Tag Archives: Politics

New Delhi – City under siege

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It happens every time.  We face something like the bomb blasts on Saturday, freak out for a while and then, once we are sure the crisis has passed, we go on with our lives.  There are families to feed, money to be earned, lives to be lived.  I am sure this is what people did in wars.  For the soldiers it was their job to kill and be killed, for the ordinary people, the smartest thing to do was to avoid battle fields and carry one with their lives.  The painful reality about today’s world is that there is no clear battlefield and the people who die in these sordid wars for religion are civillians who never signed for it.  Its painful and base.  One big reason to hate organised religion – they kill people in the name of God.

I was in Delhi yesterday – had to meet a few friends.  It was disturbing to drive through empty roads, police jeeps criss crossing the city.  I felt like I had wandered into a war zone.  I also felt scared … though my friend kept assuring me that the crisis was over.  I have lived in disturbed areas like Manipur and Nagaland.  I know what it is like to be resented because we were educated and our parents had the much coveted Government jobs – but that was economics.  They were poor and we had (in their view) all the comfort.  That I can understand, though I dont like their way of showing it – by trying to burn our home or stoning our roof in the middle of the night.  But killing innocent people shopping in a market place just because you want to make a name for yourself by proudly claiming that you belong to some XYZ organisation?  How sick is that?  Is this something to be proud of?  And if this is so, then come out in the open and fight and die for your twisted interpretation of your religion.  Dont be cowardly.

Roop and Devaki have also reacted to this.  The point is – where will this all end?  Why can we not make it illegal for politicians to play the caste/religion/state card.  And as Roop has said – we have to stop persecuting people based on nothing but their religion

Face Off – the facism in Maharashtra

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Multiplexes have been attacked, effigies burnt, premiers postponed, apologies placed on record, not only of the lady (for a very innocuous remark) but also her husband – yet the unrest continues.

Why?

The answer is simple – because it suits the political players who gain political mileage out of it.  No I will not name the people because I do not want to add to the mileage they are getting out of it.

Time and again our administration has proved to the world at large that they do not maintain law and order, our police has proved that it is ineffective.  Politicians – well they have a long long history of messing things up.  What have they done for their state anyway?

I mourn the lowering of the benchmark of personal and social ethics.  When the entire administrative and political machinery does not justify the salaries paid to them, how dare they question the ordinary citizen?

Why have the times changed? When did they change? When did we become so intolerant to people who were not born in the same state or religion that we were?  Why have we started paying lip service to the concept that India is one country and our religious beliefs, colour, caste etc etc are just that – personal.   

Yes I am naive.  People who know me feel that I have a hippie mindset.  I feel that religion is a curse.  I pray and meditate daily – but that is my communication with my God – its no one’s business.  I feel that being born in any state, any country is just a geographical thing – nothing more – or less.  I can understand multicultural and multiracial familes.  I belong to a family that has African, Japanese, Spanish, British, Jain, Sikh members, to list a few.  We joke about it and agree that our children are mixed breed mongrels.

Honestly, this religious and ethnic intolerance scares me and reminds me of what Hitler did in the name of ethnic cleansing.  It makes me scared for the safety of my children and the other kids in my family. 

May be we need to flee the country.  At least abroad we know that we are foreigners and our embassy may be able to help us.  I dont think we wil be safe for a long time here.

Yo Momma’s so big and mean, she got Tata on the run

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I wonder what Mamatha Bannerjee wanted?  Just to flex her political muscle or was there a bigger plan.  I am not politically savvy, but I do understand that a large enterprise like the one at Singrur would have meant employment, steady income and development for the place.  I read elsewhere that her provocative speeches were just arm twisting tactics aimed at coercing the state government to accept Trinamool Congress’ demand of returning land to the farmers.  The Indian Express says that today a 65 year old farmer named Sushen Santra committed suicide by consuming pesticide. His three sons worked in the Tata ancillaries and the family stands to lose the Rs.300/- a day daily wage earned by each of them.

What makes politicians think that they have no social responsibility?  What makes them act only for vote banks and not for the greater good of the people?  Why do ordinary people and the media make them so powerful?

Tata will go elsewhere, Mamatha will survive.  The farmer will remain dead and his sons unemployed.

Crazy Times in Lok Sabha

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I am putting a disclaimer here : I am not a politically savvy person so I am giving below my views – as an apolitical spectator

Yesterday, like millions and millions all over the country, I was glued to the television in the evening watching the unfolding of the intense drama in the parliament. This is the country where Saas Bahu serials enjoy the highest TRP ratings, this is the country where people actually lit incense before the airing of the Ramayana on Sundays on television and watched the episode seated on the floor barefoot. We love drama and yesterday we got total paisa vasool kind of drama.

At 4 p.m. the entire nation witnessed the unfortunate charges of horse-trading and people from one party flashed wads of currency that would support an entire village for a year, and shouted their accusations against another party. Then a wheeler dealer from another party shouted his defense. I found it totally over-the-top but thoroughly entertaining. I don’t know how true their accusations were, or what the story is. It made good television. Then of course came the voting which ended in a nail-biting finale. Very interesting.

I asked a few of my colleagues about the nuclear deal which was thrown up by the news channels – people actually are frightfully vague about it. If you want to learn more about it read this. It does not seem to be harmful in the least – in fact it appears to be good for us.

My point in all this is that the entire brouhaha yesterday reminded me of the British sitcom “Yes Minister”. I actually thanked heaven for the Sir Humphrey Appleby’s of India who even though they use bland obstructionism, ingenious evasions and display a mastery of the process known to its practitioners as “Creative Inertia.”, but at least they are the backbone of the country and hold it steady while the dramatists hold sway in the Lok Sabha.