What Mr. Modi Did and Others Should

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

With the celebrations slowly dying down after the resounding BJP success, it's time to analyze what exactly went right for this party. Although a lot has been said as to what made the BJP click this time and with this magnitude, a single statement that can sum up everything is that: 'It Changed'. In the corporate world we keep hearing, in fact a lot off-lately, that 'Change is going to be the new Constant', highlighting the fact that if entities do not mould themselves to the ever changing market space, they will certainly be written-off in due course of time. Hence, there is a lot of interest and top management push to constantly seek new opportunities, reinvent oneself and continuously improve so that for customers, a company becomes the natural partner of choice.

Hence Modi, in pushing his mantra of development and governance, heeded exactly this piece of corporate wisdom. He was prudent enough to have gauged that Advani's earlier emphasis on Hindutva is not going to give him enough mileage this time around; particularly when the young forms the majority of the voters. He was wise enough to have ditched that ideology and to have kick-started the BJP campaign on the twin but very relevant issues of inclusive development and good governance. The inclusive part took care of the divisions within the electorate which till now were individually milked by different parties and the development part whetted the aspirations of the young who wanted a better living standard and not just continue with the one they were born in. The good governance was an easy shot directly targeting the incumbent. Whereas a lot of analysis will continue to flow in, in the near future, what made difference to everything was this huge realization that the aspirations of the electorate has changed drastically over the years and that old tricks to woo them will not fetch the type of dividends he was looking for. Not that Hindutva would not have given them any seats but definitely not those figures they have received this time. 

The fact that the likes of BSP, AGP and MNS have failed to register any seats and also for the likes of SP and Left which only somehow managed to survive the onslaught is prove enough that the ideology that they have been banking on has slowly become irrelevant. Hence, for me this election has been sort of a clarion call. A call to each and every party to introspect and retrospect to find out the causes of failure and in doing so it would be immensely important that they realize that the ideology they have been banking is on the verge of expiry. Divisive political strategies, either in the name of caste or class have slowly become anachronistic and the young today easily can see through the hollowness of them. Hence, these parties will have to change or just wither away.

As for Modi, he is bang on as to what the country today wants. Its important that the other BJP leaders too realize the import of this verdict and stop from changing course midway.  Many a times, it has been seen how parties with absolute majority have squandered away the mandate. I request Mr Modi, to stay focused and try delivering what he has promised. He has fueled our imagination and has got the people aspire a lot. With such high expectations to be met, Mr Modi has a herculean task ahead. But, he has everything on his stride this time, numbers as well as the people of India and if managed well, he can rule decades.

R.I.P - Real Leaders

_________________________________________________________________

Last weeks' news article on ULFA chairman having got converted to Islam caught my attention. The fact that he was using the alias of Kamruj Zaman Khan is an old piece of information; the first name most probably hinting at that mid-summer nights dream of having an independent 'Raj' in 'Kam'rup. A dream which will most likely remain one, in spite of what his new found bosses would like him to believe. And almost everybody knew that he is using that name to hide in Bangladesh, after Bhutan stopped giving them safe refuge. However, what did come as a shock was the fact he had actually acquired it by converting along with his whole family. So, the person who has been brainwashing the local populace about the Indian tyranny; imagined or factual has got brainwashed himself. And to what great effect!! He is now seen espousing the causes of the Bangladeshi illegal immigrants; the same set of people he vowed to deport. I have always held a dim view of all these militant leaders and organizations primarily because, as a person interested in history, I have read and have repeatedly realized that many such uprisings which pretended to be saviors of the masses only ended up torturing the same set of people. Hitler, Lenin, Gaddaffi and the likes exploited the hard situations their countries were in at that point of time and promised the populace to get them their rights, dignity and comfort they all deserved. We all know what havoc they brought in after they came to power. Hitler is not a topic you can discuss openly in Germany now. People either loathe him or talk about him in hushed tones. Lenin and his policies killed equal number of people if not more. Gaddafi might not have bettered the kill count but when he was chased by the militia on the roads of Libya, we can imagine the hatred people started having for this great leader. And yet, I believe that these leaders at least had convictions. That they turned megalomaniac is a different psychological issue. They continued to espouse some ideals, however flawed they were. Our current leaders, democratically elected or self appointed like Mr. Zaman, have no ideals or commitments. When Maharana Pratap lost the war in Haldighati, he could not take back Chittaur. Disheartened, Maharana Pratap made his descendants vow that they would not sleep on beds, nor live in palaces, nor eat off metal utensils, until Chittorgarh had been regained.In fact, right into the 20th century the maharanas of Mewar continued to place a leaf platter under their regular utensils and a reed mat under their beds in symbolic continuance of this vow. This is commitment. Commitment to one's ideal, to ones dream, to ones duties. The so called leaders, we have today are only weak kneed men or men of straw whom even a puff of wind can take apart like a puff of dandelions. The only interest they know is self interest and the only -ism they follow is 'maximize your capital-ism'. Recently, in a book stall, I saw Lachit appear in a Amar Chitra Katha comic and somehow I felt it was an apt situation. Our real leaders are now in comic strips whereas what we have now are just comic characters.

The Case for Biti

_________________________________________________________________

Couple of days ago, I found Biti hitting the headlines again. It was almost a forgotten story and suddenly it was bang there in the main page of my morning newspaper. The details this time were thrilling enough to wake you up from your early morning sleepiness and worked better than my regular cup of tea and I am as well pretty sure that the news would have got some Bollywood scriptwriters working overtime for their next thriller. Not knowing tough, that the act itself might have been inspired by an earlier script. But who knows, but for Biti himself. The same news got me thinking too, as to who should be the considered the main protagonist of the whole drama. The most obvious pick would be Biti himself. A young lad, most probably a spoilt brat of a senior police official, raped a German lady in Rajasthan and was caught and lodged in Alwar Prison, who was helped by his father to jump parole and later went missing for 7 long years. Had it not been for the anonymous letter to the police, he would have finally settled and as they say, 'lived happily ever after' in a small town in Kerala under the acquired name of Raghav Rajan. That he had all the false identification documents in place right from school leaving certificate is reason enough to believe that he got an excellent support from his family and surely from someone in power. Else, its anybody's guess how difficult it would be to acquire a fake identity, more so, after having committed a crime. And this is the type of support which becomes the main reason why sons of influential people turn out to be social nuisances even before they reach their teens. The fact that your family will be there on your side no matter what you do, only goes in making the children bolder and once they are in the adolescence, this boldness someday gets them on the wrong side of law. My cousin during his college days had become a little bit naughty as happens with most of the boys at that age and I heard my uncle and Aunt admonishing him often. Finally, when those counseling didn't seem to work he had sent a strong message by threatening them, that in case he brings a bad name to the family, he would not think twice before dragging him out to be thrown under a moving truck. Now this could make a lot of parents think of child rights and may disapprove of such threats; but the matter of fact is, they did work. I am not debating here whether my Uncle was right or wrong in giving out such a strong threat but definitely, letting your children know that their mistakes wont be tolerated  goes a long way in effecting the quality of society for the next generation. At my own home, I seldom got support from my parents for any fights me and my brother got into. Explanations simply didn't work as my mother would question as to why I was there at the scene at the first place and if a fight is possible without sufficient provocation from both sides. Now this again is debatable. We do have situations when provocations from single parties did initiate a fight. However, her stance ensured that we never got into any major scuffles during our school time simply because we got the message that we should avoid fights to the extent possible. I am sure if we could have secured our parents support, we would have ended up with fights almost everyday. The other lessons that we were taught were the respect of ladies. During my primary school the relationship between the boys and girls were hostile and we had regular altercations for any reason that you can think off under the sun. On one such occasion, the arguments did reach flaring point and we saw blows raining from both sides of the war camp and I ended up hitting a girl on her chin. In the evening, mother would not talk to me for a long time. When prodded she showed her displeasure of me having hit a girl, who according to her was nothing but an embodiment of Goddess Laxmi. This sounds so anachronistic now and my lady readers would themselves take this with a pinch of salt. But then, it was enough to develop a sense of deep guilt within me and I had vowed not to hurt a lady anymore. I am not sure how many of our children are taught like this. And most importantly how many of us have that time to give these moral teachings. I am not sure where and when Biti faltered. But it seems most likely that he did not have the conditioning and checks to have him understand the accepted norms of civilized society. It could be lack of time or they might be simply irresponsible but nevertheless, it puts the onus of the whole act squarely on the shoulders of his parents. This makes the parents more likely candidates for the protagonists of the drama, that seems to have ended ...Or has it??

Race Race Go Away

The title might remind you of the nursery rhyme we all sang leisurely long ago....
"Rain rain go away, come again another day".But this time you would rather wish this four letter word goes away forever.

With the growing racial attacks on Indians, racism has suddenly got its undue share of media space...again. The last time it was in limelight, it was for the infamous Shilpa Shetty and Jade Goody spat. Someway or the other the subject neither fades nor fails to catch our attention. And every time its brought up, it always show Indians at the receiving end.
And this is exactly what makes it popular, for viewer consumption back home.

For some reason, may be because of our colonial background, the common but misplaced notion about racism is that, its only against the blacks or browns by the whites. Having said this, I would like to add that the first racist theories to be published and pursued as science (called Eugenics) was done in a country we all look up as a guardian of democratic and human rights, the United States. In fact it was from here that Hitler took the cue for his own racist theories.

But, that's what history says. And this is where I would like to differ.
In fact race theories and strategies were first devised in India. How??

India, which has the oldest civilization had perfected the art of selective discrimination against section of its people by the now infamous "Caste System", long before the whites realized ,they were whites. The manner in which the society was segmented, brutalized and exploited is something we all know. But, interestingly that's not all. In fact we have practiced racism ,very consciously, in aspects of our lives. The North-Indian's dislike for the dark Dravidians of the south, the mainlands step-motherly attitude towards their mongoloid brothers in the east, the massacre of non-locals in Assam and Manipur, Sikh massacre of 1984 to the very common Hindu-Muslim riots, in fact all smack of the same underlying thoughts and fears of racism. If your community doesn't figure in this list, it doesn't mean it is any way better. Its just that we may not know all about it.

In fact racism seems to be so ingrained in our minds that we see some inconspicuous displays of it, too. The darker of our brothers looking for the fairest of the brides is of the same mindset . In fact in communities where sacrifices are common, the machete always fall on the black animal. The white is spared, as its thought to represent peace and purity. The black in contrast is supposed to be the epitome of all evil. The same idea has also made inroads into colloquial dialects. In Bengali, the dark complexion is known as 'Moila' which means dirty. There may be countless other examples which will point towards the same prejudice.

All these just re-emphasize that live in a highly racist society practicing it in a number of overt as well as inconspicuous ways. It just needs to be seen how long mankind takes to realize the foolishness of these conflicts. With more and more interactions between different communities, it is desirable that they realize the commonalities and understand the futility of these parochial and archaic mindsets.

Amen

Leashing the Indian Male

The spurt of cases involving violence/molestation against women, particularly of the sexual sort in our country, has finally given us a place in the world podium. The "Most Unsafe Country For Women". Now, this surely calls for three cheers for the seemingly incapable Indian Male who suddenly finds himself at the forefront of everybody's attention. I had always nurtured the opinion that "Man is inherently Evil" but it is quite discomforting for me see him going head over heels to prove it. Now do not be tempted to think that here also we are doing a copy paste job with no creativity in the scene. In fact the Indian male has demonstrated that he can be as cruel as the Nithari killers to as adventurous as the three boys who molested a girl inside a car on a long driving spree. The Nithari killers would easily put Dracula to shame and in fact we can soon have our own desi version.

Whats most discomforting, however, to the common man is, not the act but the sham around giving justice to the victim. Now at the ebb that we are in, in terms of justice deliverance by the legal fraternity, I was tempted to look at the animal world for possible answers which our medical fraternity could use to do some gene manipulation to bring about some favorable behavior

1>Fixed Heat Period: Men are known as dogs across culture. And Indian males I believe have taken the adage too seriously. On a second thought however, if a fixed heat period, like summer for our canine brothers, can be brought over to mankind, it would be a kind act for the fairer sex. Though this could also mean mayhem during those period but at least the unwilling ladies, having known the time, can take adequate precautions like staying back home with a long leave.

2>Male Killing after Mating: The Black Widow Spider occasionally kills and eats the male after mating. Though this might sound like reverse Nithari, it would at least ensure that only the bravest genes are passed through Darwin's principle of natural selection. The pigeon heated would do good staying indoors. Not sure if death at all can be a deterrent to those psychopaths.

3>Males Becoming Pregnant: In the sea-world, sea horses have set an example by being a species in which the males become pregnant. Now this can be debatable by people who would say that this can be again misused by the very same sex we are trying to protect. However, with the psychological difference in the make up of both male and females in human, the gains will be more with the males becoming controlled and responsible transmitter of their genes.

All these might be read in a lighter mode. but the issue is not. We do need some radical solution to stop this over exhibition of misplaced male libido.

Enjoying the Rains

Alas...the rains are here...A lot of people I know abhor this season a lot, but I have a strong liking for this special time of the year. For some its muddy roads and spoilt clothes but may be for my childhood days in Shillong, for me it’s a time to reminisce my sweet childhood memories.

The paper boats races with friends in the hilly streams…the football games in the school playground with ankle deep water…cycling in water filled puddles and fields….catching fishes/tadpoles in the dirtiest of drains….. to the late night tip..tap..tip.. rhythms which were no less pleasing than sweet lullabies. My father used to somehow find some time to give me a cycle ride, with me at the front, cycling at the above ankle water. What was more pleasing than the all above was, being inside a warm cozy quilt on a rainy night with the raindrops nosily dancing on the tin roof...The sound is near music to my ears.

Sadly, none of these are possible to be experienced in the concrete jungles where we stay to make a living. Life has taken a back seat now. But still I can figure out activities, which we can do during the rains….this time

1>Long Drives: Though I have driven during rains and I enjoy it a lot, I have never tried long drives during monsoon. I wish I do get a chance to do that sometime.

2>Sipping Tea in Balcony: This is something which I have done on almost all rainy days when I need not be in the prison called office. Looking at the rains splash on the ground..over grass….is a very pleasant experience.

3>Walking: Cleanliness freaks should stay out of it. So should people allergic to mudJ. Others can take a walk and get wet…..This is best done on Fridays…..so that you don’t have office at the back of your mind and you still have 2 days to recover from a fever/cold which cannot be ruled out

4>Sleeping…:Of course this is the most nice thing to do when its raining and you have the luxury of staying indoors. After a sumptuous hot spicy meal, this is next to nothing.

So, its up to you…whether you want a dull monsoon….or a thrilling one….take your pick…also pick one/all from my prescribed activities