The cloudburst in Uttrakhand has led to daily outbursts at each other by the representatives of the two national parties on TV channel debates on the unfortunate tragedy. That a state has faced devastation of gigantic proportions leading to immense losses and needed words of comfort and support was of no concern to these so called national parties. They were only interested in scoring debating points against each other.
It all started when the PM in waiting visited the hapless state. He did so after the PM and President of Congress had an aerial survey of the affected areas and announced a Rs 1000+ crore relief. How could the CM wanting to be PM remain behind. It is normally not expected that CM's of other states visit, that too within a day or two of tragedy striking a state. It amounts to interfering in the affairs of another state.
What followed was almost both a tragedy and comedy. It was claimed that more than 15,000 tourists of his state had been rescued during his one day visit. This acted as a trigger to forces opposed to him and his party. The TV anchors were waiting for such an opportunity. Daily in almost all news channels the representatives of both the national parties were pitted against each other by the smart anchors.
While Uttarakhand was tackling the tragedy and the valiant defence personnel were evacuating the stranded tourists and others from the affected areas to safety, the politicians were outshouting each other debating earth shaking but otherwise mundane issues, whether it was proper for the CM who wants to become the PM to visit the state or about the whereabouts of the other PM in waiting or the statement of the Home Minister, that VIP's should not visit the state. The tu tu mein mein went from bad to worse every progressing day and many a time as a viewer I felt like hitting my forehead as to how low can politicians stoop just to score a debating point.
The defence personnel were the real saviours of more than a lakh affected people. It is already being stated to be the largest airlifting of disaster affected survivors in the world. They were the real heroes. But they received very little attention in the media. Occasionally during the useless debates someone would draw attention to them and for a moment the politicians would pay lip service and immediately jump to berating the opponent.
Why has the political discourse in the country become so bad that it is now becoming worse every passing day? Why is there no tolerance for each other's opinion between the major political parties? Why is there no self constraint even during natural calamities? Why has humility gone out of the system?
It seems the service aspect has been discarded by the politicians. They look upon themselves as arm chair corporate style managers. They now manage elections. They manage funds. They manage positions and favours. They manage self enrichment. They manage career of their sons and daughters. They all the time are busy managing and in the process they have lost touch with the very voters who have elected them to assemblies and the parliament. Because they have learnt the skills of managing everything to their advantage they start believing that they do not require the voters. Because they will manage their reelection also.
That the national parties are in power in a handful of states does not seem to motivate them to return to grassroots and regain the faith of larger number of voters. It is too small an activity now and below the dignity of most of the politicians to move in the 'fields and streets'and come in contact with the common persons. More than one third of the elected politicians hail from political dynasties and do not need the grassroot support as their family power and connections will get them the tickets fin the next elections. So where is the need for gaining the confidence of the ordinary citizen. Everything will be managed.
Therefore politics is today seen by most of the politicians as a corporate activity. Corporations have to be always in profit. Losses cannot be tolerated. Corporate wars have to be fought to retain hold on the markets. Minds of the people have to be conditioned to one's product's qualities. Power is everything. Service is secondary.This leads to giving not an inch to another's viewpoint. Tolerance is seen as a sign of weakness. One has to look and appear tough. The other's viewpoint has to be demolished at any cost. Iif in the process one has to stoop low and resort to lies and more lies it is an acceptable behaviour. Agencies have to be employed at public expenditure to propagate one's viewpoint.
It is therefore not at all surprising that while Uttarakhand was suffering the politicians were busy protecting their turf at any cost. The selfless service of the defence personnel was incidental.
(Pictures fron wikipedia)
Indian democracy has a dubious achievement to its credit. It is responsible for the creation of an estimated 500 political dynasties in the country. Ever since 1947 which saw India becoming independent but today we are heavily dependent on these families for our political management. The hold they have on the government and opposition is very strong. It is now not easy for a non political family person to make a dent in politics unless he happens to be someone of the class of Narendra Modi. And how many Modis can the system throw up?
In almost all states of Iindia there are multiple political dynasties ruling the roost. In many cases they have now gone into third generation. The premier first family of the country is now in its sixth generation and fortunately is an exception. Perhaps barring the Communist parties, these dynasties are to be found in all other political parties. The number depends on the age and ability to come to power of the party.
We thus have the third generation young scion as the Chief Minister in J&K, the second generation as CM in Orissa and the father-son combine in Punjab. A few years ago a CM of Bihar when he had to resign due to corruption charges coolly installed his wife as the next CM. A few days back, he held a grand meeting in Patna to induct his young sons into politics. A powerful Minister in the Central cabinet has his daughter and nephew taking care of his interest in his native State, large parts of which are suffering from famine. In the State of Haryana, political families keep mushrooming at regular intervals and a father and son combine has gone to jail also as a family on corruption charges. Down South we are all aware of a large political family which was recently voted out of power by the party led by a spinster. This family has a role for all its sons ,daughters and nephews. Most of them are allegedly involved in one or other corruption case. In UP the father made way for his inexperienced son to become the CM with results all of us see everyday. In Mumbai there is a political family which anointed its very young third generation into politics with the blessings of the grandfather who passed away a few months ago. In the central cabinet a Minister agreed to resign on the condition that his son, a Lok Sabha MP from Mumbai, is inducted into the cabinet,which was done.
One of the biggest drawbacks of this culture is that the family politician does not have to prove his worth as his seat is assured. So most of them start minting money and pedaling influence. They are not bothered about their reputation because the family will take care of that. Also they bank on the fact that public memory is short and it has no choice.
The Congress has the largest number of political families, which is to be expected because it has been in power for nearly 56 of the 66 years India has been free. It is estimated that in the present Parliament nearly 33 % of the members are from political families. The percentage could be more in the state assemblies. In future these numbers are bound to go up as it is going to become more and more difficult for others to either get tickets and if they do to arrange for the vast monetary funds required to finance the elections. Increasingly outsiders are going to be shut out of India's political process. The country will be dominated by a cobweb and network of mutually inclusive political families that keep becoming political dynasties.
This is a going to harm Indian democracy. First of all it will no longer be a democracy in its true meaning. Grass root workers cannot aspire to higher positions in the various political parties. Inbreeding of political leaders from only select families will bar meritorious and new thoughts from coming into the nation's political arena. The political battles will be more between individuals and families rather than ideologies. The number of genuine grass root political workers will go down considerably and this will encourage the entry of sycophants who'll work to enrich themselves. The politicians in power will be in a cocoon and will feel so protected that they will resort to making money without fear of exposure. It suits them that elections are costly to fight as it ensures outsiders from entering into the system. Before independence India was ruled by hundreds of big and small kings, today we are electing democratic"kings" in hundreds to rule us.
Why has such state of affairs developed? It is indeed comical to listen to many of the second and third generation politicians say in talk shows that the only favour they have received is that they could get ticket to fight the elections easily because of the family connection. But after that it is their hard work which gets them elected again and again. Nothing could be far from the truth. Imagine that of the 570 odd Lok Sabha seats nearly 33% ie around 200 seats have gone to these family connections. It is also estimated that these family members on an average enter politics 10 years before non family members do. Thus they get another undue advantage over others. It is also well known how the assets and other forms of wealth of most of the politicians multiplies after they get elected and thus they are able to finance their election campaign in a huge way, which others can't do.
Why do the people of India vote the scions of these families repeatedly and also across generations. It is because most of tye time people are voting for parties and have no choice in the selection of candidates. Also they seem to choose a known devil over an unknown devil. Also the smart political patriarchs have formed alliances with significant section of voters on basis of caste and other considerations. All this and other local and specific considerations go to ensure that political dynasties are perpetuated.
This phenomenon is not unique to India. In fact many Asian countries are afflicted with it. Nearly three hundred years ago Britain was in the vice of such political families. In USA also there are a few political families like the Kennedy, Bush and now Clintons. But they are very few in numbers unlike India. It is expected that with the maturing of the democratic process, the exertion of the grass root workers and the creation of awareness by NGO's gradually the influence of political families will go down in India also. Also there should be a time limit for holding the MP/MLA and CM/PM post without any extension whatsoever.
In the end it is the voters who have to decide whether they want to be ruled by meritorious politicians or scions of political dynasties thrust upon them.
What possibly could have happened had Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose returned to India after the Second World War?
It's a question I often try to find the answer of. Nobody knows for certain whether Subhash died in the plane crash in 1945. Till now there is no proof that he died in the plane crash. On the contrary, it seems the successive governments have been deliberately trying to conceal some facts that are still unknown.
I, for one, believe that Bose did not die in the plane crash. But if what I believe is right, then I can't say why he did not return to his country after independence.
But let us try to guess what turn history would have taken had he returned to India after the World War.
I have read the great leader's biography and from what I have understood from his personality, I can say India would not have been divided. Subhash had the potential to prevent partition of India. In case, he would have been in the scene, there would have been no country as the one we today know as Pakistan.
Subhash and Nehru were friends, but, I think that, Subhash, in the post independence period, would have been closer to Sardar Patel than Nehru for ideological reasons. Unlike Nehru Patel was not a man living in a dreamland. So was Subhash. Patel had warned Nehru against the Chinese intentions years before the Chinese aggrression in 1962. If Subhash had been the Prime Minister of India, I am sure, he would have understood the significance of Patel's timely warning. He would have prepared the army to counter any eventuality. The Sino- Indian war would not have taken place and Tibet would not have lost its independence. It would have continued as the buffer state between China and India. Our army would have been better prepared than what it is now and today we would not have been facing threats on our borders.
Another important thing that could have happened is that India would have now been secular in true sense of the term. Both Patel and Subhash had the capability to make the country secular without introducing the word 'secular' in the constitution and without resorting to appeasement of any community.
Under the leadership of great visionaries like Subhash and Patel no reigion of the country would have been left feeling ignored and so underdeveloped or undeveloped. Consequently there would not have been emergence of reigional parties.
All this is a part of what I think. And every time I think on the imaginary issue, I reach the conclusion that Subhash and Patel would have better leaders of our country.
India has a rich and colourful history. The history of India is one of the grand epics of world history. The history of India dates back to almost 75,000 years ago. The first major civilization in India, "The Indus Valley Civilization" thrived in the Northwestern part of India from 3300-1300 BCE. From that period to till now India had witnessed innumerable historical events. We know that past events cast its shadows on the present as well as the future. Even today many Indians feel that some of the historical events that had happened in India, changed the present and will change the future of India for the worst. We feel that if some of these historical events had not happened in the first place, then the current position of India would have been far more better than now. If I have the power to alter some Indian historical events, then I would choose the following events:
1. Partition Of India
The partition of India is the most unfortunate event that had ever happened in Indian history. This event trembled the whole foundation of India. More than 66 years had passed since the partition of India but even today there is an atmosphere of mutual hostility and suspicion between India and Pakistan. This partition was carried out to feed the ego of one single man named Muhammad Ali Jinnah who wanted a separate country for Muslims. He was suffering from Tuberculosis and he knew that he had only months to live but he secretly guarded this most valuable information from Mahatma Gandhi, Nehru, and Mountbatten. If Gandhi had known about the physical condition of Jinnah then he would have definitely avoided this partition. In the end, the ego of Jinnah won but he died within 9 months from the day of partition. If Maulana Azad had been picked by Gandhi as Prime Minister instead of Jawaharlal Nehru, then also the partition of India would not had occurred. If these events had not happened then there would have been no rivalry between India and Pakistan and we would have lived in a peaceful united country without the fear of any terrorist attacks.
2. Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel
As Prime Minister One of the greatest 'if's' of Indian political history has been, if Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel had been chosen as the first Prime Minister of India instead of Jawaharlal Nehru, then what would have been the present condition of India? The entire rank and file of congress looked at Sardar Patel as the most deserving candidate for prime ministership because of his proven track record for being an able administrator and a no-nonsense politician but then why did Gandhi choose Jawaharlal Nehru over Sardar Patel? Gandhi wanted Nehru to become the president of Congress but the Congress committee members nominated Sardar Patel for this post. This result prompted Gandhi to coax Sardar Patel to withdraw his nomination for the presidential post. As Sardar Patel had immense respect for Gandhi, he withdrew his candidature and this event paved the way for Jawaharlal Nehru to become the first Prime Minister of India. If Gandhi had chosen the deserving candidate instead of his personal choice, then today we would have been living in an entirely different and prosperous India.
3. The Murder Of Lal Bahadur Shastri
Lal Bahadur Shastri was the second Prime Minister of India. He died in Tashkent, Russia due to a so called "heart attack" after signing the Tashkent declaration, which was a peace agreement between India and Pakistan after the 1965 Indo-Pak war. The evidences and circumstances clearly point out that Lal Bahadur Shastri was murdered by poisoning. Shastri was regarded as the true hero of the 1965 war and before his trip to Tashkent, he showed no symptoms of being unhealthy. It was officially accepted that no postmortem was done on Shastri's body either in Russia or in India but Shastri's wife Lalitha was troubled by the facts that his body was blue and their were certain cut marks on his body. Shastri's daughter was the last person who talked with him over the phone and his last words were, "I'm going to have a glass of milk and sleep." When she again called after 15 minutes, she received the tragic news that her father had died from heart attack. Shastri's servant, Ram Nath, who was with him on the day of his death was asked to speak the truth about this death before a parliamentary body in 1977. While Ram Nath was on his way to the Parliament, he was hit by a moving vehicle and his legs were crushed and he lost his memory. If we still can't see the truth, then we are too dumb. Why was he murdered?
There are evidences to prove that Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose was jailed in a prison in Russia and he died in 1976. At that time Nehru was the prime minister of India and Russia wanted to do business with India, so they threatened Nehru by using Netaji. Nehru feared that if Netaji was released, then he will have no place in India. At that time the relation between India and USSR flourished but when Nehru died and Lal Bahadur Shastri became the prime minister, the USSR received a shock because they knew that they can't threaten Shastri by using Netaji. If Shastri knew that Netaji was jailed in Russia then he would have asked the USSR to release him and would have welcomed him to India. USSR wanted somebody in power who can be threatened and utilised so in Tashkent they killed Shastri by poisoning his milk. As a result of this event, Indira Gandhi came into power and thereafter the USSR had good business with India. If Lal Bahadur Shastri had not met with an untimely death, then Indira Gandhi had no chance of becoming the prime minister of India and the innumerable brutal events associated with her would have never happened.
4. Indira Gandhi And The Emergency
The strength of India has always been its democracy but the imposition of Emergency in 1975 by Indira Gandhi shook the whole foundation of democracy in India. The situation of emergency in India lasted for 19 months and this period can be termed as the darkest period in the history of independent India. The foundation to this emergency was laid when the Allahabad High court found Indira Gandhi guilty of electoral malpractices. Jayprakash Narayan, who is also known as the "Gandhi of independent India" demanded the resignation of Indira Gandhi and called for a total revolution in India. During the year 1975, public protests against Indira Gandhi and her government achieved a nationwide status. On 25th June 1975, instead of resigning for the sake of her country, the power hungry Indira Gandhi imposed the emergency on India to safeguard her own political and personal interests. During emergency more than 100,000 people were arrested and detained indefinitely without trial. Each and every section of human life was affected during this state of emergency. The only person who benefited from this unfortunate event was Indira Gandhi's son, Sanjay Gandhi. If Indira Gandhi was never allowed to step into the Indian politics then selfish and brutal events like Emergency and Operation Blue Star would have never happened.
5. Demolition Of Babri Masjid
The demolition of Babri Masjid in 1992 is the most unfortunate event which marked the beginning of religion based politics in India. On December 6, 1992, the Sangh Parivar, comprising of BJP, RSS, and VHP destroyed the Babri Majid in Ayodhya. This destruction resulted in the most violent communal riots India had ever seen after the partition in 1947. More than 2000 people were killed. The mastermind behind this destruction was L K Advani, who clearly knew the power of religion in India. This incident shows that religion in India can turn people crazy and fanatic. After this brutal event, the BJP succeeded in creating a Hindu majority party but this event will definitely create more communal riots in the coming years. Events like this proves that, we Indians are mere pawns at the hands of power crazy politicians.
These are the five major events which I would like to erase from the history book of India. Just imagine an India without these unfortunate events and the picture that emerges in your mind will take you to a fairy land.
Image Source: Wikimedia
After independence, former prime minister of India, announced, our country could wait for everything, but not for agriculture. He believes the development of agriculture should be done from day one. The paradigm shift after 60 years of independence is that, most of progress achieved in all sphere of industry except for agriculture. The agriculture field is forever ignored. There is no autonomous or exclusive law for agriculture and farmers. The law of land favours big companies, banks and big farmers related to agricultural field and neglected completely the grassroots level farmers. There is no stubborn law to protect interests of small farmers. Agriculture in India is in dire straights due to these sets of laws and regulations. In our country, there are many favourable farming laws that enable for the distribution of free seed, loan subsidy, introduction of the machine into farming industry but sadly all these benefits to businessmen, brokers and lenders. They continually exploit the system to minimise the benefits to real farmers and for this, slowly they entangled into loan cage and later commit suicide. Then, lenders took away their farm yards and the son of farmers leave the village and also the paternal work and reach the big cities for some other form of work. In this manner, the basic fabric of work culture is slowly missing and if this is not stopped at the proper time, then, there will be a time, when no one will be available to form the cultivated fields. There is no explicit support from government, agricultural department and agricultural university to grass root farmers. Owing to their peculiar mental strength, the farmers of India, have reached such an advance stage. There is no definite scheme to empower their strength and furthermore there are many detractors for them, be it real estate mafia, the big business houses, lenders, but still they are cultivating the land and producing the goods. Indian farmers weaken owing to various reverse agricultural laws and for this they had to fight internal and external forces.
All these giant industries are conspiring to kill Indian farming section and try to sell it to foreign companies and they are doing it constantly by breaking the rib bone of farmers. Sometimes, farmers could not understand their offerings properly and at other times they try to brute force the farmers and in this way slowly the basic farming section of India, which has been there since the ages of Indus valley civilisation, is beginning to be disturbed and destroyed. Since, independence, governments as well as agricultural departments have shredded the crocodile tears at the state of affairs of farmers to garner votes to back into power. In reality, there are no proper steps to improve the financial conditions of scores of poor farmers. Land is the foremost necessity for farming. The image of land comes into mind, when someone thinks of cultivation. Till this date, there is no identifiable land sealing action for farmers from government. This has not been considered in numerous provincial states either. Government is acquiring lands for broad industries and evading and killing innocent farmers who are protecting against this. This is the sad state of affairs in the field of agriculture. Irrigation is the principal element of agriculture. In limited budget allocation, the part of money for the development of irrigation is rapidly decreasing. One third of agriculture land of our country is still not irrigated. The high pitched loans and subsidies, given to farmers are not reaching them, in turn, it is hijack by moderate men and most of them are from political party petty workers. Only 28 percentages of farmers are able to receive subsidized loans. Out of them, mostly are small businessmen in the villages. They are tractors and power tiller business man and they accept extraordinary charge from honest farmers for rent and for this honorable farmers had to revert to manual cultivation due to cost factor. So, if statistics are to be believed there is less than ten percentages of actual farmers, who are benefiting from these schemes. There are no noteworthy schemes for real farmers, who are not so rich and for this most of beneficial schemes benefit the big farmers and industrial houses. More than 70 percentages of small farmers go to local lenders for money and thus have to repay crippling there after and for this the financial health of small farmers continues to be grim. There are no strict boundary rules from government to the animals used directly or indirectly for manual cultivation. There is no ample scale settlement to sell the agricultural production at a fair price.
There is no hard and fast rule about cold storage facility for small farmers. It is evident that they cannot store cultivated products on their own, they want the government to help them out, but the state of cold storage is now a distant dream. There is no increase of water reservoirs exclusively for pastoral purposes. The tube wells carefully set up by governments become meaningless at the onset of summer owing to height of pipes inside the soil. The underwater level inside earth crust is reducing rapidly. It has been reducing one foot each year, owing to excessive use of chemical fertiliser inside corn fields. The fertile character of soils is steadily decreasing due to excessive use of chemical fertilisers. Helpful micro creatures living inside soils are killed due to chemical fertilisers. India is number one among nations, decreasing the ground water levels. In the coming years, the number of fertile lands will be decreased further and owing to scarcity of underground water resources, there will be a time, when, cultivation will be absolutely not possible. Owing to highly intense use of chemical fertilisers and poisons in the corn fields, there is increase of diabetes, jaundice, cancers and other malaise's in villages.
Still, government is not thinking of organic farming. They are promoting farmers to use chemical farming which is dangerous and fatal. According to estimation, if agricultural production rises to ten percentages, then store keeping will be a huge problem for the government. The government should look beyond and promotion for cash crops among small farmers to improve financial health of theirs. There is no perfect food storage policy and there is no sufficient cold storage facility. Farmers are going to self to cultivate cash crops, but the foremost problem for them is storage. In our county, there is very less amount of special storage facility that can store the cash crops. Government is ingoing this angle of cold store keeping. If Indian farmers indulged themselves with cash crop farming, then foreign farming giants cannot enter into India's agricultural business and probably, this is the perfect situation when the government does not want to increase the number of specialised remote storage facility for cash crops. Agriculture is a regional phenomenon. In our country, more than 60 percentage of agriculture land deals with monsoon waters. Owing to cosmic scale by changing of climate, there is irregular monsoon and that affects the related agricultural production. It is affecting farm lands and total agricultural production capacity of farming. In this situation; mixed farming, internal farming and less water farming can be a handy solution for small farmers. Government should train them for free to employ advance agriculture in farm lands. One should not consider paddy, wheat as cash crops. Owing to change in environmental situations, the government should think beyond and introduce new forms of cash crops so that, small farmers, who are mostly illiterate could possibly gain from government training. What is more worrying is that, government seems to be not generating interest in these forms of agronomic practices. In the current situation, more than 40 percentages of farmer communities are ready to leave their traditional farming work, in favour of additional jobs. They are running out of patience due to continuous draught, floods and anti farmer policies by successive governments. In order to have food security, there should be pro farmer policies to scores of poor farmers so that they should stay in their generation extensive cultivation practices. Whatever law for food security, that cannot guarantee food for all, if conditions of underprivileged and downtrodden farmers are continuously overlooked by successive governments.
More Articles …
Page 16 of 36