Ideology? We Don’t Need no Stinking Ideology! (said the doomed party)

 My sincere apologies to Pink Floyd and to all his fans if the title reminds you of ‘We Don’t Need No Education!’ The number is a powerful and iconic protest song that carries a strong anti-establishment message. The song was the slogan for all those who felt alienated by traditional schooling practices! The Congress Party mis-read the purpose of the number and tried to adapt it to its own needs! 

We don’t need no education
We don’t need no thoughts at all
No ideas or ideology in the party 
People leave us Congressi’s alone… 

___________

Political parties are vital arteries in a healthy democracy, channelling public opinion and shaping policy. However, a party's failure to adapt to societal shifts and maintain a coherent ideology can lead to significant consequences, weakening its influence and potentially destabilizing the political landscape. The birth and growth of the Congress party has for long been of interest to me. The way I see it today, the inevitable death of the party is pretty much a foregone conclusion. I do believe that its tombstone should read ‘Out of Date, Out of Luck”. There is indeed a method to its inherent madness.

Yesterday, I was part of an interesting conversation regarding the Congress and how its lack of ideology and its incessant dependency on a specific family is responsible for its downfall. I do believe that it is not the lack of ideology, but the fact that its existence all along depended on not having one. An organisation that brought together a disparate set of leaders who at one point in time perhaps had a single goal, slowly dissipated to a bunch of  folks who came together for the Sunday dinner pretending to be a family of sorts. 

The Indian National Congress, once the dominant force in Indian politics, has experienced a significant decline in recent decades. Attributing this decline to a single factor is an oversimplification. It is a combination of various things that went wrong -  a mishmash of strategic missteps, leadership issues, and a steady erosion of its supposedly core ideology have all contributed to its waning influence.

It started off with the Congress positioning itself as a centrist, inclusive party carrying the flag of secularism, social justice, and planned economic development. This blurred over a period of time. The rise of identity politics, coupled with inconsistent messaging and a drift away from its traditional base, has consistently created confusion among the voters about what Congress truly stands for. This vacuum has made it difficult for the party to counter the narratives of its political opponents. The gaffes, the silences, and the constant search for words is a classic representation of this vaccum. 

Leadership Challenges and Dynastic Politics is the illness that the party needs to treat.  The Congress party has been heavily associated with the Nehru-Gandhi family for generations. Critics say that this lineage once provided stability and a unifying force,  and that today it has also become a liability. I do believe that it is not an over-reliance on dynastic succession; but the inability of a significant group within the party to stand up for what is right and essential. They have travelled from Giving in to Giving up! And at no point time has anyone stopped to ask – What gives! 

Over-reliance on dynastic succession has stifled internal talent, discouraged dissent, and created a sense of entitlement within the party. This has led to accusations of nepotism and a lack of accountability, further damaging its credibility.  The accusations are not only from outside the party, but from within too! So, now we see an entire cadre that knows what the problem is and doesn’t take any steps to do anything about it.  The fundamental of any democracy is the individuals ability to give voice to his / her thoughts. The absence of this voice is an indication of the absence of democracy. 

Inability to Adapt to a Changing India is yet another issue with the party. Our country has undergone significant economic and social transformations in recent decades. The world’s largest economy that has made phenomenal strides in various avenues especially in the digital space. Any specific reason then, that the party continues to keep “addressing poverty” front and centre” Are we still that poor a nation as we were about 50yrs back? Or is it just an inability to find anything else that can also be of importance?? 

A complete disconnect from the realities of rural India, a failure to effectively address issues of unemployment and inequality, and a slow and meaningless response to the rise of Hindu nationalism have further alienated key segments of the electorate.

The decline of the Congress party is not one bit a complex phenomenon stemming from a confluence of factors. It’s a representation of an organisation that very consciously picks up a gun with the hope to aim at the enemy; fails to acknowledge that it doesn’t know how to shoot. In its attempt to fire, turns the barrel towards itself and pulls the trigger and misses consistently!!!! 

 

TimeWalk!

 

 

I live to travel; specifically speaking, I love to drive and explore the landscape opening out in front of me. I hold the steering in my hand and attempt to touch the horizon. The sheer attempt to get there is the high. History doesn’t excite me. What does though is the marketplace of the cities and towns that I visit, its eateries, the bookshops, the talk with the chaiwallah outside the monuments…. I learn more about the present that surrounds me, and I become sensitive to the ‘present’ of others that till that moment had alluded me. The future too for a long time didn’t interest me! Didn’t being the operational term. 

A visit to the Parliament house brought meaning to “If current Parliament fulfilled India’s needs, the new Parliament would fulfill its aspirations”. And I am going to reflect on the day backwards. The last stop of the visit was the Central Hall of the Old Parliament – a space that was often seen by me in pictures, documentaries, and news channels. A big hall with portraits of legends towering tall, 10 feet fans, and the sense of claps that would have resounded when the first act (Dowry Act) and last act (Demonetization) were passed by a Joint Session in that hall. What hits your senses is the semblance of warmth and coldness. The temperature in Delhi yesterday was a warm 35.6 degrees around 1pm and inside the central hall was about 22 degrees breathing a climate that one can succumb, to listen, debate, discuss (perhaps even argue without literally sweating it out), and arrive at a consensus. The place gave us the Act that made it illegal to take or give dowry, and finally gave us a decision that paved the way to a Digitized India and the birth of online payments. 

Fidel Castro said, “A revolution is a struggle to the death between the past and the present” and that revolution is beautifully exemplified when we see the Constitutional Hall of the New Parliament Building. The Foucault’s Pendulum at the Centre surrounded by the embossing of the Samudra Manthan, the brilliant and emotional outpourings of 75 women painting their lives, the home to the Art and Crafts of our country, and most importantly that one book that homes the language of what our country lays its trust on – The Constitution! Our present is going through the churn, and we are witnessing that while struggling to balance the past and the aspired and promised future. 

The new Parliament is a milestone in India’s democratic History – a process that one can see in play in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha. A process that demands the play of Sangosthi (discussion) based on Sampushthi (evidence and documentation), and Samanvay (Coordination). The use of a native language, that symbolizes the coming together of Science (fact based discussion) and Emotions (Collaboration and Toleration), all of which was bringing together the firmness of a resolve that the building of a stronger nation is embedded in DEBATE. The synonym for Democracy must be Debate… and no other. 

And then the people – a group that came across to me as individuals who knew what they had to do, all of whom respectfully made eye contact, and displayed a maturity that is so essential for people in position that take decisions for running our country. 

Today, we don’t need to build our decisions on architectures (literally and figuratively) that are handed down to us. We have the potential and capability of building our own. It will take us time (75 + years), and we are ok to wait it out. Every piece of that architecture will be a thought that comes from the soul of India (its people), the breath of the sensitivities expressed in our arts, crafts, and R and D centers, a stability that we have sought in our own ways in the constitution that attempts to balance our past (Colonial and Religious) and the aspirational future! 

 

 

 

Pregnancy doesn’t make me a parent, it just makes me pregnant!!!

I still remember the look of shock on my grandmother’s face when I cried out in anguish, “Why do I need to get married to have a child?” I have struggled with this connection for a long time. I fail to see the connection between getting married, having a child and becoming a parent. Seems to indicate that one leads to the other and that there is no other way. 

I still don’t understand it; however, today, am just intrigued by the conviction of this connection hard wired by one so many. Today, I don’t wonder. I know for a fact that I don’t need to be married to experience partnership. I don’t need to have a child to be a parent. I don’t need to get pregnant to be a mom. This knowledge and understanding gives me a sense of security which in turn helps me nourish my relationships.

It has been over a month since I interviewed Ms Sushmita Sen and a sense of accomplishment has gripped me since then. I wonder what  the accomplishment is all about? It has taken me a while to make sense of it. The topic was that of ‘adoption’ – something that is so close to my heart. In the last month alone,  it has been referred to by many as the ‘ highest sense of altruism’, and a ‘noble cause’ – both definitions that I have that so often struggled with immensely. 

The premise of altruism and a noble cause is built on the fact that an individual – the person concerned, cares about the needs and happiness of the other(s) more than their own; and that it requires the person to be of a high moral character working for an ideal, a principle, a goal or a movement. 

I doubt if parenting is altruistic and I wonder if motherhood is a noble cause. What I do know and believe is that it is a choice that I make – to be or not to be a parent – and when I go with the former, I have an option – biological or adoption. 

It is that choice that I see myself ‘adopting’ and the qualities required to nourish and witness a life blossom. The first step of adoption when I bring my child home. The circle is complete when over a period of time the child adopts me. It is a 2-way street that demands adopting a mindset; that as Sushmita Sen pointed out is ‘audacious’ – an audacity that is compelling and influencing at the same time. It is a choice that brings an entire family together and unifies it to care for that one person; who they have made a choice to bring into their life and that completes them. 

The choice is a decision made and the adoption is complete with the child’s acceptance. The identity is established then. I have 2 siblings who have made this choice and I see them work towards it and on this journey tirelessly. 

Adoption is about saying – I choose to be a parent and the ‘how’ is also my choice. It demands my accepting the fact that parenting is not a free ticket to the identity of a parent. It is earned – a journey that is hard, arduous, and it is for me to make it rewarding (for both). It is a journey that is not marked by bearing a child; rather by bearing witness to its life. 

Adoption doesn’t happen – I make it happen … and the journey begins! 

The Cryptic Script of a woMAN’s life!

 My mother told me that my name meant ‘alertness’. By the time I was in my teens, I thought my name had an uncanny familiarity to the word Nishaad, meaning ‘one who has no sorrows’. Nishaad is also the seventh note of an octave in the Indian musical system. Somewhere along, I realised that it doesn’t really matter what my name means. My parents thought I was ‘alert’ enough; my husband and in-laws are convinced that I am the happiest and the luckiest person in the world, and I do practice (a lot) the seventh note to get it right. I try to be alert when it suits me. The fear of sorrow got me to write and sing – the self-serving notes to myself.

A couple of weeks back, I was asked to pen down an idea for a short film. Keep it ‘succinct’, ‘hard-hitting’ and ‘passionate’ – remember, the audience don’t want reality. Don’t worry to give us the details. We just need an idea. We will build on it. The reassurance that someone else will work on my idea was scary and yet intriguing. It was an opportunity for me to explore an alternate universe that would be created out of my life and shown on screen! 

This ‘idea’ is my attempt at presenting a version of a persistent illusion called reality. It is a page out of my life. It is about my relationship with the people I live with – my family and more importantly myself. 

(Feel Free to title it as you deem fit!!!)

The protagonist is a young woman Nishida who has a 12 yr old daughter Ranjani. Nishida works in an Ad agency and on weekends teaches music. The story is about the relationship between Nishida and her daughter and the perceptions of the family about the quality of the relationship. Nishida enjoys her work in the agency. She is doing well at work, makes a good deal of money for the organization she works for. She is lively, energetic and full of ideas. Her life at home is just as good. She finds interesting and creative ways to spend time with her daughter. Having an engaging conversation with her while in the kitchen, interesting conversations on the phone when on the way to work / home.  They learn music together and when she is teaching, Ranjani watches her. In essence, she ensures that she is ‘present’ as much as possible physically as well as via the virtual space. 

There is some amount of difference of opinion at home. Her husband (Dhir) doesn’t insist; but has expressed quite a few times that being a ‘virtual’ mom is not good and that it is not helpful to Ranjani. He urges Nishida to have a “good work-life balance”. Nishida’s in-laws (especially the mother-in-law) reluctantly goes along with the way things are going.   There have been multiple discussions between the couple on this front. Dhir believes that compromise, and at times sacrifices, are important when one is a parent. On the other hand, ‘the child should always come first’ is a principle that Nishida doesn’t believe in. ‘I love my daughter and I love myself just as much is what she keep saying. Thus far, it has been discussions and perhaps minor arguments between the couple. Dhir would listen, smile, sigh and move. Nishida would often give the ‘understanding smile’ and tells herself, ‘I don’t need to explain myself, this doesn’t need to be argument and he is not going to understand.’ 

The problem comes in when one day, Ranjani while playing hurts herself badly. She comes home to see that her grandparents have gone out and parents haven’t returned from work yet. She calls her mom (Nishida who is on her way home), who calms her down at first, and takes her through a series of tasks that involves slowly walking to the bathroom, washing the wound, using cotton and antiseptic to clean the area, and to loosely bandage it with a clean handkerchief. Ranjani follows the instructions and by the time this is done, Nishida has reached home and so have the grandparents. They realize that the leg is badly bruised and that Ranjani needs an anti-tetanus. She is taken to the hospital where the doctor attends to her. 

The conversation on return, and at the dinner table is volatile that day. The grandparents are upset that they were not present and at the same time adopt an ‘I told you so’ attitude towards Nishida.  Dhir is proud that Ranjani displayed the presence of mind and did what she was told. He appreciates her and his wife for handling the situation well and at the same time, expresses his discomfort with ‘you are a great professional, a strong person but you still need to be a mother who is present. Not having a mother around when needed is depriving Ranjani of what she deserves, and Dhir is upset at that. ‘Ranjani doesn’t need to learn to be independent as yet’   he concludes. The fact that the situation was handled and that their daughter displayed maturity is what Nishida reiterates. 

Ranjani is a witness to this entire discussion around the dining table. She feels guilty that she is the cause of the argument, angry at her grandparents for their attitude towards her mother, and confused with her father. She doesn’t understand on how one can be proud AND upset at the same time. She struggles dealing with appreciation and condemnation at the same time. Moreover, she wonders if she has to stop being one (role) to be another. I am a daughter and a grand-daughter. So, when I become a mother, why will I stop being Ranjani?. She asks these questions to her grandparents and to her father; all of who, look at Nishida for an answer.  

Nishida is angry at herself and at the family for having made Ranjani feel guilty and  so conflicted. For the first time she bursts out - ‘Why do I have to be stressed out, make sacrifices, or make myself miserable to do well at home and at work? And who decides what is good? My work, like my role as a mother is not a luxury. It’s a need.” For the first time, Nishida lashes out at the so called work-life balance and calls it sheer nonsense. “You are telling me and Ranjani that Home is Life and that we need to balance work and Home, and I have a problem with that. I won’t accept it and neither am I ok for my child to accept it. My life is my home, my work, my friends, my interests and everything that I cherish. And as for Ranjani, what makes you think she is ‘deprived’? The delusion that a child MUST have a 24x7  mom at home and if she doesn’t have it, then she is deprived of something is unacceptable and ludicrous. Ranjani needs to know that she is loved and we need to teach her to take care of herself. She needs to know that we are there for her and that is the one thing that will make her feel safe. Why can’t we just do that for her, for me and for each other?”. 

There is silence at the end of Nishida’s outburst. She slowly smiles, heaves a sigh of relief, takes her phone and leaves the room. Dhir gets up to and takes a seat next to his daughter.  

The evening ends on a note with Dhir having a conversation with Ranjani and explaining to her on what she should do in the event of an another accident at home. In-laws watching the concluding episode of a prime time tele-serial  and Nishida on the phone while she is getting the laundry done. 

“Is there something that you don’t understand? You have read it about 5 times now” I asked my script-writer friend  Jai Raj (RJ,  as he likes to be called). He had penned scripts for a dozen films, 5 of which were block-busters. RJ looked up, grimaced and said, “Where is the punch? Where is the pain? This really needs to be worked on a lot. 

“Sure”, I quipped, “Please go ahead. I am quite curious to know what changes you will bring in.” I could see frustration on RJ’s face. 

“I asked for something real. Why is the husband not fighting the wife. Why is your lady talking about herself. She is a mom. The child comes first.” 

“So, change it… “ I quipped

“The audience will want to see the struggle, the constant compromise, the uncompromising love”, RJ added

“Fine, go ahead!  Bring it on….” I retorted

 “Motherhood is a journey, it’s a gift, it’s the ultimate call to sacrifice. And the audience must see her struggle balance work and the gift. This is what will make the men understand and the women empathise.” RJ exploded and started pacing the floor. 

The silence that ensued was hard to make sense of. Nothing that I would say, would have helped me; or for that matter RJ either. I gently walked out of the room leaving the script in RJ’s hands. Stories are best told by those who have a flair for the narrative; and narratives are best scripted by those who want to keep the story going. 

The story of a woman without a child is the same as the story of a woman with a child; it’s minus the child. 

The relationship of a woman with herself is just as fundamental as her relationship with her child – perhaps more so.  This is perhaps a simplistic representation of my egotistical self; nonetheless, it is what it is – the story of Nishida attempting to effortlessly live the seventh note of the octave! 

Hic Hic hiccup Cures?!

I have been trying to make sense of the results of the Delhi elections. I am not sure if I should be happy that the BJP didn’t make it, depressed that the Congress has been pretty much wiped out, or frustrated that AAP has got one more opportunity! Nonetheless, I am trying to give this specific result some kind of a perspective and realize that any attempt to do so, points to just one thing - anti incumbency! I am going to try and explain this in as annoying a manner as possible – because there is no other way. Any rational, logical, and intellectual debate on this would mean pushing a mode of explanation (or ‘paradigm’ which is the fashionable word) to the point that it would go no further.

So, what caused the AAP victory? By and large we tend to look for ‘causes’ of things we dislike.  We will look for the causes for divorce and never for marriage; causes of hate, never ever for love; reasons for corruption, hardly ever for honesty; explore with vengeance the causes for violence, but turn a blind eye to… let’s just say gentleness! We dislike diseases because they are by definition abnormal states. The normal state is marriage / love / honesty / gentleness (or whatever) and this gets derailed in abnormal circumstances.  In the case of violence, the cause (to quote the psychologist Robin Fox) is “ ‘frustration aggression hypothesis’ which again assumes the not so aggressive state to be normal, but derailed by frustration”! AAP did not come in to power because of its 70-point action plan. (It would be a wonder if 50% of it will be achieved. The optimist in me hopes that they would). The AAP victory, in more ways than one, is the result of voters’ expression of violence – a frustration that we saw at work during the 2014 general elections and which repeated itself with the Delhi polls!

The fundamental reason (there could be many more) for the BJP win in May of last year was largely due to the frustration of the masses towards the silence and regression experienced in the last decade thanks to the UPA. It was an expression of passive aggressive violence of an entire nation fervently crying out for speed, growth and visibility.  The mandate was a ‘survival value’ attributed to the very group that administered the mandate.   The Delhi assembly results is a take 2 of the same scene - a group that resorted with passive aggressive violence to the nonsense experienced in the last 10 months. 

So what has happened in the last 10 months?  We have managed to improve our relations with some of our neighbours, except Pakistan (this is a dream long lost), built celebrity bridges with the US and closed the nuclear deal, managed to get the maximum number of bills and ordinances passed during the winter session, (bills that have languished otherwise for no apparent reason); logged in greater number of work hours in the Lok Sabha! There are plenty of positives that provide for a good, intellectual, outcome related and impactful debate. These deliberations are essential, however, not something that will grip our attention for long. The positives accomplished were ‘meeting expectations’, at the very least!

What the BJP needs to understand is that getting an electoral mandate is like getting ready for some amount of pub violence. The violence was inevitable! Pubs are venues where there is no display of reticence and hence conflicts easily provoked. What’s interesting is the assumption that most people are not appalled or disgusted. The rationale being people will get drunk, and therefore will act unpredictable. They become the experimental monkeys whose amygdalas have been hijacked, and who therefore cannot get a sequence right.  What happens in ‘normal/sober circumstances’ is that people are not drunk and are able to appeal to the crowd for support without being intimidating, as during an election campaign.  The state of mind continues when people are not ‘that drunk’; individuals are aware that they are in a conflict situation and make an effort to go by the rules; as in a coalition! Within the ambit of an alliance, individuals react only when the sequence is not respected and it is at that very moment when drunken spectators interfere and they typically do so at the wrong moment which in turn leads to a nation wide regression.

In an electoral mandate, there walks in the motorcycle gang with the bent of mischief and that is when the rest would want to either fight or run like hell. Reflect this analogy to the last 10months. The bizarre and frivolous comments with respect to the number of children that women should bear, the repulsive name calling by some of the saffron clad elected, the ludicrous Ghar wapsi controversy, …these are to name just a few! These are the individuals (partially or perhaps completely power drunk) in the pub of national politics whose behaviour is akin to the motorcycle gang that does not care for any kind of progress or growth. They have unleashed their individual agendas and the centre (intentionally or not) ignores them, which in turn leads to a panic and /or ‘make hay while the sun shines’ situation. The people who awarded the mandate are now the experimental group in the throes of the amygdala hijack. They are conditioned to panic and thus they will. It doesn’t really matter if a maximum number of bills and ordinances got passed this year round (when compared to the last decade); who cares if the price of petrol / diesel have been slashed; how does it matter if the nuclear deal has seen its day; we really couldn’t care if foreign investments have been on the rise and our markets are doing much better than ever before. We are threatened, the brain is programmed for threat as a survival instinct and thus we will in a state of passive aggression pull back what we had awarded. The Delhi results are a way of saying ‘Get your house in order’.

Even if we were to make this an intellectual debate (which can be equally annoying), the narrative goes against the BJP. The agenda of the BJP government and forcefully broadcasted by the PM has been ‘more power to states’. This is based on the rationale that the centre should in effect be the support system and play the role of being an enabler to the local /state governments. For all practical purposes, for a political party to believe in it, and propagate it, one would infer that it would be based on the assumption that the state would pretty much display the saffron colour! The Delhi campaign, or for that matter, any of the state elections post May 2014 is a contradiction in terms to the mantra of ‘more power to states’. The chief campaigner has been the PM and not the state party chief/ leader thereby making a political statement that there is no state under a leader who could be sure of winning on his own accord.  The campaign has hardly been issue based. Maharashtra was more of yes-no dilly dallying between the BJP and Shiv Sena; Jharkhand was a no brainer given the abysmal health of the state; Haryana was a foregone conclusion! That leaves us with Delhi.

The biggest blooper of the BJP was its CM candidate. The reasons cited qualify for the bizarre. Presumably, she is the ideal for many women in the country! I struggle to recall a women’s leadership seminar where Kiran Bedi has got any good ratings. She has been looked up to for being the first woman IPS officer which cannot be seen as a qualification and definitely not a a brownie point for being a CM candidate. It is akin to the first woman going to school / college / walking in to a place of work! About time!!!! Presumably, Kiran Bedi is someone who will get things done and speaks her mind. True, and that would be on the 9pm national debates where she reels out her opinions like bullet points off a power point presentation.  Her performance during the campaign was the worst of the lot. She projected herself as a ‘yes sir’ with no mind of her own.  There was no way she would live up to the slogan of ‘more power to states’! She, like the Delhi police, would report to the central and not the state government! The overwhelming majority of AAP is more an anti-BJP; not so much a pro AAP!  A protesting Er(wind) is more reliable than a spineless K-k-k-kiran!

The Delhi results are much more than a wake-up call for the centre. The writing on the wall is clear - Get your act in place! In the pub of politics, please ensure that you have your bouncers who will throw out the ill-behaved power drunk barging in motorcyclists!!!!! Stay focused on the national agenda and not that of your ‘Teacher’s’!!!!! Remember, the electorate is just a few drinks behind and  may soon take on the role of bouncers in the absence of yours!

Crossing the border: Skepticism to Atheism!

I wake up to the sound of a humming air-conditioner, the melodious rhythm of my wind-chimes and the sound of my doorbell. It’s the beginning of a work week. I let go of the comfort of my bed and as if by instinct go for the news channels. A terrorist attack at Karachi airport and around 20 feared dead… A fear grips me and there is a quality to that. It’s a fear unmingled with hope; a panic that confirms the fading of a promise; a confirmation that there is nothing to fear when danger is at hand.

A terror attack in a neighboring country should perhaps be the least of all reasons for one to turn into an atheist; nonetheless, it has happened. Skepticism and our relationship with Pakistan has gone hand in hand for decades and one could perhaps hope that with the advent of a leader we could look forward to health and hygiene. Am not sure of that anymore!

“People who ask us when we will hold talks with Pakistan are perhaps not aware that over the last 55 years, every initiative for a dialogue with Pakistan has invariably come from India”… and truly so were the words of Mr Vajpayee at one point in time…

And we keep at it, as do unpredictable skeptics, in anticipation of the achievability of the implicit claim in Vajpayee’s observation that we shall see (perhaps) the light of day.  Little did we realize that the demonstration, from Pakistan, of the implicit claim would be low-slung and could hardly be effective in a controlled environment.  And as skeptics do, we witness two images - the imaginative and placebo-ridden democratic Pakistan; and another, the real one being operated in a double-blind fashion. The former imaginative and the latter controlled. And like any skeptic, we resentfully infer that the implicit claim of Mr Vajpayee is indeed that of a moral one and can possibly be read as…

We have a duty to make all attempts possible to have a good and fruitful dialogue with Pakistan

The key insight here is that while politics and morality are interconnected; they are not necessarily indistinguishable. A skeptic operates from the belief that all political actions ought to be rational, logical and perhaps moral even; however, the reverse is not necessarily true and may not hold good. And hence the implicit claim espouses political overtones and is interpreted as …

Pakistan must be gently nudged to concede to a dialogue

This was bound to happen. Any attempt to link politics with morality or moral values is feeble due to the inherent and insurmountable differences of opinion woven into it. 

The resurrection of a failing skepticism marked by Nawaz Sharif’s India visit on the eve of PM Modi’s swearing in ceremony hails as one such subverted political morality moment.  Hands shake, eyes meet, and maternal instincts crystallize to be quickly dispersed with yet again. It didn't take too long to bring home the fact that a marriage of politics and morality would yield unintended (?) consequences. And today, the world has witnessed precisely that.

For a discussion with Pakistan on any issue, specific or otherwise, one needs to be all geared  up to deal with the invisible echelons of power; namely, the military - an organisation that casts its sullied shadow on the whole shebang of its democratically  elected premiers. In Orwellian terms, a ‘legitimately’ elected Pakistan establishes a dictatorship to safeguard a revolution; and its military fashions the revolution to establish its dictatorship. The sovereignty of military in Pakistan exemplifies the emotional fiefdom of an entire nation granting it the licensed liberty to use guns ….. And thus is born an unusual kind of radicalism. The skeptic settles for the word ‘terrorism’.

The attack at the Karachi airport (not Lahore or Islamabad!!) is symbolic. The past is the symbolic capital that the militia invested in and that cannot be forfeited at any cost. One wonders if the event is truly a terrorist attack as presented. Either which way, it’s the reign of Chaos. There is some seminal truth in PM Modi’s observation...

“It goes without saying that pragmatic foreign policy has to be guided by an understanding of the ground realities. However, I think the people in Pakistan increasingly want to strengthen the democratic institutions in Pakistan”. 

I was born post the Indo-Pak wars and have by default been immersed in a generational riot that questions the “love thy neighbor” commandment. This age band attains a contained insurgency when political leaders with their blend of morality attempt to suture singed relationships. Nonetheless, there is some merit to morality and there are indeed moral absolutes. We get blown away by a political language woven by one poet, and repeated by yet another a decade later, lending solidity to pure wind.  We trudge on and make for one final effort to retain a seed of hope; only to wake up and realize that we have got the framework all wrong.  Big Brother is watching. He is the fly on the wall. There can be no dialogue….. and what we see today is the vision of a future…”a boot stamping on a human face”

Skeptics are cynics. We doubt. We thrive on the despair that is caused by inexplicable ambiguity; or whatever that means. And nestled in that inexplicable ambiguity is the germ of hope; a perhaps! "Maybe, I am wrong"... moment.  It is that one seed that we fervently hope is not destroyed. It's destruction converts the skeptic into an atheist. We then travel to the other extreme and move from the realm of questioning to a space of negation.  We annul all possibilities; reverse any probabilities; and satirize galore the skeptics.

There is no dialogue that is going to work with Pakistan. It’s a dead-beat, dead end, and deadened conversation. I am the skeptic turned confirmed atheist on this!  

Grassroots Uprooted!!!

 Henryk Skolimowski, a Polish philosopher observed that it is the illogical man that advertising is after. It is anti-rational and aims specifically at uprooting not only the rationality of a man, but also his common sense.  And this is true not just of advertising, but also the social media (the forum within which advertising operates) and dangerously so with its apparent bed-fellow and significant other - ‘Politics’! Politics is for the illogical mind. It is for those who are perfectly ok to hand over their one deep-seated skill –their common sense. It is for those who are ready to forfeit its rewards for the devalued benefits threaded by political silence and theatrical pro-tem ignorance.  

The nation for the past 10 days has witnessed and perhaps even silently applauded the death of commonsense. The assault and murder of two young girls in Badaun, the insensitive comments made by the father and son duo, the inexplicable death of Minister Gopinath Munde and last but not the least the bifurcation of the state of Andhra Pradesh.

There is very little that can be done with regard to the bifurcation. One would have hoped that our politicians will learn from the kernels of history and make any division a painless moment. True, one can hope and that is all there is to it. This brings us to the horrific death of the young girls and that of Gopinath Munde. Both very diverse issues and are being looked at so very differently.  The rape and murder of the Badaun girls is being investigated by all and sundry who have nothing to do with it, commented upon by the irrelevant, irrational observations by those in power and all this is happening when the center holds steadfast.  Discussions on women issues continue on prime time, debates galore on the reasons for the insensitivity in our society (yet again) and incessant deliberations and speculations on lack of effective governance. Is there any specific reason why no one has intervened to speed up the investigation? What could possibly be the reason for this sudden shift of debate from the nature of the crime and its impact to the so called lack of eminence in the state of UP . How different is UP from Delhi? Guess, if Dec 2012 had repeated itself, the focus would be on…..? Check that … That’s NO ONE. We don’t have anyone in Delhi to blame!

The blame game endures!  It is criminal to steal a wallet, daring to steal a fortune, and a mark of greatness to steal a crown.  The blame diminishes as the guilt increases.  So let’s blame the poor people for being poor, the backward for being regressive, and the desperate for being timid.

And then befalls the rearward, over your shoulder event marking the tragic death of Mr Gopinath Munde. With this, the nation trails yet another social issue that is essentially a matter of discipline – road sense, civic sense and the use of seat belts. Guess that makes the subject simple enough!  It really doesn’t matter if a 1000kg Indica rams into a 1300kg SX4 at a speed (assuming) at a minimum of 80kms per hour in the wee hours of the day. It is not a matter of importance that there is hardly a dent observed on either of the vehicles due to the impact.  It is definitely not of consequence that a person who has suffered blunt force trauma is rendered unconscious immediately after and cannot therefore ask for a drink of water.  It is paltry to suggest that the impact which has resulted in the death of an individual (who suffered heart attack, lost 1.5 lts of blood, suffered a liver rupture, and suffered a C1/C2 rupture) should have been experienced by the rest in the car. There is no talk of airbag deflation (The SX4 was recalled due to faulty airbag). There is no deliberation on whether there will be a formal investigation; the driver of the Indica gets bail; Arnab Goswami talks about traffic rules and our disinclination of wearing seat belts; the media focuses on the astronomical role of '#3' in the life of the Mahajan and Munde family; we all observe a moment of silence, thank the lord (silently) for giving us another day of nothing to do … and life goes on.

The lame game continues. It is criminal to steal a wallet, daring to steal a fortune, and a mark of greatness to steal a crown.  The blame diminishes as the guilt increases.  So let’s blame the common man for the death of greatness and censure the grassroots for the demise of the establishment.

The issues that we have been talking about are those that hit us at the grassroots level – and by grassroots we are referring to issues that by their very nature are resistant to any central control. The issues taken up by the grassroots have the potential to alter an entire culture. Approached incorrectly, it will turn on those who try to exploit it.  This is not theory; but plain simple commonsense. The issues we face today distress those at the bottom of the social and political pyramid. The opposite is the ‘establishment’.

The commonsense questions (IF and when asked) are a reflection of the attitude of the people who believe in a kind of activism that reflects an attitude – an attitude of freedom, creativity, unrestrained political enthusiasm, of willingness to come together for a common purpose by asking the most fundamental,  uncomplicated, vital and central of all questions – How can we be in a better place? These commonsense questions should typically be the essence of politics. It is the dumping of tea in a harbor, it is making salt characterized by the dandi march, it is setting in motion the charkha that helps us weave our own clothes, it is the Mandela resilience in his diligence, it is participating in a nation-wide movement to say no to corruption, it is the silent coming together on the night of Dec 13 to protest  violence against women. These questions that emanate from a well sewed attitude cannot be managed. Any intent to manage or monitor is intrinsically antithetical and even offensive to grassroots activism – which typically is second nature to the common man / woman; the first one being fight or freeze.

Gopinath Munde, the OBC leader from Maharashtra took on Sharad Pawar with that one question that no one had asked him before - on his links to the underworld a.k.a Dawood Ibrahim. The father of the daughters at Badaun has asked that one fundamental question which hasn’t been responded to yet – ‘Am I not a citizen of India?’. These common sense comments, statements, questions, call it what we may are fundamental and indicate grassroots activism. It is what brought Munde to the forefront of Maharashtra politics and is what makes the murder of the Badaun girls that much more horrific. Our leaders and the establishment have found a way to respond to common sense. Find someone and Blame it on them.

To err is human….and to blame it on someone else is politics!

Mr PM and Mr Home Minister: we shall wait for you to come out and take credit for the rain. Meanwhile, please go ahead and blame someone else for the drought!  You have our vote!