Kasmir Monitor: Srinagar: Saturday,
May 07, 2016.
That there
are many issues which agitate the minds of people is beyond dispute. But the
minds of elected representatives in state and central governments appear to be
agitated on election issues or matters related to them, rather than the major
issues which affect the daily lives of the majority of Indians. If newspaper
headlines are an indication of what interests readers and those who make the
news which is in headlines, it would appear that the Agusta Westland chopper
scam being discussed (if that is the correct word for what happens in
Parliament) matters more to the nation than anything else as of now. Yes,
indeed “the nation wants to know” who are the big fish in this humungous scam
instead of focussing on senior Indian Air Force officers who could not be more
than small fry, if at all they are involved in actual graft.
The political
parties involved, namely INC and BJP, one “Indian” and the other “Bhartiya”,
have been shadow-boxing for decades over scams of one kind or another, never
going beyond some unspoken point of investigation and prosecution. All
accusations inside and outside Parliament are routinely countered by what the accusing
party did when it was in power. Commissions of Inquiry are appointed and take
years to bring out voluminous reports, which never reach the glare of public
scrutiny.
Activist
citizens who use the RTI Act to get information are sidelined or simply denied
information, and several RTI activists have been harrassed by governments and
some even killed. The politicians' bottom line is “Never let the truth out”. It
is apt to quote former Chief Information Commissioner, Mr. Shailesh Gandhi who
writes: “There is a very disturbing news reports (sic) about the entire
political spectrum agreeing that Right to Information (RTI) Act is misused and
some constrictions should be developed to muzzle it. This is indeed a sad state
of affairs. Samajwadi Party’s member of Parliament (MP) Naresh Agarwal has
levelled a charge that the Indian Parliament passed the RTI Act under US
pressure!”
In the same
article, Mr.Shailesh Gandhi goes on: “Praful Patel of Nationalist Congress
Party (NCP) made a remark, which was still worse. He had objections to the
poor- paanwaala and chaiwaala- seeking information under RTI. He then
genuflected before the most famous chaiwaala of India, Prime Minister Narendra
Modi, and said the PM is an exception.” The truth of politicians across parties
protecting each other and of political shadow-boxing with the unspoken
connivance of all political parties is difficult to prove, though it is
apparent to all but the politically myopic or blind.
But surely
the “nation (also) wants to know” what is being done to address and solve the
extreme distress in India's rural sidelines, where large scale migration is
happening due to the worst drought in decades. Lean and dehydrated farmers,
agitated by their inability to repay some thousands of rupees taken on loan are
committing suicide in their hundreds, while powerful politicians help
hedonistic fat men who have stolen hundreds of crores to scoot abroad or
otherwise shield them. In this worst drought for decades, left with no choice,
many millions are migrating from their villages to towns and cities, and
leaving behind their old and infirm relatives. Women are reduced to selling
themselves and sometimes even their children for small sums of money for food.
And while millions of personal tragedies play out every single day within this
unfolding massive national tragedy of drought-poverty-migration, these very
people's elected representatives cooly grant themselves upto 100% raises in
their own salaries. And an IPL match on television in air-conditioned homes
provides what people want to see and hear, saving them the decibels of even
what “the nation wants to know”.
This brings
to mind P. Sainath's poignant documentary film “Nero's Guests”. In the context of
the decades-long history of farmers' suicides, Sainath brings out how the
well-to-do are oblivious or indifferent to the sufferings of the unwashed
millions, and how their indifference results in their silence and complicity to
all the violence and injustices heaped upon the poor. In Roman Emperor Nero's
time it is said that he threw a lavish party for his guests who did not notice
or care that when night fell, light was provided for the revelry by burning the
bodies of slaves.
Tears were
shed on national television by a person at the top of his profession because
government neglected his profession. However, as reported from Palakkad
(Kerala), people's tears are unseen and their throats dry when the Hon'ble High
Court limits soft drink major Pepsico to “only six lakh litres [of ground water
pumped out] per day”. Thus Pepsico makes huge profits, even as thirsty people
run behind tanker lorries for a 10-litre pitcher of water. In 2007, the
Kanjikode Panchayat had cancelled the licence of the Pepsico bottling unit as
it was using huge quantities of potable water, but the Hon'ble High Court had
annulled the panchayat order. What price tears?
The on-going
drought-famine is engulfing over 300 million migrating Indians, whose throats
may be too parched to chant "Bharat mata ki Jai" to show their
patriotism. They are thirsting for drinking water, just like their animals, not
excluding cows, which are holy to many of us, dying in their hundreds. What
matter could be more urgent for our law makers than the on-going drought?
Agusta Westland??? Demanding that every true Indian should say “Bharat mata ki
Jai”???
In the final
analysis, there is no real difference between the NDA-1, UPA-1 and UPA-2
governments and the present NDA-2 government, inasmuch as their approach to
people's problems is concerned. Mr.Arun Shourie, perhaps in a moment of pique,
uttered the truth that "NDA equals Congress scaled up plus cow".
“Enough is
enough”, is what one gentleman said about the on-going shadow-boxing between
the Indian party and the Bharatiya party on the Agusta Westland scam, demanding
that the guilty should be punished. But “Enough is enough” is also being said
in the streets and in the fields (“Gali gali mein shor hai ...!”), and there is
large-font multi-lingual writing on the wall, indicating that people are more
ready to listen to the people-friendly likes of Kanhaiya Kumar than to the
corporate-friendly likes of leading politicians across the country.
Unless all
political parties pay full attention to the present crisis and make urgent
joint efforts to help the thirsty and starving hundreds of millions, they and
all of India's modern-day Nero's guests will inevitably pay heavily for their
self-interested acts of omission and commission. Saying “So sorry!” later will
not help, because the deadly bullet of people-neglect will be out of the gun
barrel of economic-growth-at-any-cost. As Sufi Omar Khayyam wrote centuries
ago:
The moving
Finger writes, and having writ, moves on;
Nor all thy
piety nor wit can lure it back to cancel half a line,
Nor all thy
tears wash out a Word of it.
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