Political Diary

New Delhi, 20 April 2013

US And Us

DEMOCRACY? ONLY FOR VVIP’s

By Poonam I Kaushish

Hard reality bites, and how! A week of mea culpa on real politik. A story where leaders inspire confidence and give national honour top priority. The other of netas turning terror into a vote-bank tool. In the first, the system takes precedence over all else.  In the second, the system gets assaulted at the political altar. And, thereby hangs a tale. Of two democracy’s --- United States of America and India!

Ironically, both nations became victims of terror last week. And their responses were far removed from each other as chalk from cheese. If the ‘pressure cooker’ Boston Marathon bombings killing three and injuring 176 on Monday last, brought out the best in Americans. The Bangalore blast, the fourth in eight years, spotlighted the tragic lack of accountability at all levels in the system. The first was all about heroism. The second about hedonism. Yet both dealt with democracies. Them and us.

The Boston police immediately got its act together, locked-down the city, turned it into a military zone with armored vehicles combing the streets and helicopters flying overhead. Public transportation was suspended, famous universities including Harvard and MIT closed and residents told to remain home.

The bombing, the worst since 11 September 2001 rattled nerves across the country. Asserted President Obama, “The spirit of this country shall remain undimmed….They sought to terrorise us…they picked the wrong city to do it. We will find you, we will hold you accountable.” They did. In only four days. The police killed a Chechen suspect and captured his brother.

How do our rulers handle a crisis? By promptly initiating a blame game and trying to score petty brownie points. Two days after Boston, when a low-intensity bomb strapped to a motorbike exploded near a bustling BJP office killing three and injuring 16 people in Bangalore on Black Wednesday, our netas tried to capitalize on terror.

Reducing it to a game of knots and crosses. Said Karnataka Home Minister, “It is targeted at our senior leaders”, countered a senior Congress leader, “The attack will benefit the BJP in the upcoming 5 May Assembly elections”. Thereby, sending shockwaves across the country. Piped Union Home Minister Shinde, “I assure the nation that we will book the culprits.”

Really, how? By using terror as an electoral lollipop? Sadly, cocooned in the protective embrace of their ‘bullet-proof jackets’, the aam aadmi’s life is weighed against their political affiliations of caste and creed. What damn difference does one or many deaths make to the ruling all-powerful netas. Indians, after all, are mere statistics!

Pertinently, if the Indian Mujahedeen is responsible for this bombing and earlier at Hyderabad what have our leaders done to get Pakistan to deport its Chief Bhattal to India? How long should we hear sermons of ‘don’t panic, everything is under control.’ Plainly, transmitting their ignorance, laced with hope. Exposing our flabbiness which merely translates into torrents of volatile promises of bringing the culprits to book?

In America, there is no politricking --- and no populist accusations or excuses. All the stops are pulled out. No matter what it takes.  If Pakistan has to bullied to submit to its demands, military might flexed and Osama Bin Laden smoked out so be it. Proving one again to the world at large what makes it a super power and a super cop.

On the other hand, the tragedy of India is that while our soldiers are willing to die for their country, our political tribe are only interested in somehow living. In fact, the netagan care a damn for India. Nothing illustrates this better than the shenanigans by all the political parties to get the maximum political mileage out of Bangalore killings.

The latest is the tu-tu-mein-mein over terrorist Bhullar’s hanging for his dastardly attack on Congress leader Bitta killing 9 bystanders in 1993. While SAD’s Punjab Chief Minister Badal has taken up cudgels for the Sikh professor, DMK supremo Karunanidhi is spearheading the cause of Rajiv Gandhi assassins. Then there are forest brigand Veerappan’s aides? Should their lives also be spared? What to speak of the brouhaha on Afzal Guru secret hanging.

Witness the way all political parties promise stable and clean Governments hoping that none would demand to see their dirty laundry! All assuring they will be accountable to the people. Cut our morality and advice from political speeches and you confront a large vacuum. Speaking volumes for the out and out disdain with which our ruling oligarchy holds democracy.

Things have come to such a tragic pass that it is now difficult to recognize India as the same country which Emerson described as the “Summit of human thought”. Today, caste has cast a long shadow over Indian politics. The scepter that haunts the nation is not that of class struggle but of caste struggle. Backwards and forwards have become more meaningful than the Left and the Right in politics. The still small voice of humanity is not heard in the din of arms and warring castes. Never before were prejudices mistaken for truth, passion for reason and casteism for right.

Alas, we seem to live in an India where only VVIPs matter. They are two sets of laws: rule of law for us where innocents are jailed for trivial crimes and rule by law for them. See how Sanjay Dutt jail term was differed by a month simply because he had Rs 270 crores riding on his movies. Tomorrow can a businessman can use the same pretext of his workers livelihood being affected if he went to prison.

Most scandalous, is our vicious police force. Both Aligarh and Delhi stand testimony to the might of the danda vis-à-vis the aam aadmi. In the first, a mother was beaten with lathis when she protested about her 6-year-old girl’s rape and murder. In the second, an ACP slapped a girl for objecting to the beastly rape of a five-year old girl. Shockingly, when the parents went to file an FIR the police offered them a bribe of Rs 2000 to keep quite. Indeed, Mere Bharat Hai Mahan!

Coming after four months of the tragic rape-death of the 23-year-old Nirbhaya it underscores recurring brutality hasn’t stirred our netas conscious. Ensconced in their fortified houses they care only for themselves. Moving around in lal batti cars with stengun-toting security. 

Worse, in an era when political image is branded like detergents, our polity voices fake manufactured grief over every dastardly crime, completely disregarding the fact that it has failed miserably time and again in making our cities safe.

How many Indains are proud to be Indians? Very, very few. What is there to be proud of? Corruption, casteism and crime. Or scums and scams, religion and riots, muscle and muzzle. The tragedy is we have no national leaders, only petty, self-serving politicians. Statesmanship is only in the memory of a distant past. The common man is caught in the crossfire between loot and plunder, bureaucratic subterfuge and political chicanery. Where might is still right…. And we call ourselves a democracy! --- INFA

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance0