India Decided

After a month long frenzy and days of devising strategies and endless speculation the verdict is finally out. Contrary to what everybody thought Congress has taken the polls by storm. Even the party men considered such result as a figment of imagination before 16th of May, but to their surprise the common man has been kind to them and hopeful too.

This election has been important from a lot of perspectives. Some I will discuss in this post and some in the coming ones.

To start with, strangely enough parties which were in power or supported the power are in danger of an existential crisis. The BJP and the Left have suffered serious humiliation.

The total tally of BJP has come down from 138 in 2004 election to 116 this time. The total tally of NDA which was neck to neck with UPA in 2004 (NDA-174, UPA-179) has come down to 158. And a stark fact is that NDA once winning 57 seats in 1999 has come down to a mere 8 this time in the most important and the largest number of seats state, Uttar Pradesh. This is the issue which should bother the party most. UP with 80 seats has always remained the most important state and any party hoping to make it to the centre must get this state right. Many thought Mayawati will be the king maker or the king (queen) herself just because of her clout in UP. It’s another thing that Mayawati won only 20 seats in UP, higher by 1 seat against 2004.

BJP after the land slide win in 1999 in UP, somehow floundered and could not capture the common man’s faith. Whereas Congress with Rahul Gandhi as their new face capitalised heavily. Mayawati’s pro-Muslim agenda and imposing NSA against Varun Gandhi too failed to capture the Muslim votes. The Muslim community were wary of Mayawati since she was the BJP ally. Mulayam committed a mistake of not fighting the election with Congress (SP came down drastically from its 2004 tally of 36 to 23 in UP). A mistake he now rues in his hindsight much like Lalu and his RJD (winning just 4 out of 40 seats in Bihar). Congress deliberately or not will not complain to have gone for the polls alone. Who would have hoped that they would jump from a mere tally of 8 seats to 21 in UP? Rahul along with Priyanka captured the imagination and hopes of common man it seems.

From the beginning of the campaign itself I somehow felt the BJP campaign strategy is not going to work. They were completely negative. Advani based his entire campaign on the agenda of “Weak Prime Minister”. He projected himself as the ‘Iron Man’ and the leader who actually leads, but the public did not take into his bait. Rather than squabbling on weakness of the PM or not what they really wanted was development and stability. The society here is not like US, Advani who wanted a bi-party system, and a debate like the presidential debate there failed to understand that. When a society is majorly uneducated people do not seem to understand these debates. How many of us would have really understood the debate over the Nuclear Deal with US if it took place on national TV? Most of the common men would not have. Narendra Modi, another stalwart in the party ranks also failed to charm. He took part in the most number of rallies, (300 to mention but BJP won 37 of them only whereas Rahul Gandhi rallied in 127 and Congress won 75 of them). Modi too inclined his campaign towards the negative side. The ‘gudhiya’ and ‘budhiya’ rhetoric was such a low in the entire campaign. It seems Modi’s charm is limited to Gujarat only. Whether BJP is going to project him as the next Prime Ministerial candidate is to be seen though. BJP would have done better to project its development agenda I believe. The Golden Quadrilateral and other infrastructural development initiated and implemented by the party when in power should have been projected better. True Congress had the NREGA and the farm loan waver which were pro-poor, but BJP rather than feeling unequipped to fight these points should have focussed more on agendas like development and price rise. That way it would not have been a negative campaign. All said and done the party now will have to seriously consider where they were wrong and will have to work upon areas where once they were strong but now almost non-existential.

Another giant failure was the Left. The plight of the Left is tragic to put it most euphemistically. They ended up winning only 23 seats as against last year’s tally of 59 when they played the role of a king maker. The Left bastion i.e. West Bengal gave them only 15 seats out of 42, against 35 in 2004, humbled by the rash Mamata Banerjee, their worst performance in 35 years. Kerala’s decision was expected since it was Congress’ turn this time (Kerala votes alternatively for Left and Congress). Questions now are rising against Prakash Karat’s leadership but where were they earlier? There is no point accusing a single person for the failure. Everybody in the party must collectively take the responsibility and find out where they went wrong.

What people really voted for this time was development. The massive victory of Nitish Kumar (JDU winning a massive 32 seats of the 40) and Naveen Patnaik (BJD winning 14 of the 21 seats) only seconds this point of view. The inability of Patnaik to speak Oriya doesn’t seem to bother the local voters because its development that matters. It seems the electorate is maturing day by day. If development drives politics and not caste and religion, what more can we ask for. Nothing can be better for the country if the people vote for development rather than narrow petty issues of caste, creed and religion. But it remains to be seen whether the people continues to vote like this or fall in trap to old narrow vote bank politics when the assembly elections come up in the next few years.

All in all I am happy with the results as it will bring stability which is much needed to tackle the ongoing crisis, and also when the neighbouring countries are in turmoil. Also the country could not have hoped better than to have three renowned economists to ride over the crisis. But again, Congress who has been entrusted with power, faith and hope must be responsible enough not to misuse them. If they do, they must be ready to be in the opposition next time around because if the voters were prudent enough to vote for development they will also be prudent enough to oust the party that misuses power.

Michhil....contd..

First of all allow me to thank all of you who have taken the pain to read my blog and have posted their comments. It has been really heart warming to hear the appreciation and the kudos.

Now referring to my last blog, there were comments which were not supportive of michhils and bandhs. Joyeeta mentioned that a day lost is lost and also when somebody is in emergency such disruptions are nemeses he can hardly afford. Shailendra has also asked a question of why we can’t have a humane path which is more reasonable. Jigyasu too has the same questions. Well thanks again for your comments and point of views.

I completely agree with all of you with the points you all have raised. Disrupting public life and taking the city to hostage can never be a reasonable way to protest. Who will take the responsibility of the lives lost and the other ordeals faced by we common man?

But I have a different point to make. Knowing completely well all the pitfalls of such a menace if you say so, I have supported them. And I have done them for a reason.

I have always felt that for a holistic development of an individual and a society one has to be aware, the society has to be aware of all the happenings in and around it. I always have a feeling of contempt for those who are unaware and feel “ignorance is bliss” (this proverb is so contemptuous, and just seconds the argument that proverbs are just for making oneself feel better howsoever unreasonable they may be). So as I was saying being ignorant doesn’t help. I used the words “antipathy” and “apathy” strongly. A society submerged in sweeping indifference can never justify their conscience.

Now the reason michhils take place is that people are not unaware or indifferent. I agree that michhils and bandhs can be organised by indifferent people when the motive is political. I also agree that it is always not the right cause for which there is such show of anger and neither do I support disrupting rail and road transport in the name of protest. But one thing that I am pretty convinced of is the constant urge of the people there to know what is happening around and the possession of a heart that cares and that does not turn a blind eye to one’s suffering. These are the reasons I hailed the people from my homeland. (This feeling of mine got bolstered after I saw people here caring nothing and misguiding an old lady standing in the bus shelter under the hot sun……………utterly pathetic!!)

A society which does not have a heart is as good as dead.

I have a question to ask too. Given the political set up and the rot in the system how one can possibly protest against a particular decision or anything for that matter? Throwing shoes at each other is not a solution which I guess any sane person will agree with. Also anybody knowing a thing or two about the RTI Act understands what it takes to ask questions. So how can we possibly raise a question? Voting out the government to get a new one sometimes is as much an effective alternative as jumping from a frying pan into the fire. So there we are……..how can we make people hear our voices?

In my opinion michhils can be a potent weapon. It does make the government feel the heat. With the rising role of media, michhils do create a pressure on the system. But again restraint has to be exercised. When the High Court gave a ruling of not organising them in weekdays the ruling should be respected. The effectiveness of this mode of protest cannot be compromised with by organising them every now and then. And also the common man for whom the michhil is supposedly taking place has to be kept in mind too. I may sound unripe with this cliché but can’t stop myself from saying that the collective power of people if used correctly can bring about a change.

Michhil, Bandh and Bangali

For the non-starters ‘michhil’ most unequivocally stated is a Bengali term which signifies a rally organised to create awareness among people or to make a protest in a democratic way, which I am particularly convinced of. And ‘bandh’ clearly everybody knows and if strangely enough somebody doesn’t he is not suited for the blog.

Now these two words or should I say phenomena hold a significant place in any Bengali’s life; Kolkatans should identify better. More often than anybody thinks, one fine evening office goers while returning to their wives’ bastion finds out thousands of people for some reason, which can be as grave as a police shootout on innocent people or graver if Dada has again been sacked by some inept selector like Kiran More, have taken to the road on foot and have clogged major arteries like Lenin Sarani enroute Wellington Square towards Dharmatala, or through College Street, or towards Maidan Brigade Parade Ground. Catching a train for the suburbs then is a distant dream. From the melee all you can hear is loud speakers blaring “Cholche Cholbe”, “Amader Dabi Mante Hobe”, “Lal Selam, Lal Selam,” (we have to be granted our right, we will keep on demanding our right). Traffic comes to a halt and it’s an ordeal for most of the people. Sometimes you are lucky enough if the march is declared in advance, so you can brace up for it, and for a change your wife will think of you as a body made of flesh and bones and to your amusement also commiserate with you. (Not such a bad price to pay for being steam rolled in the middle of the road though). But if there has been a development within the day which the opposition party or the so called intellectual group considers worthy of a protest on that day itself, you are caught unawares and then you are in a disadvantageous position, because your wife will again commiserate with you alright but with the amount of energy and body fluid loss you won’t be in any position that night to lose some further. The next night will be a different story and you will not be a darling again until the next michhil comes your way. So you see the pitfall of losing the vantage point of knowing the date, time and place of the ‘michhil’; and I haven’t talked of the ordeals of patients and people with very urgent work yet.

But hey! If you think it’s difficult to get worse than that then it’s not the case. We have a different tool to deal with graver mistakes any party or for that sake a group or individual have committed. It’s much more potent in its lethality and it’s called a ‘Bandh’. The occurrence of this form of protest will be declared earlier and you won’t be stranded in the middle of the road one evening because the ‘bandh’ has taken place suddenly. Bengalis have a heart you see. But again you can be unlucky that day, your one day’s wage or daily business will be lost and if you have an urgent work and need to get out of the state its better if the work can be postponed because trains and flights do not remain public property that day. It goes without saying that there is no end to the trouble of common man on these days, and probably acknowledging that the Kolkata High Court gave a ruling against organising ‘michhil’ in week days. But again people protested for the deprivation of constitutional right to protest.

These issues remain the most endemic problems of the region and was one of the major reasons I chose to graduate from Delhi University and not from any good college of Kolkata which by the way are in much larger numbers than in Delhi.

‘Bandhs’ and ‘Michhils’ rarely occur in such regular frequency in other states or mega cities and people do not support loss of business so often. A good thing I thought. After all business drives economy and should never be compromised with.
But after I have stayed in the national capital for over 4 years I now find so many things I thought were misplaced. And so many things I never thought of because I took it for granted which only now I understand to be so precious and not earned easily. I never saw disgrace and utter disrespect of human life ever in my life until the last 4 years. The omnipresent ‘behen****’, and ‘teri ** ka’s, the lustful glares of 50 year olds and the abhorring impertinence in general made me feel if respect is such a difficult thing one can give to a fellow being. I do not intend to be naïve and callow and project a point which is at the most juvenile that you consider, neither do I disagree to the point that it is money that speaks and in the process to earn more and more people do internalise a way of living. But when disregard and disrespect becomes the Modus Vivendi, something is amiss and in the process of this disregard people stop being aware and become apathetic to the surroundings which could never seem juvenile anymore.

Bengal may have its endemic problems, business may be affected, difficulties may arise but after inhaling the stench for 4 long years I do realise that at least people there respect each other, take a stand, neither antipathy nor apathy is sweeping as in other places, and above all they have not forgotten the essence of humanity. No, it’s not my wistful recourse and my love for my native place that is speaking; it’s the truth. ‘Bandhs’ and ‘Michhils’ are only a manifestation of the care. It’s not a onetime publicity gimmick or an agenda to be made of. I agree political parties do take out these rallies to gain political mileage but then the common man too take part in protests and that too without any political provocation. Why would they if they were not aware, if not for what they consider right? People talk of spirit in megacities when they are attacked but I find the spirit that is Kolkata everyday there. It’s not the spirit that is to be shown once in a while, it’s the spirit that is Kolkata. ‘The City of Joy’. You think I am a Bengali Chauvinist? I will not mind the acquisition. It’s the humanity that I praise, it’s the love and respect for people that I praise and for that if you accuse me and deride me, I give a damn.

I go back to sleep every night thanking GOD for giving me a heart of a Bengali and I am proud to be a Bengali for I know I will live for something more important than money.

I was Inertia

They say change is the only constant, but I am not as much convinced, or convinced I may be but I don’t like the idea. Is it strange? Why would it be when I am inertia? And moreover I consider it normal given the degree of self confidence I have. Oh yes, self confidence I believe it to be although its only an empty gas filled balloon of ego, a balloon which always gives a sense of high self worth and nothing else. Ego, a small word it may seem, yet it’s incredible what it can do to you. Its lethality can only be compared with fanaticism if you have to. Both of them completely snubs out reason and rationale. You may argue ‘anger’ can also do that, yes it can, but only momentarily and not on a sustained basis as by the other two. If you doubt how on earth can ego be compared with fanaticism, I tell you ego is deadlier than fanaticism, just that you have to keep a discerning eye.

This friend of mine, ego that is, has been so helpful to me, ‘my prime aid’. He makes people hollow from inside and seemingly larger in size so that I can take full advantage of that. Bigger things have larger inertia, you see.

There is this large country called United People. It’s my prime haven. I have been so lucky to have found such a large home and the world so unlucky that my home actually managed to commit a mistake which is so gross, so deadly; even more than the fanatics; yes, I say more than the fanatics. They were this large consumers; consumers who consumed everything. Their appetite was so gigantic that they had to take loans after loans just to fill up their stomachs. And as the banks started giving loans I took full control and kept on pushing them more and more. I was there so happy, everybody liked me so much. But then sometime in the mid of the autumn the country and the world got a rude shock. Earlier it was a merry time for the rest of the world as they kept on producing and the large country kept on consuming. But now things were different, the large country faltered. When a father is at fault it’s the family which is devastated, when the Big Daddy is at fault it’s catastrophe for the world.

Anyways I still managed to remain in that country. I told you, it has been so homely to me. True, with the jolt I too had to suffer somewhat but I retained my position. The government tried to do so many things to contain the cataclysm, but you have to take me into account, you just cannot discount me. I don’t like to change and if somehow I do, I can’t do it again and again. So I didn’t budge a millimetre. Banks were nationalised, the government secured the ills created by the sheer act of stupidity, but still the storm did not abet. How would it, I with my friend ego made sure change was difficult. I’ll tell you how. The money poured in did not find the correct destination and instead ended up as bonuses and salary rises to those same culprits who caused the catastrophe. Stupidity is another intoxication people like to indulge in, I must tell you and like any other habit is hard to get rid of. So you see how I work. The salary rise was not because people started to move on it was because the country never wanted to control any of it. It is market economy that they thrived on and that is what they want to maintain.

They have this sense of high self worth which I mentioned before; ego that is. How could they now change a policy which they have advocated so proudly for years? They could not manage without nationalising some institutions lest they drowned from being currently neck deep in water. But how could they change the whole policy towards more control? What if the new policy of theirs is called “neo-socialism” instead of “neo-capitalism”? It’s a major risk they can’t afford. It would right away put egg on their face. And you thought they cared about another catastrophe lurking few years from now? Can they publicly accept they were wrong? Huh!! Ego I told you is much more lethal than you ever thought.

But hey! Are you thinking this is some kind of self realisation for me? Or else why am I being so ungrateful to the beloved home of mine? Am I not being profane, if I may say so? To tell you the truth yes it is a self realisation. I now realise if I still I don’t budge a millimetre the world could be in greater danger. Since the day I learnt that because the large country consumed lesser cars; people in some arid, rough African countries full of aluminium and iron mines have stopped sending their children to school as they now have no work and no money, I have felt I am doing no good to the world. I may not like the idea of change as it is against my nature, but the law of the nature has to prevail.
“Change One Must”
The world would do well without me and my prime aid.