My grandmother
is an ardent Congress supporter. Her father had made his children promise
that their families and they will always support Congress. Her forceful
personality ensured her pushing the adoration for Congress down her children's
throat. Though they did not have much have much regard for Congress, they
did not bother to protest. Soon the
family grew and people from other families came into her small and secure
family as in-laws. Unfortunately for my grandmother these newer entrants to the
family did not have similar upbringing or political orientation. My
father’s political thoughts were formed during a period when many of the states
started seeing the rise of political alternatives to the Congress. These younger parties were spewing ideas that
seemed progressive and inclusive compared to the Congress. The party had lost
its sheen. From my father's generation's point of view, Congress died
with Gandhi and the cremation rituals were complete by the time the Nehru era
ended. My father's political thoughts were shaped on two concepts,
namely, "Indira Congress is not India Congress" and "If you see
a snake and a congress man, don't kill the snake first. The snake attacks
you only if you disturb it". I grew up seeing these two generation
and ideas in conflict.
This conflict has
an effect on my political beliefs. Obviously, I was closer to my father's
thought process. My grandmother’s view comes from the independence era which
saw Kumari Kamala dancing to the tune “Mahaan Gandhi Mahaan”. Gandhi, Nehru and Congress motivated the
young blood fighting and ultimately building a new nation. In those days,
the Congress seemed revolutionary like the Communist and Dravidian parties in
the sixties and AAP in 21st century.
The country becoming independent was probably one of the most important
events of her life. Thus, she felt
indebted to the Congress for life. But with time the party changed from Indian
National Congress (INC) to “Nehruvian Congress” and finally to “Indira Congress”. She did not understand these changes. During this time a number of disillusioned
Congress leaders left the party and formed newer parties. These leaders took away a good part of the
soul of INC to the newer parties thus making the party poor of principles. But all this was lost of my grandmother and she
blindly followed her father’s words when she supported the Congress. Though
I did not have all these thoughts in my younger days, I ended up disliking the
Congress in my teens.
My political
opinions are never too strong. I believe
this comes from the fact that current affairs and politics do not interest me
much. The cartoon section of newspapers captured (and continues to
capture) my attention more than any other page. So I had no idea about my
political leanings. Though I did not
like the Congress I was not sure which party I supported. I had some
liking to communism but the fall of communism in the late 80's and a few pages
of Ayn Rand killed that liking for ever. I am sure how but by the time I
reached the votable age, BJP seemed an attractive option. It probably was
due to the messy vacuum created by V.P.Singh (whose reincarnation, I believe,
Kejriwal is). Their leadership team also seemed attractive. That is till Advani climbed atop the Babri
issue and caused a lot of confusion and bloodshed in the country. But Deve
Gowda's sleepy tenure and Gujral’s prequel to Manmohan Singh tenure removed the
Babri-cal thoughts from my head.
At the turn of the century I was very happy to see the BJP
Government at centre. A few goods emerged from the five years of BJP rule.
Only the five years of Narasimha Rao Government left a similar impression
in my mind. Unfortunately, the BJP rule lasted five years only and the
Congress was back in power. The few days after election were worrying
with the prospect of living in shame under a person of foreign origin. To
out relief the brilliant Manmohan Singh was chosen the prime minister.
Five years went by and the Congress Government did not seem to perform
badly – the Manmohan magic had not lost its sheen. Around this time, Congress'
own Prince Charles started flexing his muscles.
For a few days, I was misled by the idea of joining the Congress to
build a new India. At around this time, events took a disastrous turn and
the Congress Government spiralled into corruption, chaos, a speechless PM,
allegations of the family looting the country, the prodigal son-in-law, the mumbling–bumbling
future icon of the party and many other nonsense that I cannot remember now.
Sometime in the middle of Congress' disastrous second term,
the name Narendra Modi emerged. That Gujarat man can never make it is
what many of thought. The Gujarat riots
and related accusations against him left a lot of impression on us. But with
time people started talking about him and the development he ushered in
Gujarat. His followers attracted the sceptics through the videos of his
speeches. What he said made sense and he was a powerful speaker whose
words seemed very convincing. I was soon
under his sway and was desperate to see him become the PM of the country. Apparently many others in the country thought
so too and soon we had a powerful leader at the centre. He did not have the necessity to look towards
people with dubious intentions before he opened his mouth. But the bed
of roses was not thorn free. There were
doubters and agitators inside and outside of the party. The old guards
under Advani’s able leadership were sulking. Modi and BJP's RSS
associations made the so called minorities nervous (Why "so called"?
How can a secular democracy have majority and minority?). The
wilting of the roses made the thorns prominent.
Most people I met were happy with our new PM. He
seemed to have the right vision for the future and articulated them well. We
expected him to indulge in bombastic and populist action. But his actions were
sober and to many he seemed to take a step at a time. He was working to
bring in timeliness at the Government offices. We heard about him
terrifying his ministers with 5AM and 7 AM review meetings. He brought
out the necessity of making India clean and every family having a bank account.
These were not all talk but we saw it happening around us too. For
me, the cleanliness of Chennai central station was a big surprise. It was
longer wet and the foul. It was not just the stations but the trains and
their toilets were clean too. But this did not extend to all places –
Chennai continued to be dirty. But I don’t think we can blame the PM for
it. The local Governments and the citizens have to take a big chunk of
that responsibility. There were instances when even the most ardent
supporter of Modi was seen throwing waste on road. Such is our attitude. Interestingly, the PM had mentioned some
place that all the talk about “Swach Bharat” is to make people think about it
initially. He does expect India to
become like Singapore in a matter of months.
That surely is a well thought of plan with realistic expectation.
Soon the honeymoon period came to an end. The trouble
makers started lifting their heads. The purportedly hard core Hindus
wanted to ban beef and surprisingly the whole world went up in arms. Many
people who had issues sitting on the same table as a non-vegetarian were supporting
the holding of beef parties and beef eaters were now equated to freedom
fighters. The news papers and TV channels started screaming out about
the sensational case of Hindu extremism – a few hard core Hindus killed a
freedom loving beef eater. Demands of apology from every Hindu right from
Narendra Modi were heard. I do not watch the cable network and so am not
sure if Arnab apologized on our behalf in prime time television. The battle
shifted to the social media with people taking sides and many versions of the
reality emerged. Since then the media and social media have been trading
pole-apart realities.
This barbaric Dadri killing resulted in the strong
emergence of the word - "INTOLERANCE". I think this word is primarily
used to describe an allergy – “I am intolerant to pollen”, “I am intolerant to
Vijay movies” and in the latest trend “I am intolerant to Hindus”. Since that
last sentence is grammatically incorrect, the word extremism is added at the
end. As a result of this allergy, many intellectuals
started returning awards. Many caring
citizens expressed their concern in prime time television. Soon the King-Kongs
of Bollywood joined. Shahrukh Khan cried
out at the intolerance he was being subjected to. One of my oldest friends mentioned over
dinner that he was very disturbed by the growing Hindu extremism. This
happened a week before the attacks in Paris. I was of the view that that
is an instance of extremism. I am not sure if the ISIS would quite
appreciate it if we equate the Dadri killers to them. As the word suggests, extremism requires
something extreme to be done. I am not sure
if the Hindus have the capacity to indulge in extreme acts. Maybe a sacrifice here or a stone thrown
there but none of those grand “lets blast a few round of AK47s in a
concert”. Sure there are fanatical
elements in Hinduism but extremism is taking it too far. Unlike riots which are immediate and
reactionary in nature, extremism leads to well thought acts of destruction as in
Paris. It is not fair to compare Alexander with Aurangazeb (I am not sure
which of the two would be feel insulted with this comparison).
The Paris incident and the BJP not winning Bihar elections brought
a lull to intolerance to intolerance storm. Modi was yesterday’s hero;
the press had newer one. The ever
charming Lalu, the angry old leader Nitish, the man of the messes Kejriwal, the
atomic Didi and the American returned Akhilesh were the new hopes of India.
Lalu's ninth and twelfth failed sons with that hope-dope of the future
were the shining stars of youthful democracy. The media and in a few
instance social media started singing praises for these shining stars of 2019.
I hope that the Mayans have missed the end of the world by few years and
that the world would end by 2019.
I did not realize that I missed intolerance’s Arnold-ish “I
will be back”. Coincidentally, A is for Arnold, A is for Aamir Khan and A is for
that stinky place too. Aamir Khan
possibly figures in every Indians best actors list. For a long time, he
also seemed to be a perfect human being - a good and concerned citizen. If
Aamir had made that statement a few years ago, it would have made many of us reassess
our thoughts. But Aamir's personal
reputation has not been the same for the past decade or so. There were
talks of affairs and a child abroad. He separated from his long standing
wife and soon got married again. I have no issues with these if I was thinking
of Aamir the actor. But these thoughts
are not good enough for me to appreciate or even tolerate Aamir the social
activist. Personally, I found his actions during the Narmada Bachao
Andolan disappointing. Initially it was impressive to see him sit in the dharna
supporting the farmers. He seemed genuinely concerned about the dam effects
on the fate of the small farmers. Many of us were touched and had a tear
in our eyes. A few days later, the ever
vigilant media vilified today’s hero with the news that Aamir would lose some
of his ancestral property as a result of the dam. Suddenly a chink appeared
in Aamir's golden armor of selflessness. He put on the Lagaan hat and
became a farmer's grandson whose genes have been tuned to understand the pain
of a farmer. Many faces emerged in the broken mirror. It is not
wrong to be selfish but to mask selfishness with selflessness is quite a cheat.
Apparently, it only takes a misstep to get to the bottom of the goodness
hill regardless of how high one is.
Aamir continued his concerned citizen act with Satyamev
Jayate and had the whole nation in tears.
The success of the programme and his movies made Aamir feel like a God.
He now believes he knows the ultimate truth and now can will others to
utter it too. His words seem to be the
worst among all the tolerant servants of Gods. Sadly, he does not come in
and say that he finds this place intolerable to live due to all the intolerance
(is that a paradox?). He generously brings
in his Hindu wife’s name and casually mentions a bedroom conversation in
public. The point to note is the Hinduness of his wife. She finds it intolerable and that is good
enough for us to realize how pathetic India is.
The country has become so dangerous that she want to move out of here.
I wonder which safe country she has in
mind when she says she wants to move.
On the day of this momentous disclosure, Russian jets were brought down
by Turkey and the worry of World War III was in the air. A few days earlier, an
African-American was shot 16 times by cops. A week or so earlier, ISIS
gunned down over 100 people in Paris. As a result Muslims around the world were
facing many unfriendly situations. Switzerland had banned the use of
hijab in public places. A few weeks later, a couple of Pakistani origin
shot a number of innocent Americans in California. A friend had mentioned that sometimes it is
scary living in US because they are not quite sure who is going to get out a
gun and start shooting. I don’t think
Mrs. and Mr. Khan are stupid enough not to know of these occurrences. So how do they think there is a safer place
than India somewhere on this messy planet? Aamir himself was strip
searched and interrogated at Chicago in 2002 as a result of his name. The
dream destination of many Indians is definitely not the comfortable place for
Mrs. and Mr.Khan.
But there is something more hurtful than Khans statement!
I don’t too much about that guy’s personal beliefs and morals to take his
seemingly intellectual statement seriously. What hurts me more is the kind
of support many people extend to this ridiculous statement. While the
common people on the social media have been tearing the ever selfish Khan to
pieces our dear journalist and media persons continue to talk about freedom of
expression and intolerance. The statement "with great power comes
great responsibility" should be remembered by all these people in power.
Aamir is a person with a lot of power and while he has the freedom to
express what he wants, he should express it responsibly. He cannot make populist
statements to be a part of the intelligentsia (all of whom have decided to be
journalists and media persons). Unfortunately, we the common people of
India don't have a choice but be embarrassed about being a Hindu, Muslim,
forward caste, Dalit, north Indian, Madrasi and a million other things.
Some of us write, not very well, and put these words in blogs that no one
reads. Others express it much better and get noticed by many as in the
case of this
link.
Probably for the first time in the nation’s history, we
have a PM who seems to care about the nation. He does not have a family
trying to loot the country or let the country into dynastic rule. He has
a tough task ahead of him in first attempting to change the nation's attitude. Only then can he think of trying to achieve
anything. Not many in his party support him in the endeavor, which makes
things tougher. To complicate matters further, he cannot make enemies
inside the party and at the same time has the tough task of making his party
seem intelligent. We have to support him for our country to be
successful. Instead what do we do - we indulge in absurdities, we build
stories about the downfall of Narendra Modi. We wait for him to fail.
Even if he fails, I am sure he will move on but I am not so sure about
the country. Just this morning, the news was showing how the Congress ridiculing
the parliament by sloganeering in Rajya Sabha.
The reason, their beloved leaders are summoned by the court. How dare these jokers treat their leaders
like first among equals? Can’t people
file a case against these two and should they not appear before the court? How can we let jokers with such absurd
mentality come back and rule this country?
Or do we expect an odd-even prime minister for the nation? The rest are not even worth a discussion.
When will all these tolerant intelligentsia understand we
don't have a bloody choice!
