Is Modi the only way out?.....Yes.

Before the left-leaning intellectuals and the pseudo-secular fools sharpen their knives, i confess i am usually on the Right side of the political spectrum.

Right wing politics has always been judged unfairly in India. The Nehru-charisma meant that stalwarts like Shyama Prasad Mukherjee were overshadowed. Not many know that it was Mr. Mukherjee who so daringly and staunchly championed India's sovereignty over Kashmir and lost his life when he entered Kashmir against orders in 1953. Rumors say that he was poisoned by Nehru!! Who knows there might be some truth in that! There was no post mortem after all. I smell a rat.

Decades later the Janta Party emerged as the political alternative to the post-Emergency Congress, it was an amalgam of people of all hues and colours. One such shade was the Bharatiya Jan Sangha. It mothered the present day Bharatiya Janta Party - the only right-of-centre political formation we have had. With an orator like Vajpayee and an ideological stalwart Advani, it went from strength to strength. Today, the best lines on the political spectrum come from this party. For anyone who doubts, i request you watch this - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RgjT4-lewM - it will show you how wide is the gulf in calibre between even the Gandhis of the two parties,Congress and BJP.

However, like a team studded with stars that is always likely to implode, the BJP seems to be on the verge of imploding. And that's pretty bad news for the country. There are "camps" - Advani camp, Sushma camp, Rajnath camp, Gadkari is alone one bloody big camp! Yes there is a NaMo Camp too. So what we have is a worse than mediocre government and a super-capable but immature opposition. The Left is still licking its wounds it suffered in the Sundarbans! It is a state of political rot.

However there is one person who has not yet dirtied his hands in these muddy waters. Narendra Modi. A man who polarises public opinion like no one else ever did in India. A man who makes no secret of "being a Hindu ". Thankfully so, because it is ironic that in this country while everyone else - Muslim, Sikh, Christian, Parsi -can thump his chest and claim and proclaim and profess and promote his religion, a Hindu who does so is seen as a "fanatic". If i say "Yes, I am a Hindu" , it does not mean "You Hindu? No.Wait, I'l show you life". It only means that I am a Hindu. And i love my religion. As much as you may love yours. 

But even today, no one asks why were the Kar Sevaks burnt alive. All one asks is why were Muslims killed in Gujarat! Well there is an answer to that which Mr. Raghavan in his SIT report highlighted - because the previous night, at mosques across Godhra ,petrol was pooled, provocative speeches were made and then the next day kar sevaks - Hindus- were burnt alive in a train. And people expect a community that makes up for more than 4/5th of this country to stay calm. Violent retaliation may not be what any of us would want to be the case, but sadly, through out history, retaliation has been violent and it has been severe. More so when a majority is attacked, more so when history reads a "Direct Action Day", a bloody partition, and a Pakistan. This can be a long debate for another day.

People ask why did Modi allow it to happen! Because he possibly could not have stopped it. And because he possibly did not want to stop it. Because possibly the hurt sentiments were too strong to enslave. Because every action does have a reaction. Collateral damage is a reality. Anyway, where is the proof that he "allowed" it to happen! Is it ever possible to reign in mob that has been engulfed in fires of religious violence! He asked the neighbouring states of M.P.( under Digvijay Singh then) and Rajasthan (under Ashok Gehlot then) for police force reinforcement. Both declined. Why? No one asks that. 

To shut the Congress-wallahs up, we know for sure that Modi did not give people the "Big-tree-falls-earth-shakes" shit ( Rajiv Gandhi @ 1984 Anti-Sikh riots). 

The Left is the only truly non-religious political formation. They have earned their right to hate the 
Right. The Congress, the SP, RJD etc are dirty bastions of pseudo-secular hypocrites. Maulana Mulayam has been the fiercest advocate of SIMI - the organised production line of Indian terror saplings. Lohia ji left a totally unworthy legacy. Another of his chelas - Lalu - spared not even the poor cattle. Shame.

With the Left refusing to notice the tide of changing times, we are left with a polity that seems to be static, stagnant and servile.

It is in such times that a country needs to get its act together and think like a "nation". And needs a hard taskmaster at the helm. Not a "yes-man" who bleeds responsibility through all sides without enjoying an iota of authority. We need some one who can and will take tough decisions. Someone who can say 'no' to his own party if that is in the nation's interest ; Who would not cite "coalition compulsions" to take cover under for his failures ;Who would keep the administration on its toes ; Who would be a powerful Pradhan Mantri and not a mere smiling buddha !!! We need some one who could tell Pakistan in no uncertain terms that act or face the music. Some one who could identify the illegal immigrants in Assam and send them home or send them to jail. We need someone who can act, and not merely mumbles sher-o-shayari.

In the name of 'secularism', the Congress Party has been building ghettos of the Muslim community, segregating them, isolating them, provoking them with an anti-Hindu anti- BJP stance that could spell doom for India. Secularism has come to mean "Appease the minority, Forget others".  From a religio-neutral dictat of the Constitution, the Congress has taken us to a Decidedly-Pro-Muslim State kind of status. We were a secular state. We no more are. We are now a minority-appeasement state.

Communalism is another much raped term in our country. Originally,it means "related to an ehnic community". It has nothing to do with religion, and absolutely nothing to do with religious orthodoxy and fanaticism. In India, it is a term coined by hollow intellectuals to take on the Hindu revival movement. And it raises its head only when the sufferer is the Muslim community. Never the other way round. It becomes self-defence then! So much for the secular farts. 

That apart, we need who can move beyond doles. We need to provide productive aid to our people. Not doles. UPA 1 & 2 has perfected the art of 'doles-for-votes' strategy. It only makes the people more and more dependent on the state. Not productively dependent i mean. There has to be out of the box thinking like installing solar panels along and over rivers and canals - as Modi has done in Gujarat. Rivers have to be cleaned. The system has to be cleaned as well.

AB Vajpayee's mission of high-density rural and urban connectivity has to be resumed. Sadak, pani & bijli - these have to be massively pushed towards the hinterland. Our guns and tanks and ships and air crafts have to be refitted and re-organised. People have to be forced out of their slumber and into action.

On every front, there is an urgent need for ACTION. The longer this urge for action is responded to with inaction, the faster we deteriorate and disintegrate. 

Narendra Modi does not and will not think in terms of hindu-musalman. Agreed that we need universities in Murshidabad and in Mallapuram, but why the hell do we need to label them as " Centres of Aligarh Muslim University "? Because we are hypocrites.  If religion of the majority of the targeted population of an area is the criteria , we need to open at least 12 Centres of Banaras Hindu University as well !!! 

Why do we need to give huge amounts of funds for Madarasa education? Why not try and get our muslim children to the non-religious Primary Schools. Why do we have to make them feel segregated? Should we not a Uniform Civil Code ? To Nehru's credit, he gave us a reformed Hindu Code Bill, against heavy opposition.Why did we not reform the Sharia ? If national integration was the reason given for Hindu reforms by Nehru, he would have served us better with a Uniform Civil Code. Even today we need one. Urgently. Modi may be the only one today who has the guts to do that. No one else even in the BJP can.

Modi's arrival would leave the Lalu-Mulayam-Karunanidhi-Congress axis-of-evil a lot less relevant than it is today. It would bode well for strong and efficient Chief Ministers willing to work and develop with the Nation as a whole. It would also spare us the doomsday scenario of Rahul Ji being crowned as the head of the government- damn even the thought of it is so scary! 

Crucially, Modi does not have a family to protect and promote. He does not have a son wanting to be PM and a damaad wanting to take the country for granted. And the best part is that he does not take his dictation from Nagpur -the RSS head quarters- which the rest of the BJP tends to do. 


He is fiercely independent and a workaholic (contrast that with what we have today ).

He would serve the NATION well. 

Kejriwal - support you we should. But with caution.

In the dusty interiors of Western UP and Haryana, the bania is an interesting character. One with no scruples whatsoever and with single-minded focus on money and profit. One who would rob you with the proverbial meethi chhuri ! However when it comes to being combative, people believe a bania can be anything but that. There are jokes that mock this supposed lack of mardaangi. That is how stereotypes are cast in our society.

Arvind Kejriwal is a bania from Haryana. And he defies all perceptions that people have about his caste. One, he has his heart in the right place. Two, he is always ready for a fight, however high and mighty the opponent may be. And finally, he is acerbic and hard to befriend. That makes for an instant recipe for attracting a lot of derision. Because such are the times we live in.

Kejriwal has always been uncomfortable about the way our systems work. His professors at IIT recall a young man who wanted to change things in whichever way he could. For the better. He used to be uneasy about the chalta hai attitude of all. It must have been with this will to make things better that he aimed for and got through the civil services exam. As an officer in the Income Tax department, his colleagues say, he worked for change earnestly. But they also say they could sense a rebel in him who could stand up to any person or process that was crooked. Try hard he did,but to no avail. IT department signifies all that is wrong with the sarkari bandobast.  Epitome of corruption in a moth-eaten , rotten system. And so Mr. Arvind moved from IT to a field where he could fare much better. And he did. He turned a social activist.

Working with Aruna Roy, the RTI was his grand success. Ramon Magsaysay in 2006, he took off. Gradually, like an undercurrent , he built a base that would serve him well in 2011. Anna was the superstar , Kejriwal the director. An year later, the superstar has faded, the director is going strong.

Why to love him?

Now , there is no doubt the man means business. He is ready to take all the brickbats if it means he can better people's lives. And that is why he needs to be supported. He is one of us. He wears his shirt like the school teacher of a suburb. He does not wear starched white kurtas or shiny bandgalas. His oration is so very middle class - brutal and frank.Most importantly, he believes in what he says and does. His kathni and karni tend to converge in a political system where for most(if not all) other politicians the opposite it true.

Aam Aadmi

He brings a much needed honesty of intentions to the table. Unlike the G-family, he is ready to face the media,ready to answer their menacing questions, ready to be challenged into a debate, ready to fight - for a cause. Apart from Lohia and JP we have hardly had any politician who believed in a cause with so much of sincerity and courage. We need a lot many Arvinds for their courage and conviction.

He also offers a rare combination- an honest heart and a brilliant brain. He has all it takes to turn the system around. Except popular support of course. He has a love for details and understands the nuances very well. He also has that much needed ability to say "NO". A yes-man is more gullible. Kejriwal is not easy to fool. 

Connecting with people is something he is learning fast. His rock solid belief in his ideas has often resulted in people parting ways with him. But over the last year and a half, the man has taken to a more democratic manner of functioning. He is learning his alphabets well.

More than anything else, he MUST be supported because he offers what no one else does at the moment - HOPE. We all know he can't get more than a couple of good people elected in the next elections in Delhi, yet we also acknowledge that the man is good for us. At a time when the Con-gress stands exposed with its soiled pants and the party with a difference BJP is embroiled in its own internal civil-war, Kejri and his team at least offer a different kind of politics. At least for people who think that the UPA - NDA bipolarity is akin to choosing between Scylla and Charybdis, Aam Aadmi Party offers a silver lining.

Why to fear him ?

But then he has a fundamental flaw - his ultra-leftist views. I believe-more out of hope than conviction- that his ideas on big government spending on subsidies are more out of josh than hosh. If he really is an anarchist that he come across to be, then he would better be an eternal Opposition. If not, we can vote for him.

We can not afford any more of 'left' . The Left is always there. The Congress seems to out-left the Left. Even the so called Right ( the BJP ) is slightly towards the left of right. We do not need another Sonia-G led NAC to offer a MNREGA that creates useless employment. We need better primary schools and better teachers and better doctors and better administrators. Doling out reservations will not work, doling out jobs will not work. What will work is imparting skills, educating children, and empowering women. If we were to place all parties on a scale from left to right, Kejriwal ( and his AAP ) would probably stand at the left most tip of that scale, with all barring the BJP to the left of centre.

                                                                         Anarchist ?

And that is why he poses a danger. His economics aims to take us "back into the future". His actions make him a perfect Leader Of Opposition but with the kind of policies he seems to envisage, to see him as the head of a government is to play a ultra-high-risk-game. Purely for the economics of it.

All in all, the heart says let us give him a chance, while the head underlines the need to be cautious. But as goes the saying - when the heart speaks, the mind finds it indecent to object. 

SONIA ji & RAHUL ji - Will You Please Excuse Us!!!

As 2014 beckons, we need to take stock of how have we allowed this country to be run the way it is being run. What transpired between the night when we had our tryst with destiny and this day when we have a battery of ministers hell bent upon turning a multi-crore scam into a few-crore one and ultimately into a zero-loss aberration !!! Its a long story and could run into numerous volumes of history. 65 years of history is too eventful to cover. 

But one thing that has run parallel to our fate till today is our fixation with the Gandhi(Nehru) parivar. For all that Jawahar Lal Nehru was - a champion of democracy,secularism, fabian socialism - he was also a hopeless romantic who viewed things from a high pedestal,true to his classy upbringing. Ram Manohar Lohia's jibe in the Lok Sabha - contrasting the income of a common man and the money spent on Nehru's dog - signified all that was wrong with Nehru. You could trust him to be well-intentioned but then intentions don't build nations. Actions do. His well-bred daughter kicked her dad's dream of democracy aside as she laid the foundations of the sultanat to whose reign we are still subjected to - The Gandhi Sultanat.

When Sonia ji so cleverly draped her inability to lead the nation with a farce of a sacrifice in 2004 and chose to install a puppet Pradhan Mantri , the ever-so-gullible Indian exalted her to a status that few have enjoyed in this poor country. Little did the common man know that there would be a NATIONAL ADVISORY COUNCIL - led by the same lady which would be the real fountain  authority. Authority has since then flowed out of 10 Janpath while Responsibility is a poor soul that mumbles and grumbles at 7RCR.

No wonder our pradhan mantri has no knowledge of any scam. He still drives a Maruti 800 afterall. We don't blame you Sire. You are merely following the directives of the lady that this country trusted. Twice over. But the problem arises, Sire,when you go " Hazar zawabo se achi hai meri khamoshi, na jane kitne sawalo ki abru rakhe " . We wonder was the aabru so sacrosanct to be kept when right under your nose sychophants and thuggs looted the public exchequer! But then again, your kurta is clean because the mota maal goes to Italy via a different route.

And alongside all this we had a constant overdose of a bachelor baba who,if the Congress is to be believed, is the only baba left in India capable of curing it of the ills it is plagued by, - Rahul Baba! The messiah of a country of a billion and more, they say. Except for the fact that we know nothing about his education, we know nothing about his ideology, we know nothing about the solutions he proposes, we know nothing about his vision. Half a decade he has spent reforming the Youth Congress and only he knows what these reforms have been. I know it for a fact that his visits to the villages and bastis are planned a month in advance, the photo-ops are well choreographed, the food is squeaky clean, the actors are well paid. The cameras are 'bought'. 

Where was he when the youth of the capital was crying hoarse for change during the Anna Andolan? Why did he not come to Ramlila Maidan to give his side of the story and why did he not give his 'constitutional status' prescription before a crowd of thousands at Jantar Mantar? Why does he- and his mummy- go underground every time we face a crisis,only to emerge at rallies pointing a finger and grumbling "humne dilli se paisa bheja aapki sarkar kha gayi" . 

Ye paisa aapke pita ki jaagir nahi hai Rahul ji, ye paisa is desh ke har nagrik ki mehnat ka paisa hai. Aap isko bhejte nahi hai .aap bhej bhi nahi sakte aapki aukaat nahi hai.aap is paise ko lautate hai - janta ko. It is the money that the people of this country keep with the Government Of India ,protected by the Constitution and to be spent with all care and caution.You don't own it Brother.

Despite complete absence of meat and merit , Rahul ji is the de facto PM-in-waiting.  As if India is a large estate passed down from Nehru To Indira To Rajiv To Sonia To Rahul To Priyanka To who-so-ever-is-next-in-the-family. Even Vadra ji would someday grace the Cabinet if things work out to his plan!

Vadra, a one-time vagabond, is today desh ka daamad. Salman Khurshid can sell his soul,dharm and imaan  and much more just to defend Damaad Ji. And when he can not, he takes off the microphone and vanishes. Well tried Sir. You failed not only in your defence of Vadra ji, you also failed your pedigree. Dr. Zakir Hussain was as distinguished a statesman as India could ever get. You betray his blood with your sychophancy and guile.

Sonia Ji, the lady with the lamp of sacrifice, with the legacy of a sacrificed husband ( or a pradhan mantri husband who sold our ijjat and aabru to the Swiss!! ), with a starched saari to show for her Indian-ness and her ever so chaste Hindi, we thank you for all you have done for this nation. And we pray to you with folded hands, leave us to our own fate. Let Rahul baba chill out. You also take a nice long vacation.Please. And worry not, we'll take good care of Mr. Vadra. 

There is no end to the price we are paying for this parivar's sustenance. It is for us to decide how long we want to be ruled by a family that no longer carries Nehru's sincerity of heart nor his passion. It is for us to take our fate into our own hands and decide our own future. Let a thousand small parties spring up and let a thousand coalition governments form and fall, at least we'll learn how to run a country. Sooner or later we'll get it right. Madame,you and your family have tried long enough to ruin us. Somehow we still hold firm. You have completely turned a party that won us our freedom into a rotten warehouse while the likes of Digvijay Singh and Ambika Soni keep your ego well fed by their unabashed sycophancy. 

Our destiny - of 1200 million people - can not be written unilaterally by a mother-son duo. It should NOT be.