Political
Diary
New Delhi, 26 January
2021
Republic
At 71
MAKE OR
BREAK YEAR
By Poonam
I Kaushish
How does one feel on
Republic day week? Rather how is one supposed to feel? Patriotic? Puffed up in self-esteem? Pride in Mera Bharat Mahan? Happy it’s a holiday?
That, my dear, compatriots is what 26 January boils down to. Just another chutti to do your own thing! Nothing more, nothing less. Seventy one years’
which embody the joy and tragedy of India!
The irony could not be
more profound after the gloom of a depressing 2020 due to Covid 19 pandemic. Under
a heavy cloak of security our leaders go through the same stereotype motions
mechanically. President Kovind unfurls the tricolour at Rajpath followed by a
Parade. Yet, amidst the curtailed pomp and show pageantry lurked the shadow of
the continuing farmers protest on the outskirts of Delhi and the 1lakh tractors
rally.
True, our kisans may have genuine grouses and till
date the Government has
shown good faith by holding ten rounds of talks with 40 farm union leaders offering
many amendments to find a “logical solution” to the three contentious
farm laws. The Supreme Court has set-up a panel of experts to break the logjam
which farmers have refused to acknowledge. In a democracy, laws may be flawed
as the Government is not God but to continue an andolan is not the way to make the Government see reason. The ball is
now in the farmers' court.
With everything
beginning and ending with our polity, a distraught India continues to search
for her soul under the increasing onslaught of rising prices, unemployment, intolerance,
cultural terrorism, casteism, growing majority appeasement read Saffron
Parivar’s ghar vapsi programmes, love
jihad and beef ban. Topped by a mundane
performance, more talk than action an angry and restive janata demands answers and yearns for change.
Alongside, there is political disquiet over Modi’s failure to
curb his rabid Hindutva brigands whereby India is once again caught up in a
battle royale between the Gods. Alas, ishq-mohabat-shaadi
cutting across caste and religious boundaries inter-meshed with forced
conversions are churning the political cauldron resulting in an unholy clash
between the ‘holier than thou’ with seven Saffron States: UP, MP, Haryana, Karnataka,
Gujarat, Bihar and Assam enacting strict law against ‘LJ’.
Yet, Modi remains the
tallest leader sans an opponent with people rooting for him as decisive, one
who is determined to build a strong prosperous future for them. Certainly, people might be disappointed in the
Government’s overall governance but are not overtly disillusioned with it.
Thanks to the TINA (there is no alternative) factor and a scattered and weak Opposition
pulling in different directions.
With the Congress in suspended
animation due to internal strife between the Gandhis’ and the “game changers”,
regional leaders like TMC’s Mamata, NCP’s Pawar, DMK’s Stalin, TRS’s Rao with disparate
aims and agendas are all are vying for the same top slot. They would do well to
learn that only unity can defeat the BJP.
Besides, the Party
and its Government can derive comfort from holding District Council elections
post abrogation of Article 370 in Kashmir, beginning construction of Ayodhya
temple, and dealing with the political aakrosh
over the CAA and NRC. Only the Uniform Civil Code is left of the BJP-RSS nucleus
agenda and a Bill to regulate population is on the anvil.
However,
the country is in the throes of an economic divide,
bottomless potholes and subterranean fissures in the rotting fabric of our
cities, the Central and State Governments’ apathy and
incompetence towards its 80% workforce. Millions have
lost their jobs, many small and medium-sized companies went bankrupt add
to this hunger, desolation and depression, the perfect recipe for disaster.
Add to
this, the pandemic exposed India’s economic distress. It posted its steepest
ever economic growth slump to register a sharp quarterly growth slump of 15-25%, just years after it earned the tag of the fastest-growing
economy in the world. Even if pent-up demand leads to a recovery after the
pandemic eases, deep structural issues like high public debt are expected to
constrain India's GDP growth for years to come. there is a plunge in domestic consumption,
manufacturing, construction, real estate, weakening of industrial production,
slump in exports and imports and a mess in the banking and financial sectors,
dissatisfaction in rural belt, urban apathy and angry youth for Government’s
inability to generate jobs alongside communal polarization and erosion in its
vote-share which has not paid electoral dividends.
On the social front things are depressing.
Seven decades post Independence, after spending trillions on education, health
and food, 70% people continue to be hungry, illiterate, unskilled and bereft of
basic medical care. Increasingly, we are getting more casteist and communal
whereby a distraught India is searching for her soul under the increasing
onslaught of intolerance and criminalization.
When it comes to
women safety nothing seems to have changed. From the 16 December 2012 Nirbhaya
gang-rape case which ‘shocked the conscience of the nation’ and took eight long
years for the culprits to pay for their crime to the 29 September Hathras case where a 19 year old Dalit teen was gang raped by four upper caste men, stripped and
strangulated, her spinal cord damaged paralyzing her and tongue cut resulting
in death.
Tragically,
nobody has time for the aam aadmi’s
growing disillusionment with the system which explodes in rage. Turn to any mohalla, district or State, the story is
mournfully the same. Resulting in more and more people taking law into their
own hands and borne out by the increasing rioting, looting and burning of
buses. Capital Delhi is replete with gory tales of road rage resulting in
murders. The system has become so sick that women today are being raped in
crowded trains with co-passengers as mute spectators. Sporadically converting
the country into andher nagri.
Worse,
none have time for the sick and needy. Appallingly, there
is only one allopathic doctor per 10,189 people, only one hospital bed per 2046
persons and one State-run hospital per 90,343 people and one million allopathic
doctors for 1.3 billion people of which only 10% work in the public health
sector. Three thousand children die of
malnutrition every day, 14.9% of our population is undernourished and
nearly one million die annually due to scarce healthcare facilities while 19
crore people are compelled to sleep on empty stomachs.
All in all, Republic
Day is a time for honest soul searching. Time has come for our netas to turn a new page and invest in
its citizens genuinely, people who make this nation, their education, health,
jobs and in their future. Will they be able to ensure speedy development at the
grassroots through a decentralized administration responsive to the rising
expectations and aspirations of its people in accordance with a mature and
meaningful democracy? Specially, as the system faces its greatest-ever crisis
even as our people are urged to take the Covid vaccine and revel in the
“feel-good factor” waiting for ache din
to arrive. We Indians deserve a lot better. ----- INFA
(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)
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