the tides pull us. Oh, this man, who is a Muslim by religion, says that there is intolerance in the country automatically means that he is talking about the hindutva sect (chor ki daadi me tinka)..!!

Did anyone of the silly people re-tweeting and re sharing the anti Aamir Khan messages and posts, sit back and think that if a man, who has all the money that he can get and any kind of security that he desires, and who can choose to turn his face away from everything, instead chooses to talk about it to the world, then there is something seriously wrong with the world that we are living in.

We have become the generation which has such an overwhelming amount of information at our disposal, that we have forgotten how sift the wheat from the chaff, how to process the information, and respond to the musings and action of the intelligentsia. We react.

There are factions in the society, amongst us, and people like the Husband and my self, who have stopped reacting to the outrage of the people, and the outrageous comments that they make. We have become numb to the happenings of intolerance that are happening around us.

I for once can't stop wondering that why are people not reacting to the poison in the Air that we are breathing every single day of our lives, or reacting to the bad infrastructure that the politicians refuse to do anything about.
The Politicians give the most nonsensical reasons to the society at large to react about (religious and casts and love jihad) and make us all forget about the real reasons why they were put on the seat of power, as the representative of the people in the first place. 

Congratulations India.. You have finally Decided! (Election Results 2014)

India Shining!

That was the phrase that was coined by the National Democratic Alliance a.k.a the NDA, led by the BJP in the last and the last to last elections.

This time, they decided to put forth a model of India Shining, a practical example of that in Narendra Modi’s Gujarat, making Indians wanting more. And it worked like a charm. As I am writing this, the roads are empty (in Mumbai, Delhi is a mayhem), the news channels have declared Narendra Modi the PM, and unlike in 2004 where, a lot of Mathematics had to be done for the UPA led government to come to power, and a little less Math was done in 2009, it seems, that BJP has swept the nation in a single stroke and would not require any number crunching or pleading with alliances.

Which is a good thing. A ready alliance, with BJP garnering the maximum votes means that the policy paralysis that is usually the hallmark of the alliance led government shall not be a problem here. What however, may (please note that the operative word here is may) is the internal conflicts between the senior crop of the BJP leaders and the younger and the more dynamic lot of the BJP.

While, the entire nation hopes for the economy to get back into gear (just the estimates of the poll results have made the sensex hit a new high and the rupee has gone into the late fifties against the dollar), I hope that like the hype that AAP created around AK, Modi doesn’t disappoint. The BJP leaders have to learn to live that the country voted for them because they wanted Mr. Modi at helm, and not because they see any merit in them. Now, they should deliver on their own merits and make sure that they do not break the trust of the billion plus people in the largest democracy in the world.

I have to give credit to Modi for breaking in to the states like Uttar Pradesh, and showing the likes of Mulayam Singh Yadav and the Clan and Mayawati and the Clan, that you have to work hard and show results. Just by giving free laptops and erecting your own monuments you won’t gain anything. It has been after ages that any national party has broken ground in the area of regional parties and have shoved them out. The whole equation now for the state level politics has changed. A new lease of life maybe for the states from where maximum parliamentarians come and sit in the Lok Sabha, hopefully, thing will improve for the rural India.

There is a lot riding on these elections, the youth came out voted and they voted for change, one way or the other, they wanted the stagnancy at the Centre to go, and a new breath of air be introduced. With such numbers that are being projected, BJP will come out as the single largest party, and if they end up reaching the magic number without the support of the allies, it will be the first time since Indira Gandhi that a single party would win the majority, and that is what one of the concerns is.

With a fractured opposition, and not a care in the world about the alliance pulling down the government, the nation has entrusted the Modi led BJP with a huge responsibility and I really hope that they do not play with the trust of the nation and actually do what they have been entrusted to do.

None of the youngsters in the present digital age, would want a repeat of Indira Gandhi’s regime, when she put a clamp down on the media and the freedom of speech. A 2002, already haunts Mr. Modi, a 1984 haunts the INC, none of us want that a repeat of either of that takes place, and therefore all hope is that, how Ram Mandir was buried somewhere in the back of the BJP manifesto, Narendra Modi, also makes sure that, the Ram Mandir issue doesn’t hog any limelight over the economy and the infrastructure, over the promises of health and jobs and a better country.

For, a man, who used technology to its full potential, the youth hopes that the redundant and absolutely out of context IT Act, is changed to make it more tolerant. And, most of all, the moral policing that the RSS, shiv sena are so famous for, is not endorsed by the man who believes in the modernity, and fighting the moral brigade doesn’t become an everyday battle for the youth.

That while fast forwarding the economy, Narendra Modi, keeps an open mind to everything, and yes it also includes the FDI policy.

While Modi fought over incumbency, I hope that he makes sure that he weaves his magic to make sure that the files move fast and the permissions in genuine cases granted faster.

That while, he is ready to embrace the responsibility to safeguard our borders and reduce the terror threats, he does not endorse the witch hunt that ensued in USA after the 9/11 attacks, and does not endorse the alleged fake encounters.

My problem with the entire Modi mania was that, I do not like the cult following, because when you are following because everyone else is doing the same thing, then there is no diversity. Whenever, through the last one year anybody asked me, who do I support if not Modi, I replied, that I do not support any party, if I would vote, I will vote for the person who has either worked for my constituency or who shows that potential. I won’t take my decision basis the speech that one leader has given, because at the level of my constituency my representative matters more than the PM candidate.

Thus, like I said before, the rest of the BJP leaders have to learn to live with a fact that it is not their work or their charismas that worked in their favor but the Modi factor, and now their responsibilities are even more to prove that they can actually deliver on behalf of the one man that won them the world (literally).

Congratulations India, you have voted and now the results out and clear. A run for a very new and a highly controversial person begins.

A big responsibility, the entire nation awaits to see what he delivers!

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Disclaimer:

The views expressed in this article are purely my own. They are not intended to provoke or hurt anyone.