Thoughts at the End of the Year.

I renege on the advertisement in my last post-  for today I write on things that have occupied me for the better part of this December and not on the ways to solve x^2=0.
My Disillusionment with India shining.
Following Wikipedia:
"India Shining was a political slogan referring to the overall feeling of economic optimism in India after plentiful rains in 2003 and the success of the Indian IT boom. The slogan was popularized by the then-ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for the 2004 Indian general elections."
The then BJP government spent USD 20 million on the campaign!!!
From an ardent believer in the functioning of our democratic behemoth I have become quite a skeptic and the question that bothers me most is the complacence we exhibit in our acceptance of popular tags for ourselves.
Sovereign, Socialist, Democratic , Republic is how our constitution describes "our" pledge.But I wonder how much of each, if any, actually applies.
I like to think that my country is doing well, that despite our poverty we have compassion, despite our differences goodwill, despite the apparent chaos some measure of law and order and despite corruption our perseverance to triumph. Thus, I preferred reading Shashi Tharoor's India: Midnight to the Millenium than Naipaul's India: A wounded civilization a few months back in the summers during and after my trip back home. Set about 25 years apart (Naipaul talks about his impression about India and it's future post emergency in 1975 while Tharoor talks about his and the country's hopes around the end of the century.) -the two books can be placed at opposite ends of the scale of optimism. It might be my chauvinistic self that naturally biases me to believe more of Tharoor but I concede that as a matter of literature  I would vote Naipaul to have a much superior gift of the gab.(As if my opinion matters.). But to get back to my intended export for this piece,
I find events unraveling in India deeply unsettling and pointers to deficiencies that the conjurer's who dreamed up "India Shining" would like to sweep under the rug.
I liked it better when my window to the world had been the NCERT history and geography books that we followed for the social sciences till Std. X. The British rule had been bad......Our Land had been "Sone ki Chidiya" all along till they came along and plundered it...... The people had been happy under the local rulers who were always interested in the arts, music and higher contemplations.....our Freedom struggle had given us leaders with impeccable characters and unquestionable integrity....Their ideologies had been instrumental in inspiring many other oppressed countries towards independence......Partition had been painful but unavoidable.....Our constitution was a landmark in human history(longest ever)......India had fought two brave wars and defeated the eternal villain throughout the entire post-independence dicourse- Pakistan...... India itself was the paragon of communal harmony......The state of J&K at the head of Mother India had two ears resembling a bunny rabbit.......we had had the green and the white revolutions.......we could now export food and help out starving countries..... The world had seemed so orderly and the lines on the map god-given.These ideas were only reinforced by Doordarshan the only real time news feed I had access to and for quite a long time I could state my position on all relevant topics as one or the other within the dual tone world I lived in.

The years, access to international and possibly more neutral media, few books I could manage to read in the post high school years (making time from my busy schedule of getting hammered by alcohol) and google earth have changed all that.Still unsure if I lament the tragedies and travesties of the truth or my discovery of them I cannot anymore ignore them.

I write this as I finished reading about half of Pankaj Mishra's book, Temptations of the West: How to be modern in India, Pakistan and Tibet. The part I finished reading describes the cover up of the Chitisinghpura killings on March 20 , 2000. 35 Sikh Villagers in Chitisingpura were massacred in response to which the army claimed to have gunned down atleast 5 of the "militants" involved. It was later discovered through the toils of the kinsmen of those killed that the alleged militants included two Gujars -shepherds of the Kashmir Valley and a Muslim businessmen who was found wearing the trousers that he left home in, under the fatigues that "identified" them as the same militants who had slaughtered the Sikhs.In the protests that followed  which led to the civilian administration allowing exhumation of the corpses, the army tried to prevent entry to the offices by the protesters by firing upon them. 8 More protesters were killed. The surviving Sikhs in Chitisinghpura were given jobs and other compensation by the "concerned" ministers. The incident drew international condemnation led by the US whose then president Bill Clinton arrived in India a few hours later. The killings once again exposed Pakistan for what it really was,claimed the all knowing ministers and sought consolation from the condemnations and sympathy of the "World Leaders".

Why am I shocked by this incident?In the context of the world such incidents are not unique. Heads roll when something goes wrong or if it doesn't. Sadly what the discovery of false propaganda from people you trust does is that one cannot dismiss lunatics like Hamid Zaid as mere prisoners of hallucination.

 Quite close to my home Naxals are protesting the rape of their land, resources, culture and way of life by making crude bombs and taking apart a few rail tracks. The Indian government wants them to understand the "Law" and one way of making them do so it decided was to engage the air-force to conduct aerial attacks on their densely forested hideouts. Read that sentence once again if you missed my point.

States in India are multiplying faster than some of the more stubborn strains of bacteria. The whole shin-dig about better governance through more more meaningful distribution of administration is a farce even when the reasons are logistically plausible. My own small town Jamshedpur seems to have been much better served-cleaner and further from trouble when Bihar was united as opposed to being the second most important and hence disturbed town in Jharkhand. While Madhu Koda the last CM made a tidy Rs. 1200 Crore during his short stint taking care of the state he is succeeded by Shibu Soren, the JMM supremo also known as Babaji.
Babaji was acquitted in 2007 for the murder of his own secretary though the charge only seems to have brightened the halo framing his head that the haria guzzling franchise of my state seem to observe around his pictures on the posters especially on polling days, when haria is distributed freely and cartloads of people ferried to the polling booth and back, free of charge , as part of the democratic drama. People dress up like dandies and the atmosphere is festive as they vote one son of the soil after another to bring them better days.
Uttaranchal,Chattisgarh, Jharkhand are realities. Poorvanchal, Haritanchal, Mithilanchal, Gorkhaland,Telegana, Vidarbha at different stages of conception.Just  like a real birth our country has to suffer labor pains and bloodshed as it keeps producing states, their legislatures, it's machinery, Babudom and associated non-utilities.

And I haven't even talked about the Gujarat Pogrom, or the military rapes in the Northeast or the recurring Orissa famines or the slum dwellers in all our cities always living on the edge or the runaway inflation of food prices or the farmer suicides all over or the frequent honor killings or the matter-less election manifestos .......


It seems to me that our celebrations have begun a bit too soon. We have been talking about getting a proper place at the global high table for too long and just as what happens to fantasies oft repeated- we have become prisoners of our own propaganda. The make belief glitter and the shine of the malls and multiplexes have fired our imaginations and we(the middle class of India) have dreamt up a parity with the middle-classes of the west -that we so want to emulate - that in reality does not exist. The rich all over the world as in our country do not need to worry about economic disparity or uneven benefits of globalization. The poor are way too behind in the race to grab as much resource to further their material existences. Now that they realize when the boat begins to sink they will be the ones let off first and foremostand without lifeboats they try to make their presence felt. We don't bother since the machinery of money making has always had mercenaries (be it any of the the noble minded armies or any of the ignoble militia)clearing it's path while the middle classes turned it's wheels. The parity we seek is not just in economic terms rather it includes everything that in our opinion counts as a positive indicator of civility. Right to speak freely, dignity of humans and all forms of labor, liberal media and society,a safe society for women ,children and seniors, no apartheid of any kind......and so on and so forth. The numbers we put forth for our military, the foreign reserves we show, the stock indices at all time highs and the  Soft power  that Shashi Tharoor keeps talking about all seem to add yet more potency to the opium that our own propaganda has become. As I discover the failures of my people Tharoor's over-optimistic note in his books and speeches appear jingoistic if not burlesque.

By writing this piece I have become yet one more of the finger pointers you would say. I suggest no remedies only cry hoarse at the rot setting in at the foot, mouth and the inner organs.But I implore you to look at me as a destitute sitting hunched on the ground with his head in his two hands in pain and in shame, my fingers pointing at no-one for I am guilty of not doing my share for the notion of a country I still believe in .

May Everyone have a Happy New Year ,2010.


References: Being discontinued from now on.