Welcome the Future

                                                         Welcome the Future.

The tragic train derailment leaving 24 dead and more than one hundred and fifty injured was the fourth major accident this year and the third in Uttar Pradesh in 2017. Even as I write this piece, I learn that there has been another derailment in UP leaving 74 injured and four of them critically. Last November, a crash in Uttar Pradesh had killed 150 people. The statistics reveal that more than 250 people were killed across the country in train accidents in 2015 and 2016. For the media and the politicians, ever in search of news that triggers blame game, such an accident cannot be a lost opportunity to indulge in “TU,TU, Mein, Mein” (arguments and bickering) in the midst of grief, distress and suffering that they must perforce refer to even if briefly in the most solemn voice.  The spokespersons of the ruling establishment point to the accidents that had happened during the Congress regime in the past while those in the opposition bay for the resignation of the Railways Minister even when they know that he is a dynamic, hardworking minister, spotlessly clean who had earned great praise from the time he was  power minister in the  Vajpayee government between 1999 and 2004.

This cacaphonic debate on the TV channels is a recurrent and quotidian soap opera in which the ruling party blames its opponent(s) and vice versa for something bad or unfortunate event rather than attempting to seek a solution. While the spokespersons of the ruling party mock at the opposition’s attack with the stock phrase ,“who is calling the kettle black”( though today,  it is not kosher to use such a racist phrase) the opposition relentlessly questions the ruling party’s credentials to find a solution for the ills  it claims  to have inherited from their predecessors. The anchor also joins  to pontificate on what ails the Railways till it is time to switch to yet another sensational breaking news to start a fresh debate.

We are certainly the argumentative lot who are celebrated for our words and not for action. We have meandered through seventy years; we have done well in several areas, failed miserably in many others and have chug-chugged at snail’s pace in a few key sectors. But to say that seventy years had been a dark period in our history when the country witnessed nothing but total eclipse and sunshine is only now in the last three years  is not only ignorance but an exaggerated notion about the potential, capability and self importance of the ruling government.  So is the attack on the new government’s three year record which has to its credit some major achievements but also  many questions to answer for.  No government is a total cipher, no government is a total success. The mismatched balance between success and failure tilts the voters to favour or discard the different parties during an election. It is sad that great men like our first prime Minister Pt. Nehru is  gradually waning  into oblivion without any gratitude and appreciation for his contribution to making Indian democracy survive and setting up the roadmap for the establishment of a scientific, industrialized modern India. It is sad that in the modern pantheon of great leaders, Shastriji and his clarion call of Jai jawan, Jai kisan do not find mention. The current ruling party spokespersons remember Mrs. Gandhi only on June 26 to observe emergency day and not for the victorious war fought under her brave and dynamic leadership to liberate Bangladesh and show India to President Nixon that we can fight our wars without American assistance. Even the noble Vajpayee is never mentioned today for his great efforts to promote peace between Pakistan and India. Rajiv Gandhi is remembered only for Bofors and not for ushering in the technological era while Dr. Man Mohan Singh is no longer seen as the architect of Modern Indian economy but that Singh is King of scams. On the other hand, day in and day out for all things happening-right from an innocuous opening ceremony of a road, PM is projected as a visionary, the architect and builder of new India. Where is that new India and when is it going to materialize are questions not to be aired. Is Swachh Bharat a utopian ideal as in the last three years have shown no signs of becoming a reality? I Does “Make in India”, however nationalistic it sounds,  enforce protectionism  as a counter measure to economic liberalism? No questions to be asked for fear of being labeled anti-national.

It is a pity that the PM who has scored a landslide victory in the 2014 elections o his single effort should now be buttressed by his loyal minions who constantly weave a halo round him saying that he is the leader as predicted by Nostrodamus to lead India to great heights,  and to fulfill that prophecy he is the man who works 24 hours( as though the previous Prime Ministers not only in India but leaders in other parts of the world were lesser mortals who could not and  did not  put in so much work), he is the man who works without taking a vacation( showcasing his foreign trips as a drain on his time and energy), and whose name works as magic to coin new terms such as  Modimonetisation, Modinomics, Moditva(what it means, one does not know),Modirashtra Modisarkar etc. His sycophants have taken three major steps in these last three years-  demolish political icons of the past, erase history and diversity and build a personality cult, all in the name of Narendra Modi. Those who are critical of some of the Modi  policies are instantaneously relegated as anti national and if unfortunately they manage to come into limelight or have their voices heard, there will be CBI raid of their homes and  cases filed against them – cases which do not last for more than 24 hours .  However the intention is to damage  the reputation of these ideological opponents and the news about their  complicity in corruption is forgotten till they dare to raise their heads again to come into spotlight.

The question is does Modi need these million minions to prop him up as the ‘avatar purush’ with a mission to destroy evil?  This, inter alia, implicates all Indians except Modi and his minions as forces of evil who have to be exorcized by Modi’s band of fawners and flatterers. Modi is a good communicator- not asilver tongued orator like PT.Nehru or Atal Behari Vajpayee,  but more like a demagogue who can make impassioned appeals to the emotions and prejudices of people and his oratory gets him votes especially when he  is seen as a contrast to the frail, weak and intellectual talk of the earlier Prime Minister. He is dynamic, unpredictable, risk taker, and impatient of  opposition- qualities that the world applauds in a leader. He may not be like Trump in a China shop, but like him rides roughshod over those that come in his way. He can charm his way to greet Nawaz Shariff on his birthday,h e can bear hug Obama and Trump in quick succession without blinking, he can be stiff and unbending before his opponents. He has assiduously followed the maxim  that  “in times of crisis, extremist forces and populist forces have a better ground to oversimplify things and to manipulate feelings- feelings of fear.” “(Jose Manuel Barroso)

Does Modi need to pull down all the greats of the Congress party( with the sole exception of a fellow Gujarati, Sardar Patel)to hoist himself up? Does he need to lambast all that had been achieved in the last seventy years as of no consequence and claim that his last three years are all that matter? Does he need the services of his loyalists to claim that all that is done is by Modi and Modi only and by no one else? Does he need to project his picture (he may say it is the work of his admirers who want to share their picture with him) in all newspapers, in almost all pages to be in the eyes of his people so that he is not a victim of the proverb “Out of sight, out of mind”.

It is sad that when a PM of his stature should let his guard down and project his deep seated prejudice  as seen in his Congress mukht Bharat and vipakshi mukht Bharat. Does not he realize that for a democracy to be alive, vipaksh leaders have to be there( even if Congress has become irrelevant, thanks to his constant caviling and carping  about the Congress).  The sad part is neither he nor his IT cell nor his millions of minions remember what George Santayana had said; “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it. We must welcome the future, remembering that soon it will be the past and we must respect the past remembering that it was once all that was humanly possible.” The BJP will do well to reflect on these words of Santayana and welcome the future that is to be built on the past.