Political Diary
New
Delhi, 11 June 2019
My Careless India
WOH MAR GAYA, TOH?
By Poonam I Kaushish
Circa
2 June, Aligarh UP: A two-and-a-half year old girl’s maggots infested mutilated
body is found in a garbage dump three days after her murder. The cause for this
barbaric act? The culprits were asked to repay a Rs 10,000 loan to her
grandfather so they killed his granddaughter. Worse, the police failed to
register a case resulting in five policemen being suspended after a huge national
public outcry.
Circa
6 June, Latehar Jharkhand: A 65-year old
man starves to death because he has not
eaten for 4 days as his family did not receive ration for the last three months
because the biometric machine was not working. In neighbouring Orissa a family of
six have died of malnourishment and another family of eight in UP. Raising
serious questions about the nature of India’s welfare state today.
Circa
7 June, Akola Maharashtra: Old and young people are forced to walk miles to dig
pits and wait for three hours to fill one pot of clean drinking water. Whereby,
their daily battle to quench their thirst is a losing one as H2O is scarcer
than gold. In Madhya Pradesh the police are busy escorting water tankers to
ensure riots do not break.
The
anger and indignation coursing through the streets of India is palpable. Alas,
nothing has changed in Mera Desh Mahan.
Daily newspapers scream of abject poverty, starvation deaths, harassment by
police, fights over water or bullied over morsels of food. Less said the better
of our leaders, policemen and bureaucrats. All stand mute testimony to a
callous, heartless and selfish Administration bereft of cure and consolation. Collectively
selling their souls for the magnificence of propaganda as the aam aadmi translates only into mere
sterile statistics to be manipulated at will.
Raising a moot point:
Where is my India going? Most important, where are our leaders taking it? To
hell it seems. What worries one is that these brutalities have not stirred our netas conscious. Will they wish it away
as a bad dream? An issue which will die its natural death within days? Does
anyone really care?
Not
at all, given brutality and bestiality, arrogance and ‘I-am-the-law’ attitude have
become synonymous with the police. Any wonder they go by the acronym Policewala Goonda. Thanks to Government’s criminal
casualness ---
kaam chalao and babudom’s
choord yaar attitude. Arguably, do we still have rule
of law? When did we become a morally corrupt and sick society that murders and
rapes children? And women?
Is
Brand India aware that nearly
195.9 million Asli Bharat Indians go
to sleep on empty stomachs, over 700 million living below the poverty line, 3,000 children die of
malnutrition every day, 14.9% of our population is undernourished and nearly one million
dying every year due to inadequate healthcare facilities despite economic growth, Right
to Food For All Act and India being the world’s sixth-largest economy.
So how
does the Government intend ensuring basic food for all
and building
on human capital? How long will the political posturing continue instead of a
serious debate on hunger? Which neta will
take the lead to ensure that nobody else dies of hunger?
This
is not all. Over 43.4% of the country is already reeling under drought. Twenty-one cities
including Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai and Hyderabad will run out of ground water
by 2020 affecting 60 crores people and 11 river basins including Ganga will be
water deficit by 2025, threatening over a billion lives with the challenge
getting graver by 2050 as demand rise to 1,180 million cubic metres, 1.65 times
the current levels even as fresh water resources dwindle. A June 2018 Niti Ayog
report grimly forecasts water demand will be twice the present supply and India
could lose up to 6% of its GDP.
And
yet our jan sevaks continue to live
in 5 acres lush bungalows in Lutyens Delhi and grow wheat and vegetables to
feast on. All at we, the tax payers expense. Questionably, does it make any
that our Rashtrapati should live in a 350-bedroom mansion in luxuriant
sprawling 300 acres Rashtrapati Bhawan boasting a 9-hole golf course, swimming
pool, tennis courts etc even as the aam aadmi grovels for a tarpuline to keep
his and his family’s body and soul together. Why do our leaders need these
ersatz trappings when the world’s most powerful leader the US President resides
in an one acre White House. Can our poor country justify this rich extravagant
waste?
The
Government’s answer? Create a monolith Jal Shakti Ministry which is the
amalgamation of Ministries of Water Resources, River Development, Ganga
Rejuvenation, Sanitation and Drinking water. Look skywards to ward off the
crisis while the Tamil Nadu Government has ordered all temples to hold yagnas to appease the rain Gods to cope
with the water shortage, Madhya Pradesh is mulling a ‘Right to Water’
legislation to ensure adequate water for every person and residents of
Rajasthan’s Thar desert are forking out Rs 2,500 to buy 2,500 litres of water
which they share with their cattle.
Add
to this, water levels have fallen 21.5% in the last decade and by next year
India will be categorized as “water stressed.” India has 18% of the world's
population but only 4% usable water, wastes more than it produces and spends
billions on inane projects instead of focusing on water conservation. Alongside,
air pollution causes 12.5% of all deaths and 1 lakh children below 5 years die
from air pollution every year according to the State of India’s Environment Report.
For
those who enjoy the ruinous events unfolding, there is some good news! The end
of the tragedy is nowhere in sight. The bad news? It’s simply a system’s
failure! They collectively coo. Who failed the system? Not the politician,
bureaucrat or police. All point accusing fingers at each other. Nevertheless,
everyone agrees there is something rotten in the State of Denmark! And we call ourselves a civilised society!
The worst thing is
nobody seems to care. The middle class has too many problems of its own to be
bothered about the poor, the poor are getting angrier and desperate, the rich,
as always, don’t care. For a while now, ‘feel-good’ has been the holy grail of
media and Establishment. It’s almost a national conspiracy, let’s ignore the
warts and bad things, focus only on those glitzy speeches and idolise success.
However,
these recent incidents make it imperative that we rethink how we want to shape
New India. Tough times call for
tough action. A revolutionary change is needed. Our leaders need to end their
reckless drift offering pies in the sky. Pragmatic competence and
out-of-the-box thinking is the need of the hour. Establish close links between
policy, research and service with the aam
aadmi at the centre of development.
One
needs neither a bleeding heart nor blindness to know what should be done. It
only holds out promises of more misery, more wrenching news bulletins and more
cries for the Government to act. Zabaani
jama khurch will not apply balm on scarred souls ravaged by malnourished
stomachs. After all, life is
not about collating numbers, but flesh and blood with beating hearts. the time is far gone
to play the pied piper, just
let them bleed
and aver its only life, stupid! ---- INFA
(Copyright, India News & Feature Alliance)
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