Dirty politics in India - is their a bottom to the pit?

This must be one of the most reluctant posts that I have written. It is almost a compulsive one.
Nearly 150 lives were lost in the train accident in Bengal. On one hand, I was  glad that there actually were helicopters carrying the injured to hospitals. Otherwise, one always wonders how in USA helicopters are always present to rescue people. So it can happen in India too, I said to myself.
Barely 48 hours later, I see the ministers divided in their opinion about how the accident happened. I am OK with people having different opinions, but can they hold their tongues for some time?
Mamta Banerjee has hit her all-time low by claiming that this was a result of 'political conspiracy'. How insensitive can one get? It is no surprise that this statement comes with WB civic body elections around the corner. The last time she did this was when she raked up the Singur controversy. Clearly, she was keeping the oncoming general elections in mind at that time. Now it is the civic body elections.
Mamta seems to have got her act together in terms of her moves in the arena of electoral politics. I just hope that the voters get their act right some day and hand out to her what she deserves. A resounding defeat.

When will the British learn ?

The British parliament election results are out and everybody there appears to be perplexed. A hung parliament has emerged from the ballot boxes, and the last time something like this happened there was 36 years ago.

So what? All they need to do is look at how Indian politicians have tackled this with consummate ease. A hung parliament has never been a deterrent for our leaders. They have been able to change their colours of loyalty faster than a chameleon. All that it takes is to follow the rule of four Ds. Here's a simple guide.

1. Defect - The simplest of all techniques.

2. Defy (the voters, that is) - What we said before the polls is a matter of history. We can always change to some other agenda. Even give it a politically correct name of 'Common minimum program'.

3. Deny - That you said something before the polls. Statements like 'there is no question for forming an alliance with XYZ' have to be forgotten and any alliance can then be defended by saying 'politics has strange bedfellows'.

4. Dogged pursuit - of power, what else.

The British could have learned something from a country that they ruled for so long. Maybe we can send a delegation of our politicians there , headed by people like Mayawati, Laloo, Ramadoss, Mamta and of course, Amar Singh. They can solve the problem of 10, Downing Street in a matter of minutes.

Another chance to show that Indians are going to rule the world!

Is Rahul Gandhi relevant to the context?

Rahul Gandhi tour to Mumbai has started a new chapter in Indian politics. It is clear that his 'surprise' train ride and all that followed must have all been scripted carefully. Be that as it may, it was a well-made script - no doubt about that.
Cynics will argue (they have already started, in fact) that it was nothing but a political stunt. But they won't see the fact that a stunt also has to be timed very well otherwise it can quickly turn into a disaster. One can argue that Mahatma Gandhi's charkha-spinning and fasting were also gimmicks (undoubtedly there must have been people then who thought this way) but it had the necessary impact.
Politicians of that era formed an elite class of their own. They were far removed from the realities of the population. So the rhetoric of 'Aam aadmi' of Congress is not really new. It is over hundred years old! Gandhi acquired an image that people could relate to. If it meant going for 'padyatras' and spinning a charkha in prayer meetings, then he did that very well.
Here is a description of the Congress as it was then. In the words of none other than Jawaharlal Nehru himself.
Quote
It was very much an English-knowing upper-class affair where morning coats and well-pressed trousers were greatly in evidence. Essentially it was a social gathering with no political excitement or tension.
Unquote
The situation is uncannily similar today, although politicians have not remained elite really. Far from it. But they have definitely alienated themselves from the masses. Majority of college students in Mumbai couldn't care less for what most leaders say or do. But watching Rahul Gandhi walk into the local train would have touched more than just a few chords. I hasten to add that I am not immediately comparing the two Gandhis - Rahul and Mahatma. All I am saying is that the person (or team) who is writing the script for Rahul is doing a good job at making him relevant to the times.
On the other hand, Shiv Sena's scriptwriter is producing one miserable flop after the other. That's another story....

Cutting costs. At what cost?

The current austerity drive and what not of the Government is all fine, but I am afraid it is not going to work.
It is already not working, in fact.
Can the government do some SERIOUS cost cutting instead? Like doing a rethink about the level of security that is provided to politicians left, right and center? Like seriously disinvesting and privatising some of its dysfunctional PSUs? Like not providing freebies to all and sundry in form of subsidies?
This so called austerity drive by ministers traveling economy class and other nonsense will only serve as a political gimmick. And I suspect that is all it is supposed to do. So in that sense, it is a sparkling success!
Other than the fact whether it works or not, consider its implications otherwise. If all politicians start traveling by train like Rahul Gandhi, imagine the amount of security that will have to be deployed at railway stations and in trains. (Already there is a brouhaha over Rahul's train being pelted with stones.)
It will only create more nuisance for the common man. We already have enough trouble at airports with politicians; why cause the same at railway stations?
So - all you khaadi-clad netajis, please go ahead and do what you have to do. Because anyway I don't think you really run this country. It is run by the government machinery (and please, don't mistake yourself to be THE Government, ok? I mean the people in offices who work. WORK. Do you understand) and by the millions of 'aam aadmi' who work honestly, earn their salaries, pay their taxes, send their children to school, board public transport only after buying legitimate tickets, and follow road rules when driving.
All unlike you, who do nothing of this sort.

Southern mania

More than 60 people have died following YSR Reddy's demise in Andhra Pradesh. Some of these due to shock, others due to suicide. So much that YSR's son had to make an appeal to people to stop taking these drastic steps. One channel in fact reports this number as a shocking 122 people.
I can understand the feeling of sadness following the death of a leader. I felt it myself when Pramod Mahajan passed away. I had never seen him, leave alone knowing or interacting with him. Still.
But suicide? That's a different matter altogether.
What is it with South leaders, that they are able to whip up this frenzied support from masses? Or does it have something to do with South Indians as a whole? Political figures becoming colossal icons in the minds of people is not rare in South. MGR, NTR, Raj Kumar, Jayalalitha, Karunanidhi... the list is endless. Chiranjeevi is the latest addition to this I presume.
Or is it something that is a very Indian trait? But I don't see such frenzy in other Indian states, it is too pronounced in South. I am sorry if I sounding parochial, but there seems to be more to this than meets the eye.
How does culture influence the way we see our leaders? Did something similar happen after the demise of Gandhi, Nehru or Patel? I was not born when that happened. But I clearly remember Indira Gandhi's assassination and its aftermath. I don't recall so many people killing themselves (they killed others, but that's a different story). Now, Indira Gandhi was a national figure, unlike YSR or anyone else mentioned above. There surely were people who grieved her passing away, but not many took the drastic step of ending their own lives.
So instead of it being an Indian trait, is it a Dravidian trait? And if it is, what part has cultural upbringing played in this trait becoming so pronounced? Or is the loud media that plays a part in this sordid drama?

Amar Singh's latest self-delusion

During the past few weeks we have seen politicians making statements that have ranged from funny to downright stupid. Now as the country awaits the results of the mandate with less than 24 hours to go for the counting, Mr. Amar Singh has made the best statement of all. He was asked the ubiquitous question that every politician is being asked since the last four days - will you join the UPA/NDA/3rd front/4th front/your own front? And this is his answer -
"it is all open now. Congress will ask us only if we have the numbers (that's a rare bit of candour on part of Amar Singh, I must admit). We are political virgins."
Whoa - what was that? Political virgins?!
I know what he is saying (I hope so!) but he has got his metaphors all mixed up. I decided to look up the dictionary meaning of 'virgin' and I quote from the online dictionary.

Virgin
–noun
1. a person who has never had sexual intercourse.
2. an unmarried girl or woman.
3. Ecclesiastical. an unmarried, religious woman, esp. a saint.
4. the Virgin, Mary, the mother of Christ.
5. Informal. any person who is uninitiated, uninformed, or the like: He's still a virgin as far as hard work is concerned.
6. a female animal that has never copulated.
7. an unfertilized insect.
8. (initial capital letter) Astronomy, Astrology. the constellation or sign of Virgo.
–adjective
9. being a virgin: a virgin martyr.
10. of, pertaining to, or characteristic of a virgin: virgin modesty.
11. pure; unsullied; undefiled: virgin snow.
12. first: the senator's virgin speech.
13. without admixture, alloy, or modification: virgin gold.
14. not previously exploited, cultivated, tapped, or used: virgin timberlands; virgin wool.
15. without experience of; not previously exposed to: a mind virgin to such sorrows.
16. Informal. being a mixed drink resembling a specific cocktail but made without any alcoholic ingredient: a virgin piña colada.
17. Zoology. not fertilized.
18. (of a metal) made directly from ore by smelting, rather than from scrap.
19. noting the oil obtained, as from olives, by the first pressing without the application of heat.

No matter which way we look, none of these meanings fit Amar Singh. Even if we consider the meaning which Amar Singh wants to convey - it is hard to believe him. Amar Singh can write the Political version of Kamasutra if he wants to. Vatsayana described only 64 ways in his Kamasutra - Amar Singh can describe 64,000 ways to do it in Indian Politics.
The Wikipedia page for Amar Singh begins like this - 'Amar Singh (27 January 1956 born in Aligarh) is widely regarded as one of India's most corrupt politicians.' I just hope that Amar Singh is soon relegated to being a political recluse rather than the virgin that he claims to be.

Definite fast.

Today has been a day of politicians providing us with some badly needed humour. And they are providing lots of it.
First was the Karunanidhi fast - which ended very fast, indeed! Early morning today Karunanidhi decided to use Mahatma Gandhi's favourite weapon - the 'indefinite fast'. The point is, there was hardly anything indefinite about it. As of yesterday the Lankan army had pushed the LTTE (what was remaining of it, that is) to a few square km of area. LTTE then proposed a ceasefire and Sri Lankan authorities promptly rebuffed this suggestion as 'a joke'. It was a joke definitely. I could hear the Sri Lankan army top brass saying, "So you want a ceasefire? Sorry pal, but I am not asking you what you want. You can keep your demands to yourself, because I am coming and getting you. Just you wait!" This was a clear indication that the LTTE game was as good as up. Clearly, there was very little time for Karunanidhi to get some political mileage (and several Tamil votes) out of this battle that was about to end more sooner and later.
So he had to act fast, really fast. Pun intended.
Then there was Ramadoss making the atrocious remark that Prabhakaran was not a terrorist but was actually a freedom fighter and could be compared to Nelson Mandela! By that logic, Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale should also be considered a freedom fighter. Not to speak of Dhanu and Sivarasan. I suppose that Ramadoss believes that all of them were also freedom fighters - if in the process of fighting they blew up innocent people, assasinated a Prime Minister and sparked off a political crisis in anther country, then so be it.
Ramadoss, will you wake up, please? Kindly note that you are backing an outfit that assasinated your PM. I would say you are actually insulting the very constitutional fabric of my country. I hesitate to say 'your country' because you are hardly behaving likewise. The next thing you might go and say is that Prabhakaran is actually a Tamilian reincarnation of the Dalai Lama, but I am afraid people don't take you seriously these days.
The best part, cherry on the cake really, came later today. Sri Lanka authorities declared that "the conflict had reached its conclusion and that the army would now focus now on rescuing civilian hostages. No heavy arms would be used." Just as you would expect, this was promptly followed by Karunanidhi gratefully accepting the glass of sweet lime juice (or butter milk or kaapi) to end his fast. Pranab Mukherjee and P Chidambaram wasted no time in claiming Indian contribution to this decision. These statements were pathetic attempts at claiming credit for something they had nothing to do with. I saw an interview of a Sri Lankan official - who went by a charmingly musical surname of Hullugale - on TV. It went something like this -

Sir, what has been the Indian contribution to this decision?
....... sorry? I can't hear you?
Sir, what has been the Indian contribution to this decision?
Oh, well. Indian govt has been very cooperative in this case. They have not put any pressure on us.

Mr. Hallugale is a perfect diplomat. What he managed to say without actually saying it was - Hello? What do you think you are talking about?

Indian Politics - 'Back to the future'

With so much action going on in Indian politics, a gullible Indian voter can be excused for being confused. What with politicians putting chameleons to shame by their ever-changing colours, and parties forming and breaking alliances at the drop of a hat. Why, even before we were getting some clarity about what exactly the Third Front is and who is in and out of it, there is already talk of a fourth front! Going at this rate, we could easily have the forty-third front by the time counting of votes is over. Whatever number the eventual front identifies with, the Left and Samajwadis will be in it surely. Why? Nobody else wants them in, as simple as that! Going by the Left's views on economy and the latest brilliantly retrograde manifesto of the SP, I recommend that the new coalition should be called 'Left Backs'. So here is a glimpse of the future cabinet of ministers.

Minister for Law - Pappu Kalani. He has spent such a long time in jail, doesn't he deserve a recognition for that? He has actually contested elections from inside the jail and won! Who else can claim to know our legal system better.
Minister for Road Transport - Laloo Yadav. With his new-found love for road rollers, he is clearly an easy choice for this. He will also hold the extra charge of Minister for Family Welfare. With nine children of his own, he knows what family welfare is all about.
Minister for Urban Development - Maneka Gandhi. She will reserve all open spaces in cities as sanctuaries for stray dogs. That would include roads also, of course. So no traffic, leading to no pollution, further leading to better economy, health and overall urban development.
Ministry for Wildlife - Dharmarao Baba Atram. He has got the rare distinction of being involved in a Chinkara hunting case while being Minister for Forests for Maharashtra. So we should now promote him to cabinet grade.
Minister for Industries (read Strikes) - Mamata Banerjee. This is clearly an open and shut case. Which means people can try to open industries, but she will always effectively shut them.
Minister for Home Affairs - Achutanandan. Why? Well, you see - this is a very sensitive ministry. Thus it can only be headed by the most insensitive person around.
Minister for Finance - Bangaru Laxman. Finance is all about making money. He knows it well.
Minister for Foreign Affairs - Vaiko. He has promised a bloodbath if Sri Lanka continues its campaign against LTTE. What better example of understanding of foreign affairs?
Minister for Sillycommunications - This will replace the current telecom ministry. With SP promising to take our country several decades, if not centuries back, we won't need telecom at all. The new sillycommunications portfolio will be headed by Amar Singh.
Minister for Cultural Affairs - Varun Gandhi. For his recent comments that reflect a refined cultural bent of mind.
Minister for Sports - Ambumani Ramadoss. He is so good at political gymnastics.
Minister for Rashtrabhasha development - Nafisa Ali. Main Hindi bhi bol sakti hoon!
Minister for Defense - Deve Gowda. For defending our country, we need someone who is always alert....

What about Prime Minister? I have a novel proposal for that. Mulayam Singh, Ramvilas Paswan, Mayawati, Prakash Karat, AB Bardhan, Jayalalitha, Sharad Pawar, Karunanidhi, Chandrababu, Kalyan Singh.... There are so many, isn't it? We can easily have a list of 52 such people. Then they will each take turns to be PM for a week each. Why only one week? There are 2 reasons.

1. Given the agenda of the left backs, we will not have any advanced transportation in the country. Everyone will be back to bullock-carts. So each of them will take a week to travel to his/her constituency, cut a few ribbons there, and return to New Delhi.
2. In any case, I can't see how a coalition govt formed by the 3rd, 4th (or 43rd, for that matter) front lasting more than a week even in normal circumstances. Plus, it wont put them under any undue pressure to perform. After all, many great people have been in power for five years and done nothing noteworthy. So how can we expect them to do anything in five days?

PMK deserts UPA - don't worry, be happy!

There is no reason for Congress to feel worried about PMK leaving. In any case, for the next few weeks, we will keep hearing these bits of news - XYZ joins AXCS, JHYF and IUY enter seat sharing agreement with TERDG. KJH(T) and KJH(R) come together again in Orissa but decide to contest separately in Nagaland, QWERTY merges with YUIOP, and so on.

Everyone knows that politics (especially electoral politics) has no ethics and rules at all, but Mr. Ambumani Ramadoss has achieved a new low in this matter.

Having enjoyed a ministerial position for five years, thanks to Congress, he decides to leave and join AIADMK just when elections are around the corner! Amazing. What's even more amazing (shameful, according to me. But I have decided to use only one adjective to descibe anything connected with Indian politics - That is, amazing!)

So, even more amazing is that Ramadoss "does not rule out" joining UPA after the elections! Wow - that's convenient.

What I don't understand is - on what basis is the voter supposed to decide? Does a party's manifesto have any sanctity at all? So if I were a voter in Ramadoss' constituency (I am not, thanks!) how would I know if he supports or opposes a policy matter, say the Indo-US nuclear deal? I am sure he will have a ready answer for the sake of TV cameras, but the real answer would be "I will decide everything only after the election results are announced. My policy will be to follow the policy of that party which is going to be in power."

But why am I criticizing only him? They are all the same, under different names. The best, and amazing of course, part would come if AIADMK wins more seats in TN but also decides to join Congress to form the govt. at the center. You might think that Ramadoss would be left with egg on his face, but no. I am sure he would have no qualms in meekly following Amma's footsteps into UPA. What's more, he might even demand that he be made a minister again.

After all, anything is possible in love, war and Indian politics.

Gulaal Review - Move over Bihar, Rajasthan is here

Its been over a week since I saw Anuraag Kashyap's Gulaal, and yet its images refuse to leave me. But before I go into my thoughts about it, a little digression.

I have not been into college politics, (mainly because I hardly attended college, but that's a different matter) but knew enough to keep away from it. Interestingly, I did get embroiled in one of the college annual elections. I was the class representative for PG that year.
Now there was the annual election of University Rep which involved only eight votes to be cast, four each from science and arts streams. Year after year, only that candidate would win who managed to get a voter from the 'opposition' to defect. One fine day four guys came up to me and said they wanted to speak to me as I was the PG Science rep. They gave me a passionate speech about how it was important for 'our' science candidate to become the Univ. Rep. Of course I agreed (no doubt science guy should be the rep. How dare the arts guys send their rep? I said) Having given my unconditional support I thought I had done my job, now all I had to do was go and vote on the designated date.
But I was wrong. On the D-day, some eight guys came home at 7.30 in morning, even when voting was at 11 am. I assured them that I would reach college in time for voting and that they need not bother at all. They politely declined and offered to wait outside for the next three hours. That was ridiculous. So I got ready soon and was all ready to mount my moped when they politely intervened again. "No no, sir. Not on your moped. We have a vehicle." I was then honourably bundled into the rear seat of a Tata Sumo and taken somewhere. (To 'an undisclosed location' - is how today's news channels would have described it, if they were tracking the story of an unwilling college politician.) So there we were, the four precious voters kept in a room, being served tea and wada-pav. (No there wasn't anything else, it stopped at tea and wada-pav!) At 10.30, our convoy (yes, by now there were others jeeps surrounding our Sumo) reached the college and the four of us were safely escorted into the building as supporters waited outside with gulaal and drums. Of course, Science won (5-3) as one of the arts guys was the cousin of our candidate. There was much frenzied gulaal-throwing and drum-beating for a couple of hours thereafter.
Only later in the day did I wake up to the fact that I had spent the better part of morning in a kidnapped state. Of course, my kidnappers had done so only with the noble intention of avoiding me being kidnapped by the opposition. Science rules, OK.
So that's how my flirting with college and Gulaal days ended even before I could do anything spectacular. That day in the movie hall, Anuraag Kashyap's Gulaal initially brought back the funny memories. But soon, the movie stopped being funny and I sat up straight. Gulaal has that ablity - to grab you by the collar and shake you out of any self-imposed popcorn complacency that you may have got yourselves into. I am not going to give the story here. There are enough and more reviews on the net for that.

Powered by: Chakpak.com	Gulaal

To start with, one of the biggest shares of the credit should go to Piyush Mishra. His lyrics and music are an integral part of the movie. No unnecessary song and dance sequences, just stark, straight in-your-face lyrics that actually are a part of the narrative than being distractions or tension-relievers, as many Hindi movie songs are. The lyrics of 'Ranaaji mhaare' may seem absurdly comic if seen in isolation. But put them in perspective of Prithvi Bana's character and the situation in the movie, they could not have been better. It is a classic.

Here's the opening lines for a teaser

राणाजी म्हारे गुस्से में आये, ऐसो बलखाये,
अगिया बरसाए, घबराए म्हारो चैन,
जैसे दूर देस के टावर में घुस जाये रे एरोप्लेन !

For one, today's folk tunes are coming out of traditional lyrics and making hybrid songs. One can hear strange lyrics in Ganpati aratis being belted out in many Ganeshotsav pandals every year. But more than that, Prithvi Bana is an antithesis of his more aggressive brother Dukey Bana (Kay Kay Menon). If Dukey's burning ambition is to rise to authority and power, Prithvi defies authority with his sarcastic and cynical wit. No wonder he wears a John Lennon locket and his lyrics talk about aeroplanes hitting powers. Sorry, towers.
Prithvi's ardent one-sided telephone conversation with the US President is a similar case in point. So is his take on Sarfaroshi ki tamanna. Hilarious if seen in isolation, poignant when seen in perspective. Finally, his best one is -

फिर तो तू जितने गुलाल वाले हैं, सब को पहचानता होगा? फिर गुलाल लगाने का फायदा ही क्या हुआ?

This one line summarizes his pointedly cynical view of the futility of revolutions based on a flimsy and failed ideology.

The movie has some crazy moments. To me, they are masterstrokes. I saw Mahi Gill in Dev.D just a couple of weeks before Gulaal and and kept saying to myself, "there's something about Tabbu in her." And here in Gulaal, a passionate and distraught Madhuri (a mujra dancer played by Mahi) asks our confused hero, "don't I look like Tabbu? Then why doesn't he love me?" Then there's this old ageless flute player, sporting a long flowing white beard. He is just there. He doesn't really do anything, other than playing flute all by himself and for himself. But then in one sequence, Anuja (an angry, frustrated but self-respecting college teacher played by Jesse Randhawa) is giving her piece of mind to the hero while nonchalantly combing the flute player's beard. She and the old man, both are social misfits, choosing to be in an self-imposed psychological exile. Even in our most solitary exiled corners, all of us need other people. (reminds me of how Willliam Schutz's 8-year old daughter summarized her dad's years of research by simply saying - "Dad, people need people." Anuraag Kashyap has the knack of telling many stories in one shot, where many of his sequences are multi-layered. His No Smoking was a little too multi-layered, though!
I don't know if I was imagining, or whether it was the effect of watching Dev.D and Gulaal within a fortnight of each other, but there seemed to be an uncanny similarity in the two protagonists. Dreamy young man turning into a crazed psychotic, two women in his life. The excessive use of red colour and psychedelic designs of the two rooms. But then it stops there. Dev is an idiot, period. You don't even feel sorry for him. You only wish that someone gives him one tight slap and brings him back to reality. But Dileep Singh (played by Raja Chaudhary) is not like that. As he descended into the well where he knew the arms are stored, I wanted to scream out to him, "NO, DON'T! THAT'S NOT YOUR PATH. GO BACK, GET ON WITH LIFE, DAMN IT."
Is it a depressing movie? By all means yes. It is a totally post-modernist view of Indian way of divisive politics, caste rivalry, greed, brute power, using other people as per convenience, lust, and much more. I suppose it provides us with a counterpoint for balance. The Johars and Chopras (and Ekta Kapoor, how can I forget her) regularly take us into they-lived-happily-ever-after lands of bliss. Before we can lose our way into this utopia, Anuraag Kashyap stuns us out of our revelry. I am not saying that only Gulaal depicts today's reality. There are a lot of good things happening in life all around us, but they are only one side of the coin. Dev eventually listens to Chanda who drags him back to normalcy. Dileep doesn't listen to Anuja. Two sides of a coin. Take your pick.
Some trivia - a lot of reviews describe the movie as 'based in modern-day Rajasthan'. Has nobody noticed that there are no cellphones in the movie?
And finally a word about the title of this post. So far anyone wanting to depict corrupt gun-based politicians would turn towards Bihar, as if all other states have clean politics. Gulaal may be based in Rajasthan, but it could happen anywhere - Patna, Porbandar or Pune. Why not? After all, I was kidnapped once in Pune!