Wednesday, July 23, 2008

The Great Indian Drama: What's the big DEAL about?


Let's face it: there're plenty of disadvantages of omniscient omnipotent media, not the least being the persistence with which it serves you Dirty filthy politics Live 24X7 day in and day out. It's making me sick in the stomach, the open mud-slinging and disgust on display ever since the drama began on the Nuclear Deal. And even though the Govt continues to stay in power for now, the only victor today has been Mayawati, with an enhanced stature and a real chance at becoming India's PM (yuck yuck, I swear)
Recap, early July: The Left withdrew support as the UPA refused to back out of the 1-2-3 agreement with the US and thus began the numbers game. Frankly, the Indian public has come to expect much of what transpired, and so nobody was surprised. If anything, Left leaving was slightly relieving as it brought hopes that maybe, if the Govt survived, some reforms would go ahead without the political compulsions that Left's persistent threats gave rise to. Afterall, the last four years India has hardly seen an Opposition, with the NDA mostly asleep, and the Govt had to keep fighting tooth n nail within itself thanks to the communist parties. So, in the first part of the July, when political scene heated up with BJP finally seeming to wake up a little, SP abandoning its Congress hatred and coming to the Govt's rescue (for a price much greater than renaming Lucknow Airport, I'm sure) and a third front seeming to re-emerge, nobody was shocked.
If at all, I was amused, watching the constant debates on newstertainment channels. Nobody has a clear stand. Nobody really opposed the nuclear deal as well. NDA would have supported it had it been in Govt, for sure, but as Opposition they must prevent UPA staking credit and hence wanted a "re-negotiation" with US. SP swore by Kalam's word on the greatness of the 1-2-3 and made that their excuse of seeking shelter with Congress, though the political realities of UP and the SP's dire need of survival is hidden from none. And BSP launched daily attacks on SP, UPA and everybody under the roof, with Behenji going to the extent of saying that the Nuclear deal is anti-Islamic and that US will attack Iran the day the deal is through. Wtf, I say. The Left stuck to their anti-deal position, and stuck to the pro-China lobby with heavy anti US criticism, meanwhile throwing the "secular-forces-unity" out of the window. And Congress came out as the hapless appeasement messiah running helter-skelter to garner support. All this while media channels had a field day running contests on the guessing game of numbers and analysing every single analysis.
And even all that at the end of the day failed to shock the common Indian man, mere spectator in the deals behind the Deal. But the last two days, just watching Lok Sabha proceedings on TV fills me with a deep sense of shame. So much, that I really hope we stop calling our inter and intra college debates as Parliamentary debates, because the Parliamentary behavior on display was deeply disgusting. More than once my heart went out to the Speaker, surrounded in no less media controversy of late owing to his CPM origins, for the amount of patience he had to exercise and watch the house make a mess of itself over and over and over again. Are these people fit for representing us internationally?
90% of the time the debate on the house, when someone was allowed to speak and so there was one, concerned everything but the deal. Blames flew in all directions and there was so much mud-slinging that eventually everyone was neck-deep in mud. You could hear everything from Kandahar to 1976 to Pokhran-I to inflation to Rajiv Gandhi's assassination on the floor. When Lalu sounded like he was herding cattle, it ironically felt apt. When Mr. V.K. Malhotra, aspiring Delhi CM (?), went on from the offensive to the abusive, you wanted to cry. There were a few gems, notably Omar Abdullah's and Rahul Gandhi's speech, as well as the seizing of opportunity of North-east and small party MPs to voice regional issues when they had the mike for a change. But fact remains that the PM wasn't even allowed a reply speech at the end in all the mindless yelling and indiscipline.
But the darkest moment of the day came when BJP came up with 1 crore cash inside Parliament alleging bribery. Did the Congress/SP bribe? Did the BJP plant the money as they were losing anyway? I'm sure the media is going to debate this for a long long time, and this is not the last we've heard of all that transpired, but for now, for tonight, I've one question for every single Indian citizen: Do you really care about the answer to that question? Whether this money was given or planted, you know already money's traded all sides by all parties, don't you? You know nobody's clean, not even the holier-than-thou Dr. Manmohan Singh could claim unimpeachable honesty and alienation from what his party does. You know about the trades, whether or not this one is true and whether or not anything is proved. All parties are dirty.Do you really care about one versus another over the money? Whoever gets it, it's our money that should be used to build our houses and fill our stomachs, not of those on-sale commodities they call ministers.
I guess nobody really cares about whose hands on the money, but anyone would be disgusted by the lack of respect for Indian Constitution and Indian Parliament shown today by our leaders. Such a shame for democracy. Such a shame for a "rising superpower" that they want us to believe India is.
I have an appeal too: Waving your head in disgust alone is not going to solve anything. Let us all, every single one of us, people educated and mature enough to understand what's best for the country, let us all vote next elections. Most students I know don't, a majority of India's middle class does not, and I'm not saying this alone will solve all problems, but it could be a start. It could, at least, turn a few collections awry in a few constituencies if all the students turned up to vote. How tough is it to do? After all, it's our future at stake, and I'm sorry to say, it doesn't look good.

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

Politics mein ja, it´ll be perfect!

Shantanu said...

I am glad the drama Finally ended!!

Chakoli said...

Point is quite true....

hopefully we listen to it :)))

One more blogger said...

Well said yaar.
Junta really need to think over certain issue. It is important for people to take a strand now. People must vote sensibly independent to caste and party to the appropriate cotestant. And we all know most of govt policies are to target particular sector of population. It wil surely be great if SC/ST people understand this vote bank poltu n dont vote for this govt. I would surely be glad to see Mr. Arjun Singh losing next election and if people give vote honestly for the well fare of the country.

Bhushan said...

Who are we fighting against?

vibhav said...

INDIA
I NDIA
I N DIA
II DAN
AD I NI
IAD DNI
I N D I A
N D A I I
I N I D
I N D I
A D N
D A
I

Unknown said...

just a ques. how many times have you voted , from MC elections to parliament ??
and about post , i liked the speech of Pranab Mukherjee raising historical as well as ethical issues and countering stupid allegations of LOP..with the main focus always on N deal ..
about the Media , are you blaming it ? i didn't get you..

Oracle said...

I don't think much was amiss. Thriving Demo-crazy , aren't we !

Phoenix said...

[akshay]
Yar, mere bas ki nahi hai elections jeetna...cant ever be the front face at least...and am wayyy too blunt n stubborn..but there are many other ppl even in iit with those talents

[shantanu]
this chapter, yeah, but with elections around, it is gonna stay noisy.

[chakoli]
Hope, yeah :)

Phoenix said...

[geetika]
The problem in politics these days is that nobody is clean, and all govts are more or less the same with policy making. For the mass...nobody brave enough to make radical changes because they wont survie..

all parties are like that..for every arun jaitley there wd be a narendra modi in the same party...for every chatterjee a Karat and for every Manmohan singh an arjun singh.

:(

[mostlybhu]
Not for me to answer...ask yourself. We are fighting for the good of the whole country, against...well whatever comes in the way

Phoenix said...

[vibhav]
:)
IT all does boil down to the "I". Do not know whether to laugh or cry at that.

[sandeep]
I haven't, unfortunately, so far. because there've been only one elections held since I was eligible to vote ((MCD) and at that time my Election card wasnt ready due to soeme mistakes in the records, but i will surely vote this yr..

About the media, I'm not really all-blaming it...but it was a sarcastic remark nevertheless, for while media is undoubtedly important, useful and responsible for a lot of good, it also goes too far some times, with the sensationalisation et al, and with its tendency to judge at first glance....it gets overmuch once in a while

[oracle]
Absolutely!!!

Toon Indian said...

nice post dude, and yeah it's about choosing the lesser evil, I really loved laloo's speech :P!!!

Arpit said...

tu to mast politics follow karti hai.. im so disgusted i dont even read the poltu news in detail anymore, though i must confess i have kept the papers for the past week or so to read them at leisure sometime

Phoenix said...

[rahul]
Lalu managed to be funny, so that appealed. His takes on JAswant Singh's book were pretty cool though. He's a much smarter man than most people give him credit for.

[Arpit]
:) Interesting events n loadsa free time. I may not be a regular politico, but events like this are hard to miss.

Pallavi said...

I followed the proceedings in the Parliament as well and to say I was ashamed would be a gross understatement!
Very well written.