Savaged Pillars of Democracy – A story

Poly cursed himself for being in Police Force. What a damn job. When the entire world celebrates festivals, enjoys National holidays… he and his colleagues were always on duty. Sick. Why did he ever apply for this job? 

Today was 31^st of December 2010’… one of those days, when he regretted joining this godforsaken profession even more.

New Year eve generally was always a hectic day for Police administration. There are issues like preventing drunken driving at night, helping people in distress etc. But Police force had lately become more vigilant on such days, mostly because such landmark days were ideal for terrorists to strike (and send reminders of their “well being”)! Huh.

So then…here he was, sitting in his Police Vehicle looking at movement of traffic on roads. When was the last time he was at home during any of the festivals… or even on a New Year eve? His wife was sure to create ruckus even this time around... as always. Poor lady… she married the wrong man… or a man in wrong profession at least.

The irritable walkie-talkie crackled… Now, this was another Godforsaken instrument that he wished had never been invented. What a pain?

The usual irritable voice from the other end said… “***** area patrol Team… shootout reported in your area… proceed to Restaurant *****… quickly. Report back on reaching… Contact Restaurant Manager, Manu. ***** area patrol Team… shootout reported in your area…”

Damn – this is his area. He picked up the walkie-talkie and asked “…This is Poly from Patrol team 29… anyone reported dead? Is the shooting still on?”…

“No Poly… shooting has stopped. Manager Manu is scared… but no shooting currently on. Four people reported dead/injured. Ambulance is on its way…”

Poly and his team immediately rushed to the crime scene and cordoned off the area. He immediately assessed the situation and asked for Manu.

Manu looked visibly shaken by the events. He went on to tell him how three people were having an animated argument when the fourth man (sitting on the table near theirs) got himself involved and shot the three of them. “…Before he could kill the third person he was shot at too by that one … (pointing his finger towards one of the dead body in a black coat)… with that pistol near him. All four of them were dead before anyone could do anything. I then called Police helpline and informed them about the incident… This took place some 1 hour before…”

Poly looked at his watch. It showed 9 PM of 31^st Dec 2010. So the incident took place at around 8 PM. Hmmm…

He bent down and looked at the four dead bodies when suddenly his subordinate said – “Oh Gosh – this man in black coat is Judge Nyaya, a renowned fuckin' Judge. The second in Bandhgala coat, is definitely Raj Mantri, a fuckin' Member of Parliament from our state and the third chap seems to be Babu Adhikari – Secretary of some fuckin’ Ministry. I have seen them on fuckin' Television. But am not sure about the fuckin' fourth man… who could he fuckin' be?”…”Manu said Nyaya fuckin’ killed our fuckin’ “mystery man”? Wonder why? What has this fuckin’ world come to? Fuckin’ pistols/revolvers are carried like fuckin’ handkerchiefs! We joined fuckin’ police force to lay our hands on those fancy fuckin’ pistols we saw in movies… These days any fuckin’ person carries one…”

“Go on and get the statements of other staff will you?” Poly said. He was used to his Subordinate’s sarcastic ranting. He was a damn good officer and a long time partner.

Anyways… Poly thought… A shootout of high profile people… by an unidentified person…! What else can be worse? Media is sure to have a field day. Huh. It was time to get started though.

Poly checked all the pockets of the Fourth man and got a few documents. His Driving license showed his name to be Aamji Aadam. Other documents suggested that he was working in a Private firm. Curiously, he had a small tape-recorder (with recording facility) in his pocket. The recorder had a small tape in it. Interesting…

Poly put all the material evidences, including both the pistols, in a bag and did a final search of the place. He asked for a private room to go through the evidences and was immediately led to Manu’s office at the rear end of the Restaurant. He knew it will take a couple of hours for the forensic team to finish their job and he had a few pieces of evidence that he needed to quickly evaluate. Experience told him that most of the crimes became “mysteries” in the lack of evaluation done right at the spot of the crime and that, answers to any mystery lay in the crime scene in 95% of the cases. Polly always wanted to be the first to be on the crime scene and almost always was the last to leave.

Poly knew he had the knack of solving complex criminal cases and he was almost an expert in this field and was, hence, much in demand to crack such cases. But this seemed a peculiar case – where the victim and the aggressor were both dead. This did not look like a terrorist attack. So he probably had no one to chase and catch. It was only the motive that he had to pin down. He hoped to get the grip of this quickly and perhaps… just perhaps rush back home in time.

First thing he did on settling down in the room was to call the Police Control Room and inform them about the situation and asking them to assign the case in his name. That done, he called his subordinate and assigned him the responsibility of informing deceased families. He dreaded that part. He just could not bring himself to inform the families of dead people. He was perhaps not that strong after all.

Preliminaries done – he went about looking at all the papers, documents, items that were recovered from the four dead men. As his subordinate had indicated correctly – the three men were Nyaya, Raj and Adhikari. The fourth one was Aamji… Poly had to figure out what led to Aamji shooting off such distinguished men. He looked at the tape recorder and thought that the cassette in it would have some songs. He anyways pressed rewind button to check it.

His Subordinate rushed into the room and said, “The fuckin' vultures are already here Sir. You want to fuckin' take them?”…”Nah – you handle them… you know I hate them. Tell them not to cross the line in their reporting or else I will personally rip apart their asses”. Bloody Media circus… they want to do all the investigative work but not take responsibility of any wrong interpretation of events/evidences. They are equally callous about character assassination of stakeholders involved… including the police personnel involved in a case and “perceived” accused people. Aarushi Murder case is a very good recent example. Huh. Good riddance of society.

Once alone, Poly played the mini tape recorder recovered from Aamji… and he was shocked out of his wits…

 “…but this has been a great Year Sir. I don’t know what you are talking about? Small skirmishes do keep happening in a democracy and we should not be swayed by these - as the achievements of this year have been far higher”. This was presumably Adhikari… a typical Bureaucrat trying hard to convince thought Poly. Looks like Aamji recorded part of conversation going on between the three distinguished people…Hmmm…

“You say ‘Small’ skirmishes my friend? Small… Haan? Country has been looted of multiple Billions of Rupees and you say “small”…? Hundreds of millions reported looted by the Olympic Committee and their stakeholders… and you dare call it “Sssss…mall”? Billions of rupees looted by our beloved friend’s community of Legislatures in various Land scams, and you prefer to call it “small”? How about even bigger Stock Market scams this year… SEBI has been trying to do cleanup for the whole year and still struggling… Small?! And then the “Prima donna” of the lot… the 2G Scam. Wow… now that’s what should be termed SMALL...” O..o… a good upper cut… This one seemed like Honorable Nyaya… spoken like a consummate Judiciary man. Apparently, Nyaya was not too impressed with whatever Adhikari was trying to convince him of, in the discussion.

The third person on the tape… surely Raj… seemed to plead – “But Sir, how can you blame us Legislatures’ for all the scams…? I mean – there is no proof till now. You know this is a typical Political conspiracy by our opposition colleagues… I strongly protest…I…”

“Ah… keep that protesting for your Parliament sessions. I am least interested in your histrionics. We all know you all are good at that… and may I add…nothing else.” Oops… Raj is royally snubbed thought Poly. Must have been worth looking at his face

Nyaya continued from where he left… “So Adhikari, where was I… Yeah… “Small Skirmishes”. Am not finished yet here. Let me quote a few more “admirable” cases that came to light in this wonderful year. We always thought it was those common “Neta types” who were generally corrupt. But seems like the virus has spread to higher levels this year i.e. all the way up to Cabinet Ministers, Chief Ministers! For isn’t it true that some of them were found to be involved in impropriety cases in regards to the Indian Premier League, Some involved in corruption cases, Maharashtra Chief Minister involved in Aadarsh Land scam, another Chief Minister involved in Andhra Pradesh Land scam – another in Karnataka Land scam. Hoof… There are so many that one tends to tire listing them. We certainly have made progress in this field this year – raising the bar of corruption. Huh. They just don’t fear the law of the land – do they? Is that what you call “Small Skirmishes” my friend?” A clearly sarcastic Nyaya was getting on the nerves of his surprise audience

“But Sir – all of these cases that you have listed are being investigated and for all practical purposes there is no evidence of these scams having links to our “community” or Raj’s “community” as you refer to them. They can at best be termed as allegations at the moment” O yeah?

Raj jumped in again - “Yeah right… there is no proof… This is opposition propaganda. I protest…”

“Oh C’mon Raj, don’t do that. You all anyways sound funny when you take to that line of defense. The whole country is sick and tired of your phony protests and weak defenses. Though you don’t seem educated enough to know, but Abraham Lincoln once said… You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time. Get the meaning? How long will continue to con and deceive the country? Protesting…What are you protesting against? For devils’ sake, don’t give me that shod of how these allegations have not been proven. After all, if you are in-charge of your Ministry – a common man or a third person from outside cannot loot the Ministry and be a beneficiary of the loot. Don’t pretend to be that innocent. And the fact is – the loot has happened – and who but you and your community to have benefitted from it? I mean, you seriously take the billions of people in this country as idiots or what?”

“And Raj, before you start protesting again about opposition propaganda etc, I must quota a very popular Tamil Proverb… Does it make any difference whether we are ruled by Rama or by Ravana? So when I refer to your community – I mean you and your “esteemed” colleagues in the Government and in Opposition parties. The entire bunch resembles Ravana though they are elected to play a role of Rama. Look at your breed… everyone seems to be competing against each other in the size of scams that one can conjure up. So much so that smaller scams like stamp paper scams of a few millions seem to be irrelevant now. Bofors scam is now a laughing stock. People have started wondering why even bother about such silly amounts of money paid as kickback! Huh. Look for yourself; if CWG scam was of a few hundred Crores, 2G Spectrum scam looks to be worth thousands of Crores… Who knows how many more is hidden in the closet in form of bigger scams… Agriculture Ministry? Railways? Or Aviation? How about scam in PDS (Public Distribution System)? No one is daring to look at NREGA system. Trust me – from what I gather – these last two would be far bigger scams than any reported till date. 2010 has been a big eye opener for the country – and I am warning you – its just tip of the iceberg”

The old man seemed to have warmed up really nicely and firing on all cylinders, Poly thought. Adhikari interrupted – “But Sir, you, of all people, should know that one is “Not Guilty” till proven otherwise. Isn’t that the premise of all the cases fought in our courts? Or has Judiciary also started getting “motivated” by Media? With all due apologies – you do seem to be more inclined to views on media than actual evidences made available in courts.”

Poly had a smile on his face – Adhikari clearly stepped over the line hear… A terse Nyaya’s voice said “You must in fact thank the courts Adhikari. We do the dirty work that primarily falls under your purview. Courts are famously handicapped with what is presented in front of them my friend. But then not everything requires courts interpretation. Does it? Everyone can see what’s right and what’s not. It is no rocket science really. After all not every thing is “grey” as you would want everyone to imagine. To take some examples again, haven’t you, for years, promised our citizens a secured country to live in – but even the last few years have proven time and again that you and your methods have been found wanting – and desperately so. Very clearly you are not able to crush Naxalites. They are running their parallel government in many places within our country and the government seems ridiculously helpless. How about ULFA and Naga problems? No control over these too! You are not able to stop bomb blasts – with Bangalore and Pune being the last ones to suffer, Kashmir problems come faster than your winks. Then there have been innumerable number of Train accidents which have cost the state more lives and even more money than other tragic incidents – but all you have done is to continue to “promise” compensations to all dead… I am sure you would want to contest everything in court – but you don’t need certificate of guilty from a court when you have blood of our dead people on your face Adhikari. No corrective modernization steps seem to have been taken, to make our forces well quipped, to equip our intelligence with latest tools, to help modernize Railway systems... Nothing seems to be visibly happening”

“And Raj, don’t think this is only for Adhikari… his community is made up of “appointed” people… where as you all are elected representatives of our people. Your head should hang in shame for all the wrongs in the country. Huh. I mean, how can you have corporate Brokers influence the policy making on behalf of people? You think Corporate Brokers will think about Public benefits and welfare? How silly can you all get? You make the country believe that ONLY “a” particular party can run a particular ministry… Ministries are no more run by people who have the knowledge and ability to run that function – it is about which party wants which candidate to run it. And hence we have incompetents like Mamata, Raja, Azhagiri, Virbhadra, etc rule the roost with no apparent knowledge of the given area of responsibility, and even more sadly, no sense of dignity in public life. Gone are the days when competence in a given field would get the top post… when Honor was worth dying for. These days’ specific ministries seem to be negotiated instruments for gaining support of a political party and running Government smoothly. May God save this country”

Woah – This man was on rampage… Adhikari seemed to be shaken – but argued… “Sir, again with due respect, for a large and diverse country like ours, India has had its problems… there is no denying that fact. Things could have been managed and controlled better. However, we have had some huge achievements this year too… lets not forget those” Adhikari seemed to take a long breath and continued, “We finally came out of recessionary period without too much of damage, we have even further strengthened our internal security forces for fight against Naxals, Signed agreements to build Nuclear Reactors which will reduce energy dependence of the nation, we have strengthened our defense with successful Dhanush and Prithvi II missile tests, made Education a Fundamental Right in constitution, we got elected as Non-permanent Member of Security Council again, successfully conducted Commonwealth Games and despite numerous issues and problems, we have had some wonderful results in sports arena, Inflation has been brought in check, we have had some phenomenal business growth in Corporate sector this year, Our financials are sound, Exports have increased, Stock Market is at an all time high, Investments are growing by leaps and bounds, Infrastructure improvements are unparalleled in comparison to any previous year, we have moved strongly against corruption and corrupt people, Ministers and MPs perceivably guilty of wrongdoing or corruption have been phased out or removed…”

“Yeah right… absolutely right. We have done very well this year… I protest… Ahem… I reiterate what Adhikari said…I…” Here goes Raj again…

Nyaya interrupted “Now Now, both of you - don’t take credit for removing Ministers/MPs on charge of corruption. The Government you are defending vociferously was forced to take those corrective steps only after Media and Judiciary pressures my friend. Don’t overemphasize your achievements. The memories that will remain with everyone will be of Scams, Corruption and high retail prices of critical consumable items. That a “successful” Commonwealth Games was conducted… has long been forgotten. Seems like a dream now. Even there – if not for some glowing performances by our sportsmen/women – the games would have been a big dud. As for Stock markets, they are at best a “dim indicator” of healthy financials. We all know how “foolishly Sensitive” they are – so don’t harp on it. Look at the prices of basic consumables like Fruits, vegetables, Rice, Cereals, pulses, milk etc. Look where the charges and cost of electricity, water, Petrol/Diesel, Steel/Cement etc going. They are all north bound. And what inflation are you talking about? Don’t quote inflation figures as these we all know are not the right indicators of retail prices of consumables… i.e. items that affect our daily lives. What achievement are we talking about here?” There goes another punch…

Looks like Raj had had enough… He went for the kill in his typical Neta way… “Here again Nyaya, I have been patiently hearing you. Now its time you listen up. I don’t like that tone of accusation directed against me or Adhikari. I protest… and before you shut me down – I have to say – it is pretty high of you and your community – if I may say so – to pin all ills of society at our doors. Must say, you and your community have not been above suspicion this year. Have you? For isn’t it true that ex-Chief Justice of India (CJI) did not act to safeguard his fellow Judge of High Court of Chennai? Is it not true that the same CJI is accused of helping his relatives with favors, benefitting them in financial terms? That “The Judicial Standards and Accountability Bill, 2010” bill has sent shivers in your community? How about appointment of “incompetent” Judges like that of Justice Dinakaran – the Chief Justice of Karnataka (and now Sikkim)? I mean – your community knew that he was highly corrupt Judge – but rather than taking action against a fellow Judge the CJI posted him to another state. Wow. No action initiated. No one in “your community” seemed to notice that Bar Associations of both Karnataka earlier, and later Sikkim, have refused to work with/under this man. But a “very clean” Judicial system has found it fit to continue with him at important decision making positions… Some honest “community” that! A perfect example of a transparent and honorable community you represent Sir? Won’t you say? Look who is talking about Honor and Responsibility? Wow. We all know how wonderful lawyers of this country are – we have all been exposed to their likes sometime or the other. The less said about Judges of lower court – the better. We all know how easy it is to get favorable verdicts in lower courts – all thanks to your community judges being “more than available” to provide supportive judgments. Honorable? Huh”

“So then, don’t you harp about common man’s interest and take high moralistic grounds… there is hardly any group more corrupt than the Judiciary. We have seen glimpses of it being exposed in public domain this year and in time to come – it will get bigger. You all don’t want to come under the RTI act. The biggest tool of accountability available with a common man… But no more, my Friend, no more… Accountability bill is here and you will now see Common Man ripping you apart. The same Common man you seem to be defending for sometime now… Bloody hell…” Ho…Ho…Take that for a punch!

Suddenly Poly heard a fourth voice – looked like Aamji’s. He seemed to have been drunk. “Shut up… Shut up all of you… you all idiots of society – shut the hell up. Who do you think you all are? Look at yourselves, look at yourselves you bloody fools. Have been hearing you for a long time now. Enough.  Shut up now. None of you deserve to be talking for us, we… the silly/foolish/harmless Mango men. None of you… you heard me… none of you…”

There was a noise of someone tumbling down. Seemed like Aamji stumbled

“Calm Down my Friend – calm down. Why don’t you sit down...” Adhikari’s voice seemed to be on edge. What was happening?

“Don’t you touch me assole’. Don’t you dare touch me. You have touched and destroyed our lives enough… I have been hearing you all for a bloody long time. All you three have done is blame each other in our name… we, the common people. You have no moral right anymore… hearing me (?) – you have NO morrral rrright to be talking on our behalf… So shut the hell up… shut the hell…”

“Don’t do anything foolish you silly man. Get your drunken arse out of here. Sick. Adhikari see this man off, will you?” Nyaya said in stern voice

“O…O… Your Lordship… Hmmm… perhaps you don’t realize the grrrrr..avity of the problem you fuckin’ Lordship… Look at this. See this? Do you see this? This is one instrument that ends all evil… trust me…”

“A Gun… a gun… Holy-shit – a goddamn gun… listen you… whoever you are… you are being extremely illogical here. Don’t you point that at us? Keep it away… Am telling you” Juddu shouted

“Oh… Yourrrr Lordship is scarrrred… Isn’t that strange Adhikari?  I never thought powerful people would be scared so easily. And you Mr. Raj – you seem to be awfully quiet. You scared too? Hmmm…It does feel scary… right? Men of your profession generally point it towards hapless people like us, the Common Man – but you never knew the scary feeling till now. Did you? Oh… I am loving this… For all the bad times that you three and the institutions that you represent have given us – I like the look of dread on your faces”

“Na Na Adhikari… Keep sitting... don’t hasten this by acting smart… I am a certified shooter – I can fire accurately… but I don’t want to do it before I wish to. Just sit.” Aamji said

“You see…problem with all you powerful institutions is – the day power is used against you – you have your tails between your legs. C’mon, we have stood up to you for so many years with courage… but you just don’t seem to have the bbbballs… hey… show me some balls! You people are really spineless - aren't you? Individually - and even more collectively. I mean, woh sala Pakistan… yahan Bomb laga ke chala jataa hai… hum jaise pata nahi kitne log mar jatey hain… par tum saley discuss hi kartey rehtey ho… "ab kya karein… kya karein…" (Pakistan plants bombs in our country, people like us die and you keep discussing on and on about next course of action). Bloody Eunuchs… Huh”

“Thanks to corrupt/inept/selfish politicians like Raj – the likes of Yourrrrr Lordship in Judiciary are virtually running the Government... ensure policies are implemented, ensure investigation is ordered, ensure farmers get their dues, ensure homeless get shelter, ensure government functions normally etc. I mean, can’t you see Raj? Are you bbbbloody blind? Thanks to your inaction on almost all fronts - judiciary has interfered on almost all matters of Legislative governance/responsibilities...whether it be about when the old Buses would be phased out, or when Investigation on scams etc should be ordered… or to inspect CBI reports on daily basis on various investigations, or to interfere in governance of projects like CWG and other infrastructure projects etc. If they interfere in almost all of the responsibilities that the Legislative, as per oath, should be handling... what do you expect will happen next? Will the likes of Yourrr Lorrrdship remain aloof to the smell of that power in their hands? Why the heck is anyone surprised then, when these Nyayas’ end up getting corrupted. They are also reflection of our society after all… aren’t they? Look at what is happening to our Defense forces... sali ab sena bhi corruption mei doob gayi hai (Even Defense Forces have jumped on the corruption bandwagon). Is this also not a reflection of the society of whom you all claim to be Thekedaar (Masters)?”

There was an eerie silence… No one seemed to be breathing… when suddenly Aamji spoke again…“With power comes responsibility Sir… I was told this by my Father when I was a kid. But powerful people, like you three, feel with Power comes money… and with more money comes the power to buy even more power… a fuckin vicious cycle. Huh”

Aamji was shouting again now… “Yahan sali jaan jaa rahi hai… Sabji khareedo to paseene aa jayein… Daal to khana hi chodh diya hai… (Here we are, struggling to fulfill daily needs), but you… you don’t even bother… You are in your own bloody world with your own small battles to fight. Nuclear Reactor, Stock market, Telecom Policy, Export/Import, Inflation, Future Market and what not. Will all this provide food at affordable prices to millions of people in this country who today doesn't know how will they buy vegetables, rice, pulses etc available at such exorbitant prices? What is the point of providing 3G/2G on phones – when the damn stomach of the country is empty? What is the point of high performing stock markets, greater FII/FDI in the country – when you cannot ensure basic amenities like water, electricity and two healthy meals for majority of people? What the hell?"

"For common people like us – it is a struggle to have a decent life on an ongoing basis. But you… you are still discussing... plotting… churning out one scam after another… blaming one another… Hoof. I am really fed up of all this…”

“I am sorry but you have collectively failed us… and for that... for that... you don't deserve to live. I am not ready to pay taxes and see them wasted by you on your own selfish needs or see them land in your Accounts in Tax havens abroad. No Sir. Am sorry for being foolish till date - but I am not so sorry for what I am about to do” Aamji said in emotionally choked voice

“No don’t don’t… Put that down Raj… put… Wham… Wham… Boom………Wham…”

The tape went silent…

Poly felt a drop of sweat trickling down his spine. He kept looking at the tape… it remained silent…

And suddenly Poly heard a loud roar which startled him… “Happy New Year”… Hoooooooo Haaaaaaaa… “Happy New Year”… That must be the television in the other room.

Poly was shaken by what he had heard on tape. He had no words. With considerable effort, he finally got up… pocketed the tape and walked into the room where the shooting had taken place… he sat near Aamji’s body and looked at his face… He seemed to be so much at peace with himself. How?

Suddenly there were crackers going off outside. He looked up once again at the television. It flashed…

“Happy New Year”

“Breaking News: Sensational Shootout at *****”

“Breaking News: Pillars of Democracy Flattened”…

How appropriate he thought… Legislature, Executive & Judiciary… The Pillars…Hmmm

Poly remembered what Mahatma Gandhi had once said about Democracy, “Corruption and hypocrisy ought not to be inevitable products of democracy, as they undoubtedly are today”. How true in current times. Perhaps this incident would mark the “end of the beginning”. For was it not Winston Churchill who wrote during World War II (in 1942), when Allied forces (US/UK and others) beat Axis Forces (Germany/Japan) in Second Battle of El Alamein, “Now, this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning”.

It is time people of this country brought curtains down on the corruption drama… in fact (as his Subordinate would say) "it is long fuckin' overdue".

Its Montoo..

31^st Dec 2010 – 24^th Jan 2011’

ps: A German writer once wrote: "In Germany, they came first for the Communists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist; And then they came for the trade unionists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist; And then they came for the Jews, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew; And then . . . they came for me . . . And by that time there was no one left to speak up."

Ek Dhakka aur Do…

For most people of my generation, and before, these were few words that stayed with us for months and years. Ek Dhakka aur do (Give one more push) … Ek Dhakka Aur do… For those who missed having “matured” brains during the period of 1992 – this was the battle cry of all the fanatics on a fateful day.

6^th of December, 1992… what a day!

More than 150,000 men gathered in and around the Mosque of Babur (popularly known as Babri Masjid, the disputed area), Thousands of Police Personnel stationed in the area, with layers of security cordon in place around the disputed area. BJP/VHP leaders like Advani, Murali Manohar Joshi, Ashok Singhal, Uma Bharti et al were seen addressing the crowd. Kar Sevaks chanted “Jai Shri Ram”. Both National and International Media captured the madness in their cameras at frantic speed. Blockades were put up on all entry points to this part of city. There was something special about the whole setting that day. There was something building up that day. One got a feeling that something dramatic was waiting to happen. And so it shockingly did…

One moment everything was going fine – the other… all hell broke loose. Some people ran towards the “disputed Structure” and tried to break police cordon. Stones started being thrown around from all direction towards police cordons. Police who had formed layers of security around the structure got surrounded by a few thousands of people. With Stones being pelted at them – the Police had to resort to Lathi-charge (Remember – Firing was not an option Policemen could exercise, as was done in 1990 on the orders of Mulayam Singh Yadav – the CM then). In trying to safeguard themselves and to puch back the people, police had to break the cordon around the Structure, which left the structure exposed for infiltration. As if by plan – within a few minutes Kar Sevaks were seen climbing the structure. First a few and then a few hundred of them managed to climb atop the structure. It was clear from then on that these hooligans will get to their final objective – whatever that was. As it is, with favorable State Government and a “restrained” police force – their job was not all that difficult. These people had come fully prepared. From the instruments that were seen being used (as seen in visuals) it started to become pretty apparent that they did not gather there for
“peaceful” purposes, as the State Government had assured the Allahabad High Court (Note: The Honorable Bench of Allahabad High Court had earlier raised questions about the nature and purpose of such a gathering allowed by the State Government and the Kalyan Singh’s BJP Government had given “written” assurance that they would not allow any unlawful activity there and that the sanctity of the Babri Masjid would be preserved).

Ek Dhakka aur do… was the chant around the Mosque. Piece by piece, rock by rock, stone by stone… the 15^th century structure was stripped off its elegance, its importance and most of all – its existence. Ek dhakka aur do… Ek Dhakka aur do… Jai Shri Ram… Jai Shri Ram... Imagine the atmosphere. A few hundred people on top of the tomb, many more thousands around the structure...Police personnel standing helplessly with frustration writ large over their faces. Journalists (of whatever were left on the scene) from around the world watching the same but without their cameras (all the cameras were broken by Kar Sevaks or by Police Force). Add to that the echo of Jai Shri Ram - Jai Shri Ram… With Political and Religious Masters encouraging this bunch of lunatics, the stage was set for the grand finale to something that started way back in 1885 – when the first petition was entered by Raghubar Das in Faizabad Session court…Perfect.

What started as a “promise” of peaceful gathering to perform Religious ceremonies, ended up with a barren land of Mosque Debris by 5:45 PM on that fateful day - 6^th Dec 1992.

Indeed, if Ram was alive, he would have died that day at 5:45PM. A king who cared for opinion of even a Washer-man (Dhobi) to go to the length of asking his wife to leave the palace so that sanctity of a King and his kingdom is maintained in the eyes of his people. Imagine him witnessing such a dastardly act carried on in his name. Have always wondered how he would have reacted to such a situation. I have a strong feeling he would have asked Mother Earth to take him in, much before Sita tried that trick. C’mon, he would not be considered a “God” if he tolerated such insouciance of one sect of people (supposedly his supporters) towards other sect of society. But his followers I guess care two hoots about him. It’s “his name” which was of use to them and they used it to great affect. Obviously, they also wanted to avenge something that was done 500 years ago by Babur (or his General, in-charge of Chittodgad, Mir Baqi). 

For those of us “alive” in that era, it felt like a stunning event with no parallel. I remember I was watching the news on TV and had to live through the day looking at images of the grand structure being brought down.  Oh, I think some part of me died that day.   I don’t think I will ever forget the laughing faces of Ms Uma Bharti, Mr Murali Manohar Joshi, Mr. LK Advani, Mr. Ashok Singhal etc. They and their stooges systematically tore away the sensitive fabric of this nation. And they celebrated that. They distributed sweets. Many Indians also cried that day – and not all of them were Muslims. One could see why Muslims felt bad. No one could fault them for being angry that day… or even today. But over the years I have met quite a few Indians who are Hindus/Christians/Sikhs who could not, and did not, eat that day. We could not understand why it had to come to this. What led to our own brethrens to go to such lengths of crude display of power? I never thought we could be so inhuman. We were a peaceful nation with “tolerance” as our strength. Just because we wanted to take revenge on something that happened 500 years ago – we went all the way to use deceit and treachery as tools to achieve the objectives? And we call ourselves civilized? I somehow have never been at peace with this face of our society…Never. I was always made to believe we were a “better” country than that. Tolerance, for me, is not a form of weakness. It is the basis of secularism that we imbibed in our constitution to coexist as one nation. “Secularism” as a concept itself is now being laughed at by some cynics – it however, to my mind, is still the most important component of our constitutional fabric. You remove that and you will find many Bosnias and Croatias formed out of this country.

Am not sure what these political and religious leaders are made of really? They do what they think is right without a care for people they lead or direct. They think public will not read through their treachery and deceiving tactics, sometimes bordering on silliness. One funny incident in particular has always remained with me though – a classic demonstration of their double standards. Remember the destruction of Bamayan Buddha statues by Taiban in Afghanistan? These (the Leaders of Ram Janm Bhoomi Movement) were the same men in “power” (with Vajpayee being PM). Taliban bombarded, bulldozed and clinically destroyed Buddha Statues in Bamayan (Afghanistan) in 2001 and I was shocked out of my wits to see the same people (LK Advani, Murali Manohar Joshi – in particular – and their ilk) criticizing Taliban’s act as one of the most gruesome act in the history! Wow. They went on to ask for removal of Taliban for destroying the cultural and religious ethos and framework of Afghanistan. I fell over laughing when I heard that in 2001! I could not just believe what I was hearing. Look at these men. What do they think we are? Bloody fools? It’s a typical “American” style of thinking – “What I do is right but you are wrong to do the same”! Well, Taliban felt their religion allowed such destruction of such deities and they were within their rights to do it. Why should we expect anything else from a bunch of religious crooks - non-elected ones at that? What happened in our country was shamelessly planned and enacted by “elected” Reps – why should we be surprised by what Taliban did then? What Jokers really.

We in this country have a misconceived notion about what being true citizens is. We use issue of national feelings for convenience. If you did manage to interact with people who were deeply involved in Ram Mandir Movement then – you would have heard a very common rationale of what ever they did… “It is not a matter of nation – it is a matter of our Dharma and Dharma… is much bigger, and important, than a Nation”. Or something on similar lines perhaps. Now once you have that kind of mindset – it is not difficult to understand, for example, what leads to Muslim youth joining terrorist forces like Taliban, LeT, Al-Qaeda etc. They are as human as we are… but they are devoted only to their religion, which is important, not the nation they belong to. That is why Al-Qaeda type of groups has Muslims from all over the world. Just to take this point further – what is so wrong then when Mr P Chidambaram (Home Minister) calls these bunch of Hindu fanatics and their friends (in current times) as “Saffron” Terrorists? After all we do not hesitate in naming groups like Al-Qaeda, LeT etc as “Islamic” Terrorists? Some logic that. Some of Hindu groups have been involved in Bombings, Riots, looting, killing of citizens in terrorist kind of bombings. It’s a fact – or were you sleeping when this was found out? In fact Saffron Terrorists is a toned down version for me – the name should ideally be “Hindu” Terrorists to do their ilk some justice.

Coming back to the topic, there is a critical Judgment pending on 24^th Sep 2010 by Lucknow Bench, of Allahabad High Court, on the issue of ownership of disputed land and on whether there was Masjid built over a Mandir or not. It took 17 years for Liberhan Commission (set up to probe Babri Masjid demolition) to come up with a report. This report is yet to be made public and no one knows if anyone is held “responsible” in that report. You see, the problem with such delayed judgments/reports is that most of the people who were directly involved in Ek Dhakka aur do… movement (discreetly or otherwise) have by now become big Leaders of their respective organizations/parties. No Government would touch them willingly without facing reprisals from their supporters – leading to another round of unrest in the country. What we perhaps will witness is more debates, more discussions (oh we Indians love that)...and perhaps a riot here and there (which means a few more dead). And lo behold – Commonwealth games will start and any judgment on the Babri Masjid will get overshadowed, irrespective of whether the games are held successfully or not. Liberhan Commision report, whenever it is made public, will blame a few and if it really includes people who have really done it (or helped cause the final outcome) – do we really think it will be acted upon? Really, the Advanis’, Joshis’, Singhals’, Uma Bharti, Kalyan Singh etc have anyways grown pretty old in the last 17 years and are currently irrelevant in the political spectrum. They have reaped the profits of that one day of hara-kiri. I only hope history remembers them “appropriately” and judges them on the facts and not perceptions.

But whatever is the judgment, and/or whatever is held within the secret report that Justice Liberhan submitted, I urge all of you to give the event a thought – for a few minutes on 24^th Sep 2010 – a landmark day. What has one gained from the whole movement and with that one day of madness? More hatred… more divisive society and a lot of near and dear ones lost in riots, arson, bomb blasts, firing etc. Yes, that is what we have got as a result of an “important question” of where Ram was born perhaps thousands of years earlier. Very important for people of current generation and future I must say. Well, Ram is long gone… He has left behind a land of divided society – something he did not allow in his own time – but which his disciples have found fit to force on this revered land and all of us. Since 6^th December 1992… we are all either Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs… Being Indian went out of fashion. And I fear any pronouncement on the cases related to Babri and events of the day will not reverse that… whichever way the dice rolls.

Perhaps someday I will get a chance to take revenge for the part that went dead in me (on that day) and that perhaps I will be able to push the perpetrators at Hell’s helm and make them beg… "Ek Dhakka aur do…"

Think about it.

Its Montoo..

(16^th Sep 2010’ – 20^th Sep 2010’)

Women Reservation – A divisive step

There are events that have immediate/mid-term impact and then there are others that have long term repercussions. Though we need to worry about both – it is the later one that we should think harder about and take appropriate actions to either change it – if we think it will have adverse ramifications, or fine tune it – to maximize advantages. Recent clamor to provide reservation to Women is one such step that will have larger corollary. And it won’t be pleasant by any means. Not for Women and neither for the “opposing” gender. I call them “opposing” since it is the men who are being made the bad party in this whole drama.

Initiating Argument

Lest anyone gets me wrong – let me clearly state that it is not because I don’t want women of this country to rise or am against any logical steps that are taken to bring their stature up in the society – just like I wouldn’t oppose it for anyone else in need. In fact, I am all for it. However I am not convinced about the path that is being chosen i.e. providing mandatory reservation. As unconvincing as the Quota/reservation given on caste basis was (or more recently - religion based reservation), it is absurd to provide the same on the basis of the Gender one is born in/as. You see, we are already bearing the adverse affects of host of reservations today. What with more and more “less eligible people” donning decision making positions only on the basis of the caste they were born into. Excuse me for saying this – but a deep analysis someday will show that “value systems” and “honesty quotients” in this country & society (in these times) have gone down precisely because of such undeserving candidates coming to the fore. I have no doubts about it.

I am not sure where will this “reservation business” end? Next, one will talk about race based reservation? Or how about State/City based Reservation? Or perhaps age based reservation? Occupation based reservation? I mean, why not? All of these seem logical to me now and someone someday will have to only raise it once to make it into a “mass movement”. Like Police personnel, CRPF/BSF units (and their families) may perhaps want reservation in Education/Service/Politics for their wards even in their lifetime. The argument could very well be that since they are not highly paid and since they put their lives on line of duty – their families should be given “more” facilities and preferences. Sounds Illogical huh? Well, it may seem so today… but who thought Women and Muslims would get reservation in this country. If Muslims can, so should Christians. Nah? Why? In fact I should be asking - Why not? Again…why not Eunuchs? You see? It doesn’t take some brilliant mind to come up with ideas! Even I can do it. Huh…what’s the big deal? Remember, what we offer today as a “fair deal/gift” – will tomorrow be considered a “birth right”. Look at Gujjars – they already have reservation under OBC (Other Backward Class) category. But they are “demanding” their “right” to “ST” category. Why? Because ST Category has more reserved seats! They have already created a lot of ruckus a few times around this part of the country. However rubbish their claim may seem to others in the country – I am in no doubt that they will get what they have demanded. We should not be surprised then. We ourselves gave them reservation to start with – remember?

To take the debate further – let me try and dispel a few myths associated with the subject matter and provide arguments against some silly notions – the basis of which has been used to justify reservation for women.

Myth 1 – Women require Reservation

To start with – I don’t think most of the women feel right about this reservation being given to them. After all even women/girls/ladies of this country were at the forefront of agitation against reservation to SC/ST/OBC (as per Mandal Commission’s directive), in various fields like Medical seats, other Competitions, Post Graduation, Politics and Jobs. How can they suddenly now justify reservations for themselves? It would seem like the grapes were sour till they were presented to them. I mean, what are we talking about here? Are women really deprived in our country today? Forget the ancient times.  Talk about today – current times. Reservation is not for those who are dead. They affect us – the current generation. In fact, I would rather put my neck forward and say that the honor that our society has given women, not even “so-called” liberated societies like western world has. C’mon, here is a country which has had the honor of having a lady Prime Minister – even when the western world was struggling to bring their racial order in line. We have since then come to a position where we now even have a Woman President. Irrespective of how she was appointed to the President’s post – and irrespective of whether she had requisite merits to be made the First Lady of the country – did being a “Woman” create any problems for her? None I would say. In fact, the fact that she is a woman has been the ONLY factor that helped her in being elevated to that post. And I am sure most of us would agree that she was NOT the best of the candidates available. We still made her the President. Why? Could this have happened in US/UK or other developed country? No. Again, don’t we also have a Women Speaker in Parliament now? Hmmm… I must say we are definitely biased “against” women. Women are really deprived. Huh. This is the country that has a woman leading the largest political party – The Congress (I) Party. She is considered to be one of the most powerful women in the world. Look around… our country has Banks, Corporate, and government Ministries being lead and headed by a Woman. Oh yeah… We definitely are biased – sure we are! How about saying we are biased “in favor” of women? No? It must be some “rocket science” really for our dumb politicians to understand. But I hope you readers are not. Are you? I mean, for devil’s sake – what are we even talking about? How do you otherwise gauge the importance of a sect of people if not by their public presence? Just because a set of communities in the country are biased against women gives no right to anyone to give reservation to entire bunch of citizens.

Look at our records without reservation. Sati system has vanished, Dowry is on the wane, more and more girls are going to schools in villages & cities, Government after governments are doling out schemes to encourage education for girls (giving financial incentives), Girls are seen more and more in jobs in IT industry, Banking Industry, Television, Movies, Government jobs, Schools, colleges, shops, restaurants, premier hotels, Aviation Industry and Politics (4 of the top 10 political parties in current parliament have women at helm of affairs). All this is happening already – WITHOUT reservation mind you. Women Members in Lok Sabha has increased from 3.5% in 1977 to 10.8% in 2009. Is this a reducing trend? Would you still say that?

Why then do they need reservation? If there are 40 or even 45% women in this country so they should be given equivalent representation? Well then... what about Muslims? Should we not give them 15% odd reservation based on their count in population? What about “middle-age” population (people having approx 25-40 yrs of age)? Since they are the largest % of registered voters in the country – should we then not set a reserved number of seats for candidates of the said age group? Why should we bear with those “white haired fatsos” when majority of the people do not identify themselves with such old politicians? This is absolutely silly. How about providing illiterate members mandatory reservation? Since a large % of our country is illiterate and since their problems can only be “supposedly” understood by only illiterate leaders – let’s have fixed percentage of leaders with no education. How about that? Specious, awful, fallacious, illogical – you say? Well – so is Women Reservation. 

Myth 2 – Reservation will bring social parity

Let us look at this with what President of Samajwadi Party (Mulayam Singh Yadav) said sometime ago. Though he got a lot of flak for what he said – I find practical sense in what he says really. To start with – this reservation (as and when it comes into force) will see a majority of Politician’s wife, daughter, Mother, Mother-in-law, and other such woman relatives of the politicians fighting elections and getting elected. It is not hard to fathom why & how of this logic. Seriously, which “male” politician will ever allow anyone else – other than his own relative to fight on the seat that he currently holds? You would do the same in his place. We all would perhaps – including women. And since none of the sitting MPs are downtrodden or poor, we are perhaps looking at rich/well-to-do ladies, who are relatives of existing politicians, grabbing majority of the seats. But then you may as well say – who cares if they are rich or proxy candidates? After all, they will be “women”! Great! Reservation “ki Jai ho”!

The other pertinent point that Mr Yadav has drawn attention to is that, down the years, you may well find many more women representatives in the parliament/Assemblies – than the 33% that is being talked about. The two fold logic again is pretty simple. Firstly, we should not be talking about only 33% of women. The reservation bill does not stop women from fighting from seats that are not reserved. So the total count of women will always be higher than 33%. Secondly, once a woman candidate wins a seat – she will not be ready to vacate that seat even when the seat will no more be reserved for their “exclusive” gender the next time (remember any seat will be reserved for only 1 term and then it will again be reserved after 2 more elections. This will go on in rotation). As already mentioned above, nobody would willingly vacate a seat that he/she has won the last time and for the constituency that they have worked for in the 5 year term. So invariably, some/most of the sitting women MP/MLA will get to keep their seats and some would definitely win. They along with the other women elected from 33% reserved seats will make percentage of women rise in the Parliament. This % will keep increasing with each election.

Does the above analogy seem illogical? I don’t think so. Knowing the standard of our politicians I will not be surprised if more and more women (down the years) will be heard saying that they were not given ticket “because” the seat was now unreserved. And that this is gross injustice done to her – and ONLY because she is a “woman”! No party will be able to defend that kind of a charge with media sharks that we have. You see – we, the Public, are an emotional group. Anyone who insults Old people or Women is seen as a villain. Public sympathy invariably is with the other “vulnerable” group. This will eventually lead to a situation where women will be in Majority in Parliament. Is that the objective of this bill? Will more women leaders help women at ground level – the poor/downtrodden/harassed lot? Oh yeah? Read the next section where I intent to bust this myth too.

Some people I have met have said that it is not a bad idea actually – i.e. to have majority of Women in Parliament – after all Men have been in majority all along! I am not sure they would want to pitch this as Men Vs Women contest. This will never bear fruit. And moreover, since when did we start believing in taking steps to create a monster to kill another monster? You don’t take corrective steps which will eventually prove bad - to solve something that is wrong today. At least I don’t see why. In any case, how will this reservation be removed eventually? Women won’t certainly do it. They are after all beneficiaries of the law! So once the reservation is in place – you can as well forget about getting rid of it once women come to the fore capturing more than 1/3^rd of the seats. Remember, you need “at least” 2/3^rd Majority for such Bills to pass/amend/remove. No one has been able to remove SC/ST/OBC quota till date – even though as per constitution it can be removed after 10 year review period. But no political party has had the guts to actually propose it – let alone discuss it. Such are the ways of vote-bank politics. I don’t know how much of “social equality” has been achieved as a result of the current set of reservations. It definitely has negatively disrupted “psychological order” of the political society. And this will become more disordered once the new/proposed reservation comes into play.

Myth 3 – Reservation will improve Country’s Leadership Quotient

For people who claim that Women make better leaders and bosses. I suggest, take a poll. You will know the truth. Include both Boys/Men and Girls/Women in the polls to make it more genuine. You will be surprised. Just because it is “fashionable” to say women make “better” leaders or bosses – does not make them one. And when we say “better” – it is in comparison to men. Just because women say so and nobody objects – does not mean it is the truth. Moreover, as indicated above – no body wants to be seen saying anything against women in this country. So when women keep harping about how good they are and how women are rising to top positions “even though” they are women – it is not objected to. (Boy (!!), you have to read printed material on the subject around the Women’s day celebrations. Hoof – it would seem they rose from ashes to become head of Pepsi, ICICI, etc.) As if – they have done something extremely exceptional just because they are woman! Can’t see Lakshmi Mittal, Dhirubhai Ambani, Sunil Mittal, etc say they rose in the hierarchy because they were “men”. Or is it that these men “did not have to struggle” just because they were men? What logic?

 
Anyways, ask people who have had women bosses/leaders and you will understand what it is like working under a women leader. And no – I do not mean to say they are dumb or all useless. Its like saying – men by birth are more intelligent and make better bosses than woman. No – I don’t subscribe to that – it is actually a foolish notion. There has to be a mix. Smart, intelligent, courageous breeds are found in both the genders. That is equally true for idiots on both sides of the “great gender divide”. But, to say that one is better than the other (as is proclaimed in media and otherwise) is all crap for me. So when women harp about them being brighter than men – I generally cannot digest it – and it has got nothing to do with gender bias in favor of gender I belong to. It is like – I will never accept any Muslim or SC/ST or OBC to state that they have more zeal to work and perform than I do. And that too just because they have come from a particular caste/religion/poor family and hence have more motivation to do well. How ridiculous can it be?

Staying with this line of thought – name a few current, larger-than-life, Woman leaders in our own country… People up north will say – Mayawati. Wow! Similarly, people down south will say Jayalalitha. Again…Wonderful! People in central part of India may say Uma Bharti… Super. In the east it will be Mamta Banerjee, Rabri Devi. What do I say…and perhaps in the western region it will be Vasundhara Raje. Perfect. What a combo. Include Jammu & Kashmir’s Mehbooba Mufti (ex-CM) and you have a great bunch! This “notorious” group would have a combined support of say 10-25% population of the country?  Well…More or less. What? You felt bad about my using the word “notorious” to describe a bunch of women? See – what I meant (in the previous section) by we Indians being sensitive about anything bad said for/about women? I could have gone on to use nastier words for men and you would all be nodding your heads in agreement! Such is the greatness of our society. Such is the respect we have for women in our society. Anyways, getting back to the point I am trying to make…Are these the type of leaders we wish to have? Do you genuinely feel so? Forget about the fact that they are Women, Dalit, Muslim, etc. For once…think of them as leaders of the country. Do you want such people leading us? If you say yes, well, you may as well quit reading this article now as I am not sure you are in tune with the thought and indeed current political affairs. But for others – I am sure you will agree that we deserve better. Now ask yourselves now, are “woman” leaders (like above) any better than men? Are politicians or leaders like Mayawati, J Jayalalitha, Mamata Banerjee, Uma Bharti etc any better than the frightful men-politicians? Or are these ladies less corrupt by any means? In fact aren’t they more autocratic, oppressive and dictatorial? So what “better” qualities are we talking about that separate women leaders from men. Listen, for every good example of woman – there are equally admirable examples of men. And so is true otherwise. So why talk about giving them divine status at the “cost” of their “natural others”?

Similarly, how valid is the thought that women have some divine right over fairness (in action) and honesty (in deeds)? How honest they are is pretty clear from the list we have discussed above. Let’s talk about them being just/fair/reasonable/more sensitive etc. It is argued that strong women leadership will help bring more power and opportunities for the Girls/ladies in our society. They will help them grow and bring social equilibrium. Do you really believe so? Are women any better quipped than men in any of these stated objectives? Let’s look at some practical examples. How many woman leaders can you name from the time when Indira Gandhi was PM (and leader of her party)? Great… I know it’s difficult. Leave it. Look at the individual parties led by “Great” Women… i.e. Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), AIADMK, Trinamool Congress, Bhartiya Janshakti Party (of Uma Bharti), BJP & Congress (I). I mean, do you know any other Woman leader that you can name in BSP – other than Ms Mayawati, or in AIADMK (other than Dr J. Jayalalitha) or in Trinamool Congress (other than Mamata Banerjee) or more than 4/5 women leaders in BJP or Congress? No? That’s strange. Hmmm... Sonia Gandhi has been at the helm of affairs in Congress since the last 14+ years – how many woman leaders has she “created” or brought up in the party. How many has Mayawati promoted? Or for that matter how many have the other so-called Women leaders, having mega statures (or is it “mega” egos) encouraged/promoted? None. You get it straight into your head – NONE. So how far is the argument about them being favorable to their own Gender valid then? Alright – look around you… how many teams, having woman Managers/leaders, have woman resources in the second rung of the leadership (the “next in command” layer)? Again, what is the % of Women in their teams in comparison to % of women in organization? What does it prove? Let me put it in absolute plain terms – women generally are not comfortable with their own ilk rising under their tutelage. Lets not get into reasons – there could be many and I am no expert in these matters. All I am trying to show are some real-life examples to prove the ill conceived perception – the myth – about women leaders being essentially “better” (as leaders) for women in specific and society as a whole. The sooner we dispel this thought – the better.

Myth 4 – Finally… Reservation will reduce Women exploitation

We have now seen that Women leaders may not “necessarily” bring anything “additional” in form of qualities like honesty, integrity, humbleness and fairness to the table. Not at least, in comparison to their male compatriots. This leaves them with one major argument - men have for ages subjugated women and it is time women are given their right to rise. I will not “argue” too much against this, as I am again not an expert on the subject of “violence against women” and on the number of such cases of atrocities in our country. But even here I find it difficult to digest how providing 33% reservation to women will make plight of such women better and whether men are really opposed to women rising in politics and other professional forums and have oppressive attitude towards them even today. Let us see why.

Indira Gandhi was elected as President of Congress Parliamentary Party (CPP) by a CPP team which had 98% men. The same lady went on to become the PM of India. Mayawati is the leader of her Parliamentary party & Chief Minister in a state that is “supposedly” known to have society which supports male dominance. Find that strange. Don’t you? And to top it – Mayawati has now been at the helm of government thrice. When was the last time you heard anyone biased against her just because she is a woman? I can’t remember for sure. He/she would not be walking on his/her own legs if they would try to oppress her I guess! Alright, look at Rajasthan… a state that definitely is known to have social bias against women in general (within their closed society). So? Did it in anyway stop Vasundhara Raje being elected and doing her duties as a Chief Minister? Unless you are privy to something that others in this nation are unaware of in general – we cannot fathom a strong willed royal lady like her facing tyranny in her life! Look at South and the picture becomes even clearer. Men fall over each other to touch the feet of Jayalalitha. She stands tall amongst the hordes of her confidants… who are men in majority. Do you think she feels insecure or exploited by men? No Sir… not by miles. It is in fact men, who run scared of the vengeful behavior of women like I have repeatedly mentioned in this article. Look at Mamata Banerjee – she does not listen to anyone but herself. She is a law within her domain which has men in majority. Does she look like someone who can be biased against – just because she is a woman? How about Rabri Devi? No one would dare bias against her for sure. Could anyone? And she ruled the state of Bihar – a society that is heavily loaded in favor of men. Point I am trying to make is – none of these women leaders have faced any “special” bias against them JUST because they were “women”. And I say “special” because if there is a bias in society – even men face them. So there is nothing special.

In fact, if you actually look deeper, it is an advantage to be a woman in today’s society even without reservation. All these leaders I have named above have risen mostly because they were woman. And I keep repeating, it is not in our culture to look being oppressive on the fairer sex. Frankly, let’s not get into those small percentages of cases where they have faced unfair treatment. There will always be cases/criminal cases in an open society irrespective of how much power one gives to the other section of the society. And giving reservation to women is not going to necessarily help that situation. Look, we have tried to make special laws in favor of women in the past and men are bearing the brunt of such special provisions really. A case in point is a historic law passed by our Parliament in 1983 – Section 498A (IPC) – popularly called as “Dowry law”. This was created to protect women from the dreaded and horrible Dowry system existing in our society. It was meant to be for the women who “actually suffer” from dowry menace. But it has actually ended up largely as a powerful tool for women (and their families) to extract money from Husband’s family and to harass them no end. You may want to look at the various studies done on this over internet. You will find that most of the women using this law (in their divorces) have actually been the ones who have created havoc in the Husband’s family. Though this provision in IPC may have helped actual dowry cases – analysis shows that women in general have used it to extract millions of Rupees from their partner’s family. This is “in addition” to getting the Husband’s family arrested (including their Parents). This law provides for non-bailable arrest of Husband (and his family) just on mere complaint filed by wife – without any proof or supporting facts. Think about it. Isn’t this a draconian law created in favor of women? You may call this a good act. Wait till you bear the brunt or see some of your close family members (If at all) suffer due to this “heavily loaded” law.

Listen, I am not saying there are no genuine cases. There are definitely those who will benefit out of such laws. But what use is a law which is intended to give exceptional powers to one section of the society at the “cost of the other”? Just because women were oppressed against in our society – we give them a law to pay back “with interest” now? Why? In correcting something – do you destroy the other? No. That is not justice.

And same is the case with reservation. You just cannot make provisions in constitution to give advantage to ONLY one section of society – however large/big a group they are. Going by history of such laws/provisions - they will be used as tool for retribution and be mostly misused.

Closing Argument

Honestly, do you think if this Reservation bill is adopted by our “illustrious” Parliament and Assemblies – they are going to stop there? Huh. You must know better. Grow up! This reservation is going to get drilled down in the next 3-5 years to all aspects of our life – profession & education being primary amongst them. Just wait and watch….

Look, all I am saying is stop this culture of special provisioning and reservations. There has to be a limit. It is anyways not helping society in anyway. People like Mayawati get away with everything illegal that she does by harping about her being a “woman” and a “Dalit”. I am not saying we must not do anything to ensure fair treatment to all sections of society. But, do what is best for all. We may perhaps make laws that will make Education for women compulsory. Make laws that will give parents incentives if they have at least one girl child. For Dowry related menace - make laws that will make it mandatory for both (the Girl’s and Boy’s family) to submit legally signed documents declaring the amount spent on marriage and articles given/taken during marriage. This would then form the basis for any money to be paid back to each other (if at all) at the time of separation. Make laws that will make Rape convicts face death penalty. Make laws that will ensure every party has x% of women voters registered as supporters of the party to get recognition from Election Commission. Make laws that will help ensure that women are well brought up and can grow to make their own choices.

But for the sake of this country – don’t take the retrograde step of providing reservations on the basis of “gender”. This will ultimately divide our society right in the middle. You will see – next Muslims & Christians will demand reservation in all the states and indeed across the country. How will you refuse that? Such policies of providing reservation to section of people, creates greater chaos. Don’t look too far. See how caste based reservations have negatively affected our society. It may have benefited specific set of people of certain castes. However, in our zest to bring this section of the society up the social strata, we have deliberately allowed core values of our society to go down.

History shows we in this country were never united for long. I now know why. Divisive streaks are in our blood. We find ways to divide ourselves. It’s kind of a game for us. We test our own tensile strength and “will” it to break. And I have not an iota of doubt that providing layers upon layers of reservations, to sections of society, is going to divide this country more – the ramifications of which are monumentally scary. What kind of a country are we?

Think about it…

Its Montoo..

24^th Mar 2010 – 6^th May 2010

Note: Nothing in this article is meant to be personally offensive to any individual or group. These are personal views and have been shared in personal capacity. Anyone who feels hurt may kindly excuse the author… and move on...

Decimation of our Heroes

“What did he (Kalam) know about extracting, making explosive-grade uranium? He didn’t know a thing. By being the President he appeared to wear the stature. He relied on atomic energy to gain additional stature.” (H.N. Sethna, the former chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, who was the guiding force behind Pokhran I in 1974)

“What is so sacrosanct about Abdul Kalam? Even Albert Einstein made mistakes. Before the scientists on the site called New Delhi to confirm the tests, they should have checked the yield of the thermo-nuclear bomb with the seismic centre in London, with which India has a co-operation agreement. Dr Kalam did not check and doubts about the yield were there after the tests.” (P.K. Iyengar, the former chairman of the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre)

Trust us Indians to demolish the honor of our Heroes – however small numbers we may have of them.

It takes a lifetime for one to build his/her image through hard work, honesty, integrity, devotion and dedication. It, however, takes a few ambiguous comments by critics and doubt-mongers to destroy the reputation of such revered men. We are one of those societies in the universe who are as close to being hypocrites as possible. We never scrutinize our own selves even once in life – but when it comes to others and especially the ones who have achieved something in the society – My Gosh – we are the best at lynching them. By all available evidence, we in our country have some in-born “specialization” on the subject.

If the above example were to be the only such incident of practical annihilation of ones’ reputation – perhaps I would not be writing this. I am writing this after having lived a lot of matured years in this country and am practically fed up with questions being raised over integrity and dedication of Gandhi, Nehru, Indira, General Manekshaw, Patel, Vajpayee, great sportsmen, great musicians etc. As it is, none of the pre-1857 freedom fighters or Kings has been able to achieve the status of Hero or a Champion. And whatever small bunch has achieved greatness in this land of Ganga, has been subjected to some undue and ugly scrutiny.

Why - if I may ask? What makes us so nervous about letting proclaimed heroes (of yesteryears and/or a few of current times) live in peace? Why do we need to keep writing critically about such heroes? And if we do have to – why only highlight the critical aspects? As it is, it’s always the controversial bits that get propagated/ reported/ discussed as “News”. And that is what stays in ones mind. So why do it at all? I mean, look at Jaswant Singh. In trying to propel Mohd Ali Jinnah to the Hero’s group in this country (which has always proclaimed him to be the villain of the Partition saga) – he has gone ahead and criticized Gandhi, Nehru and to a minimal extent even Sardar Patel (Another of our Heroes). This is a classical case of how one can subtly raise doubts over integrity and decisions taken by some Great men of our society (with a hindsight advantage). Now tell me, how many of us have read that book of his? Hardly a few I guess. But what do we know about contents of that book? Well, we surely know it tries to prove that Jinnah was never in favor of Partition and that he was “forced” to opt for it due to the fact that Nehru (and in turn Congress) wanted to lead the Nation after Independence and that Gandhi supported his ward. There are other incidents during that period of history, quoted in the book, that Jaswant Singh claims to have lead to Jinnah finally realizing that there is no future for Muslims in the idea of “secular India” being propagated by Gandhi, and thus he (and his team of followers) were almost “forced” to ask for a separate state for Indian Muslims (which he eventually got in form of Pakistan). Oh, simple, isn’t it.

When you read the above – what impression do you get? Well to start with – Gandhi, Nehru (and the Congress team) were a bunch of selfish people primarily responsible for Partition (and all the ills of that event, suffered by us till date). In turn, proclaiming Congress party as the villains of the Partition saga. In one stroke Jaswant Singh decimated the great work done by some of these past greats and freedom fighters. To be fair – Jaswant is not the first one to do that. There have been many in the last 60 years. Today one is forced to ask if they really were the heroes our forefathers have been telling us proudly about?

Take examples of some of our sporting heroes, primarily, Kapil Dev and Leander Paes. Rarely has India seen sportsmen who have worn their nation’s pride up their sleeves as these two gentlemen. But did it take even a minute for us to criticize Kapil in light of frivolous Match fixing charges (breaking him to tears)? Did it take long for us to question Leander Paes when he was accused of being a selfish leader/captain (of Davis Cup team), questioning his commitment to the team and country as a whole. How mean can we get. All the great victories that these men have given us, sweating out for hours in the name of the country, just did not matter then to any of us. The result of such silly fabrications make these men seem like mortals, dragging them down from the high pedestal of immortality that they rightfully achieve with some wonderful/great achievements in their chosen field of service to the nation.  But then it does not matter to us.

Then again, there are so many incidents of our defense personnel giving “the ultimate” sacrifice in the line of duty and their Parents and dependents running from Pillar to post to get some well deserved (though meaningless) compensation. No compensation can ever fill the gap of a son/daughter and/or a Husband. Can it? Losing someone in the family, even in normal circumstances, is bloody painful – and for whatever worth sacrificing one’s life for the country is – our “great” administrators do not show even the basic desired sensibility to quickly handover the required compensation to the family members without making them go through all the harassment. Wah re India.

It is really hard to fathom. I mean, how hard can it be to ensure that the honor of such few Heroes, that we have, is not tarnished with our unwarranted criticism? Do we really think it is helping our society? What service does it do to the nation? Being critical of someone, making allegations, raising doubts etc gets good press – no doubt about it. But it also brings one more hero “down” in this “hero-deprived” country of ours. We look up to heroes in other societies like they are super humans. We quote world personalities/leaders unabashedly in our talks (be it Churchill, Kennedy, Mohammad Ali, Martin Luther King, Foreign Philanthropists/ writers etc). However, when it comes to talking about our own heroes or quoting them – we have tails between our legs. We genuinely struggle. It’s the kind of bias that is borne primarily out of the fact that we, ourselves, don’t consider our own race/nationals as worthy of being taken seriously. There cannot be any other reason. Also, we are so self-obsessed as human beings that when we see anyone with greater success than us – we genuinely believe he/she must have done something wrong to be up there. Our conscious nature refuses to accept anyone as a champion/Hero. The result is, we end up maligning them and start believing anything and everything that is said against such individuals. We just don’t respect our own selves and our own country enough.

“Why are we so NEGATIVE? Another question: Why are we, as a nation so obsessed with foreign things? We want foreign TVs. We want foreign shirts. We want foreign technology. Why this obsession with everything imported. Do we not realize that self-respect comes with self-reliance? …You must proclaim. India is not an under-developed nation; it is a highly developed nation.” (Dr. Abdul Kalam)

Only a sense of pride in our own selves will allow us to respect our own brethren. Is that so hard to do? The British ruled us because we never trusted our own countrymen and were too self obsessed in the pre-conceived notion that “I” am better than others. I don’t think we have changed much since then. Shivaji, Rani Laxmi Bai, Tagore, Bose, Gandhi, Nehru, Patel, Tilak, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Milkha Singh, PT Usha, Dhyanchand, Amitabh Bachchan, Jai Prakash Narayan, Atal Bihari, Manmohan Singh, Abdul Kalam etc have had exemplary life full of courage and integrity. However, in spite of them being Heroes in their own right and also in the eyes of scores (billions) of Indians – we leave no stone unturned to malign them at the first given opportunity. In fact thanks to our arrogance – we have not even bothered to know more about genuine champions of our own country. For example, how many of you know anything about Jai Prakash Narayan (JP) or Kamaraj for that matter? They are bloody heroes of our country. Did you know that? Read history. Read their profiles and you will know how huge an influence they have had on the history of this nation and how positively have they impacted the thought process and policy making in this country. You will find that (Irrespective of their political affiliations) they have managed to inspire billions of youngsters in the country to follow their path of social justice, “Lokniti”, education policy etc. They were inspirational and devoted their lives to the cause of betterment of the country. Tell me, how many of you know that K Kamaraj is still hailed for facilitating the spread of education to millions of the rural poor by introducing free education and free mid-day meals scheme in schools (during his tenure as Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu in 1957). He was the first one in the whole world to start this. Today it has been adapted even by UN. He was a Bharat Ratna. So was JP. But do we (amongst ourselves) talk about them as Heroes of this country? If these heroes are not talked about today – it is our fault really. Ignorance…pure ignorance

Alright, how many of us know about the greats who have been awarded Bharat Ratna. Bharat Ratna is the highest Civilian Award in our country (I am sure everyone knows that). How many know about Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna recipients? No one bothers about them and no one seems to be interested really. But for these great personalities to get Bharat Ratna or Khel Ratna is no mean achievement. You and I have not got it and given our attitude – we will never ever get it. Isn’t it then important that we respect these achievers and hail them as our heroes? Isn’t it time we found more about such Heroes (starting from list of distinguished Bharat Ratna and Khet Ratna recipients) and tell their stories to our kids to start with? Without any bias – if I may add? That would be a good beginning. Wouldn’t it?

A society without Heroes is a group walking in dark, without a light. You need such heroes in every society and in every generation. We do not need Ram, Krishna, and Buddha as our heroes. They are perhaps beyond that level. We need Heroes who are relevant to the current times. It is important to remember that every person will have their follies. These champions are hailed as heroes not necessarily because of who they are. They are our Heroes for what they have done in their lives to achieve immortality/greatness. Even Ram, Krishna and all the deities of world have had their follies (and I won’t get into that here). But we still consider them as Gods. Don’t we? So, it should not be so difficult for us to accept the current heroes with their own set of weaknesses. In fact such weakness or flaws in the Heroes make us believe even we can be like them if we tried. That should serve as inspiration really. Let us hence propagate all the good virtues that these champions of life embody. These genuine heroes have achieved such greatness after a lot of sacrifice. It is our responsibility to not to belittle those sacrifices with our horrendous attitude and undesirable assessments.

And to all those self-appointed, undesirable critics of society I say – leave my heroes alone and Shut the hell up.

Its Montoo..

(28^th Sep 2009’ – 12^th Oct 2009’)