Political Diary

New Delhi, 13 September 2014

Our Political Terrorists

ABDICATING RESPONSIBILITY, TOH KYA?

By Poonam I Kaushish

A friend with her family went to attend a wedding in picturesque Kashmir. Till all hell broke lose on black Sunday last and the celebrations turned into a deluge of humungous human tragedy. Of hundreds dead, thousands marooned sans food, water, medicine even tit-bits helplessly watching as the water rose over two floors. Leaving a trail of rancid stench of death and destruction, morbidity and mortality unprecedented in the last six decades.

Come to think of it if it weren’t for the Army, IAF and ITBP carrying out the rescue operations on a war-footing, reminiscent of the Uttarakhand flash floods last year, there might not have been any survivors to tell the horrifying tales of survival: of washed villages and highways, surging waters, landslides, damaged bridges et al.

More than 1,50,000 people rescued by 30,000 troops and 89 transport aircraft and helicopters, 2,98,000 litres of water, 31,500 food packets, 566 tonnes cooked food, 8,200 blankets and 1,000 airdropped and distributed in flood-affected areas.

In Capital Delhi, it was just another day as people went around their daily chores till the magnitude of the Kashmir calamity sunk in. And a different kind of hell broke lose: A vulgar tamasha of manufactured grief of politicians, specially those representing Kashmir,  scrambling for photo opportunity, sound bytes and twitter trolls.

The TV media feeding off the disaster in a new circus act every night with netas of different stripes and colours doing what they do best: Tu-tu-mein-mein and finger-pointing forgetting that sound and fury signifies nothing.

Hats off to Prime Minister Modi for his prompt response, post an aerial survey, announced Rs 1000 crores as relief and set up a crisis management team. BJP President Amit Shah told MPs to donate one month salary. The Congress President Sonia away in the US for her mysterious medical check-up, ordered her Party to put their best foot forward while invisible Yuvraj Rahul condoled the dead.

Less said the better of Chief Minister Omar Abdullah who shrugged it off as nature’s fury, asserting, “I didn’t bring the rain.” Sic. Worse, he refused to acknowledge that his Government has failed miserably, was and continues to be clueless even admit that but for the Herculean endeavours of the Armed Forces the disaster would be manifold. Everyone satisfied that they have done their bit for the nation.

Raising a basic point: Is the aam aadmi’s well-being merely about statistics?  Do our politicians really care or are they becoming maut ke saudagars? Is it their job to organise relief work? Are they not meant to mediate between the people and the Government, to work for the janata’s welfare when in power and to hold the State accountable when in Opposition and make it work for the people?

Moreover, why do politicians feel that mere sanctioning of hundreds of crores will solve the problem? Little do they realize that funds doled out instead of helping the people, are used by most State Governments for purposes other than disaster management. Bluntly, neither the Central Disaster Management Authority nor the State Disaster Boards implemented any project properly.

Undoubtedly, one needs neither a bleeding heart nor blindness to see how our polity capitalizes on human tragedy to fill their vote-bank coffers. Everything is kaam chalao! Busy as our netagan are enlarging their respective “relief empires” and pointing accusing fingers at each other. Their ideas and remedies as water-logged and diseased as the floods under discussion. Tragically, exposing the political and administrative callousness towards human life. Emblematic of our rulers’ broken promises.

Indeed, by definition, politics is of and relating to the governance. But the purpose of politics is not to acquire power as an end in itself but to use it to work for the people's welfare. That is the ultimate goal of politics. Whereby they serve as the facilitator to coordinate between the people and Government, consequently, how the State functions is very important.

One of the major crises afflicting our polity is they think and behave politics is an end in itself. Hence, in times of crisis be it riots, bandh, floods or drought they resort to ‘managing’ issues of immediate governance. Having perfected the art of appearing to act, more often they do nothing, resulting in exposing their ineptitude, carelessness epitomized by their ki farak painda hai attitude given that it’s no water of their back. Reducing governance to a pantomime show replete with photo opportunism and Face book ego massages!

Can you remember the last time you felt a national leader looked us in the eye and told us there is no easy solution to our major problems, that we've gotten into this mess by doling out mindless freebies, looting the national exchequer, being self-indulgent or ideologically fixated over the last few decades?

For problems are not easy to cross. Despite the solutions being wrapped in syrupy overtures, even as their words beckon a promise for the future, they fail to weave a magic today. Deep mistrust and lack of confidence is apparent. Once a crisis is over, they pat themselves on the back taking credit for a job well done failing to realize could they are fueling the rage of the people into unpredictable territory.

Leave, for argument’s sake, the baggage of history whereby our freedom fighters lived and died for the nation. Alas, today essentially there are two competing nationalisms at work, at variance. One, our polity which only revels in the glory of yesterday, lives for the selfish moment wrapping himself in the cocoon that the problem is someone else’s to handle and solve. The other, the army, aam aadmi and the youth. Who not only rise to the occasion but will die so that others can live. 

What India needs is our politicians to change, adopt a new attitude, a fresh approach and a concrete hard-nosed and comprehensive policy of governance. In his book ‘The Real War’, Nixon wrote: “Nations live or die by the way they respond to the particular challenges they face. While might certainly does not make right, neither does right by itself make might.

“The nation that survives is the one that rises to meet that moment: that has the wisdom to recognize the threat and the will to turn it back, and that does so before it is too late. For will to be effective, it must necessarily include the readiness to sacrifice if necessary.”

India needs to salute the epitaph of a valiant soldiers willing to give his today for our tomorrow. It is now imperative for our polity to rethink its strategies and approach to the future and what should be done to stop their political jamboree. Let’s not make our hellenial fate our millennial future!

Remember, political fevicol is not the binder for the nation’s oral and emotional fabric. The true measure of great leaders is not what they say from their pedestals, but the condition of the governance and Gross National Happiness of the people they leave behind! ---- INFA

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)