Anna As President

Not so improbable.

Just yesterday, amidst falling TRP ratings, Anna did something that he should have done long ago....Announce the floating of a Political party, who will then get elected and bring the change from within.

Very commendable, very ambitious and very late.

In the meantime, team Anna has sufferred like no icononic movement leaders have done in my living memory. They have lost face and support...in that order....and are now hoping to cash in on what is left.

A year back, when people were galvanized into a frenzy of support would have been the right time. Now that they have had the time to reflect and listen to varied views, I doubt if Team Anna will have any sort of support at all. At best they may, if all goes well, become a sort of irritant that a Mamta or a Thakerey have been in the next 15 years or so.

What will happen to Corruption till then?

Me believes that the corrupt will see this as a vindication of their stand. A sort of parole for taking money. Electoral politics in this country (as indeed in most of the uncivilized democratic world) is a matter of muscle and money power. Just where does the team intend to get these two anachronistic elements remains to be seen.

Are we still saying that the end justifies the means? If so, then Team Anna will take money. They will take favors. Once elected, they will have to side those that give them the money...and then what?

Someone told me that they will go to the people for money. That housewives and students, Rickshaw Wallas and Office goers, labourers and farmers, purohits and imaams will line up to contribute. That utopia, while not entirely impossible, is immensely improbable.

After all, this is not 1962 and we are not battling the Chinese. We are fighting against ourselves. The enemy within is always more ambiguous. Its a difficult recognition process. Is it clear that Bedi is not the enemy and Salman Khurshid is? Do we really see a difference between a Kejriwal and a Chidambaram? Do we really know these people at all...or were we completely carried away by the jingoistic rhettoric of a movement in ascent.

History is witness to mobs, even admittedly large ones, completely taking over public oppinion, driving rough shod over the larger majority who were more content in preserving their silence, content in perserving the status quo of their humdrum, yet harsh, existence. At the height of the movement, there were perhaps a million, maybe 2 who were ready to come out in total manifested support. This figure while not negligible by any standards constitutes (at the stretched estimate) maybe just 0.17% of the population of India. In comparison let me quote the following

- An estimated 5 million people turned up in a single day in Sabrimala in 2007
- An estimated 6 million people marched through London and Rome in protest against the Iraq War in 2003
- An estimated 2.5 million people marched together in the Sao Paulo Gay Pride parade in 2006
- Around 2 million people turned up in Tripoli in support of Muammar Gaddaffi in 2011 against Western Aggression

Yet another piece of trivia ... More than 70 Million people turned up for the Ardh Kumbha mela in Alahabad in 2007.

Now that is what I call complete support..even in a country of 1.2 Billion people.

At a certain level, personally, I am happy that this is taking a political turn. I am not a person who believes that politics is wrong by deffinition. It is actually the most noble of all professions.

It remains to be seen if the larger objectives are met through this move and if Team Anna preserves their sense of righteous indignation on anything that is remotely corrupt...even when they see the same in themselves....

In the meantime, corruption will continue till there is no comprehensive overhaul of public consciousness.

Shine On

The sense of despondency is palpable. It is as if the India Shining Story has turned on its head and is walking upside down to drown itself. Even the trees struggle to raise their heads. The tallness of the buildings are somewhat diminished and well….there is a pall of gloom shrouding the brightest light in the malls.

Talking of the malls. Well they don’t run that well anymore. Just yesterday they were full of people spilling cash like children spill water. The crowds are still there…hanging out the atrium and the food courts ….but nobody seems to be spending anything. They look forlornly at the merchandize and then move on ahead..”Not now” they seem to be collectively saying..”We are here only for Déjà vu…”

The spirit of the might have been surrounds the glittering lights.

So is this essentially an Urban phenomenon? Or is it that sadness has permeated down to the smallest village as well. Or did India shine only in the cities and never had the time to reach the Kasbahs that make up Rural and Semi Urban India!

I took a car and prepared to drive into the heartland of what is arguably India’s most developed state. Gujarat with 42% Urbanization and growing fast is the perfect test case. A state with good roads, a rate of agricultural growth that put service growth to shame, Industrial growth that bordered on the ridiculous and people with more BMWs than I have hair on my body. Irrigation has taken water to the desert and canals from great rivers criss cross ambitious cash crop settlements.

I took the turning left from Ashram Road…on the way out of Ahmedabad and stopped. Ahead of me on the sidewalk was a family of 5. Father, mother and 3 miniscule children. They were settled uncomfortably on the sidewalk….meager belongings wrapped up in tattered covers….3 bricks making up an improvised oven on which the mother was roasting Jawar cakes. Didn’t look as though they had bathed for a week or so. The kids were dressed in shirts that must have been of some color when they picked them off the garbage can. They were dressed in shirts and nothing else…their limbs not belying the frailty of their age.

I stopped my India Shining car and went over to them.

They came from the tribal district of Dahod to the city for a better future. So I asked them some and they replied a lot…

They had enough to eat in the village. They had a roof over their heads. They bathed twice a day and the children had friends and land to play in.

Sounded like a better deal to me and so I asked them “Why did you come here ? For what?”.
“For a better life ofcourse”
“So are you getting it here? “ I must have sounded incredulous.
“No….It was a mistake!”
“So why don’t you go back?”
“We have nowhere to go back to. You see we sold off our land to come here. Now the money is over and in any case it was never enough to even cover a few months rent.”

Shine on you crazy diamonds.

I drove back in a tizzy…my rural project abruptly on hold and I assumed rightly or wrongly that the rural situation couldn’t be much better or was it? Had it been taken over by the richer few like the cities had been.

The only difference would be that the poor in the city continue living in glass and concrete. The poor of the village just shift to slums in the cities. They come with stars in their eyes and stay with rocks on their souls. Farmers plouging the concrete and glass fields of development while their lands are bartered for petty profit that hurts in its short sightedness.

India shines on for the solid few. Crazyness dances a chaotic pattern across the rest. The lack of inclusiveness in progress can only lead to dislocation of our dreams in the mid to long term.

Of course India Shining has ensured that there are more sidewalks…..So the homeless can hitch up plastic covers for a settled homestead….till an SUV misses the road and runs over a few…

There will be more looking for a home.