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What’s There To Celebrate?:ANDHER NAGRI CHAUPAT RAJA,Poonam I Kaushish,31 December 2010 Print E-mail

Political Diary

New Delhi, 31 December 2010

What’s There To Celebrate?

ANDHER NAGRI CHAUPAT RAJA

By Poonam I Kaushish

 

How does one begin an epitaph of the year gone by? Uncork the champagne and roll out the drums? By welcoming 2011 on the wings of new hopes, dreams and promises? Not at all. Clearly, 2010 will go down in history as annus horribilis.

 

The year India morphed into the Republic of Scams. Exposing the ugly face of the subversion of our democracy. From IPL-gate, Adarsh housing scandal, PJ Thomas CVC bungle down the Rs 70,000 crore CWG swindle to Radia-tapes topped by the mother of all swindles Rs 1.76 lakh crore 2G spectrum scam. What to speak of Parliament’s paralysis, ‘communalising’ terror, skyrocketing prices, rising disparities et al.

 

Who could have imagined at the beginning of 2010 that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh would be fighting a political battle to save his famous personal honesty, integrity and credibility? Wherein he had to evoke Caesar’s wife being above suspicion. True, none doubt his truthfulness but can he deny that he heads the most corrupt Government since Independence? As the aam aadmi’s chief guardian did he do everything to stop the flagrant and crude diversion of public funds into our polity’s private pockets? Did he stop Raja? Was he unaware that the 2G scam would result in monumental financial loss to the exchequer?

 

One may cynically argue, when was Indian politics about political integrity, any way? What is the use of having a Prime Minister with impeccable credentials if he has to carry for political compulsions tainted baggage in his Cabinet? Such is the appalling state of our rajniti that we have hit rock bottom politically, administratively and socially. Making India reel in disgust and anguish.

 

Underscored by the ‘adjournment’ of Parliament’s winter session over the Opposition’s demand for a Joint Parliamentary Committee to unravel the 2G spectrum scam. The longest shutdown for the first time in independent India. Overall, there was full or partial shutdown of Parliament for as many as 38 of the total 83 days, costing the exchequer around Rs 240 crore. Ironically, the very year when MPs rewarded themselves with a manifold increase in salaries and allowances.

 

Overall, the Congress-led UPA II is directionless and has failed on all fronts. The main Opposition Party, BJP is boxed in by grandiose pretensions of being a ‘party with a difference’ but is in fact a party with differences with votaries of the Sangh Parivar pulling in different directions. The Left parties are divided over economic policies and most of the regional parties are faced with simmering discontent. All hurting for satta.  

 

Nothing highlights this more than the tu-tu-mein-mein between political rivals over terror. No, I am not talking of the in-decision over hanging Parliament attacker Afzal Guru on the facetious plea that his file for Presidential clemency is pending. Or that it is costing the Indian tax payer large sums as Mumbai 26/11 attacker Kasab awaits justice. Since when do Pakistani terrorists qualify for clemency under the Indian Constitution?  The US did not squirm when they had to hang Iraq’s President Saddam as in American perceptions he had waged war against it.

 

Worse, our polity has stooped to a level of communalizing terror. Whereby, in the name of secularism, political parties tended to blatantly exploit religious sensitivities. Obviously, to woo the minorities and deflect attention from scandals plaguing the party, scandalously the Congress General Secretary Digvijay Singh suggested that Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad chief Hemant Karkare had called him a few hours before he was killed in  26/11 to discuss the threat to his life from Hindu extremists linked to the Malegaon bomb blast. No matter that he was playing into the hands of Pakistan and its hand maiden Laskkar e Toiyba.

 

As a result, instead of nation security issues transcending politics and uniting parties to set effective institutional capacity to fight the ever-more sophisticated terror networks, we first blame the outside forces and then training guns at ourselves. It has once again become a Hindu vs. Muslim debate: Whose terrorists are better, mine or yours?

 

This is not all. The aam aadmi plank of the party appeared to be coming unstuck, bringing onion tears to the Congress leadership, as price rise continued to give a tough time to the common man. Will ending the financial year with GDP growth of 7.2-7.5% and achieving 8% in 2010-11 alleviate the misery of the aam aadmi, crippled by the onslaught of rising prices and sky-rocketing inflation?

 

Look at the irony. The country has frittered over Rs 35,000 crore on the 14-day razzmatazz CWG, lost over Rs 60,000 in the 2G spectrum scam, and spent $2.1 billion on Delhi’s new airport terminal, written-off over $107 billion of the super-rich and boasts of over 50 billionaires in the Forbes list. Yet, has no funds for the sick, diseased and hungry. Notwithstanding that India ranks 66 among 88 in the Global Hunger Index and 134 in the UN Human Development Index below tiny Bhutan and Laos.

 

Forget Brand India, see Asli Bharat which is in the grip of the Bolangir-Kalahandi syndrome – hunger, poverty and suicides. According to the Global Hunger Index 2010 recently released, India is placed at the 66th spot out of 88 countries surveyed. Of which 12 States fall in the ‘alarming’ categories. With 87% of the population living below the poverty line, the struggle to eke out a living is an onerous task. Shockingly, nearly one million Indians die every year due to inadequate healthcare facilities

 

Importantly, who will put an end to the miseries of 762.9 million people earning less than Rs 20 a day who satiate their starving bellies by longing looking at the neon signs of sumptuous pizzas and burgers? Or for that matter, the 74 million ‘Nowhere Children” who are neither enrolled in schools nor accounted in the labour force or the 44 million children aged between 5-14 years engaged in economic activities and domestic and non-remunerative work? What to speak of the much-touted National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme which is mired in corruption wherein the benefits are not accruing to the end user.

 

Needless to say the economic policies of UPA II, far from being able to address the central problems of inflation, agrarian crisis (agriculture production has dropped) and rising unemployment are adding new ones for the Indian economy. Disillusionment and discontent among the aam aadmi is spiraling. Borne out by rising farmers’ suicides, despite doles by the Prime Minister, chakka jams and bandhs.

 

True, we get the leaders we deserve. But at the same time are the netas worthy of us? The time has come to bell the political cat of convenience. And bring probity and morality into our national life.

 

As India enters the next decade our netagan must see the writing on the wall. Time to stop getting their shorts in knots over excessive trivia, get their act together, take responsibility, amend their ways and address real serious issues of governance. The  aam aadmi wants change. He has blown the conch against the fraud repeatedly wrought on him: Enough is enough. Tough times call for tough action. But the moot point: Are the leaders capable of tough action? Do they have the will to assert: Yes, we can! ---- INFA

 

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)

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