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If one wanted to have a bulletin on the health of our nation, he could do no worse than look at the front page headlines of The New Indian Express of 23rd September 2011. For those who do not subscribe to this paper, let me list them below:
The pride of place goes to “Worried PM Tries to Limit Damage, Save PC”.
On the sidelines you will read “Sensex plunges 704 points”, Delhi Blast Accused Remanded till Oct 5”, “Four Roads Still Blocked in Sikkim”, and “Fresh Flood Alert in Orissa”. Other main stories carry the headings, “DMK MLA Made Rs. 238 crore from Illegal Land Mining”, and “Mines, Factories Razed 2 Lakh Hectares of Forest in 4 Yrs” under “Government Approved Deforestation”.
After reading such a catalogue of the drastic diseases that have paralysed the body of the nation into a deep coma, the news about the death of a great cricketing son of India on the same front page comes as a shock that makes one wake up to the fact that there are real flesh-and-blood people still inhabiting this land. The picture of the Home Minister “taking stock” of the damage done by the Sikkim earthquake, and apparently visiting some victims in a Gangtok hospital, accompanied by a single white-coated doctor, while flanked by a whole lot of security personnel, says it most eloquently. Of course, there is no mention of what the Home Minister said or did to alleviate the sufferings of the unfortunate victims of this “natural” disaster. But with regard to his involvement in the 2G scam, all he had to say was, “I have assured the Prime Minister that I shall not make any public statement on the subject until he returns to India”. Great words from an eloquent Harvard alumnus!
How the government must be wishing they could impose a similar kind of the code of omerta as has been observed/enforced in the case of the health bulletin of the Congress Party’s President! In 1975 it was tried with reasonable success when the earlier Mrs. Gandhi imposed her emergency on the country. While protesting against press censorship, when a national daily published a blank editorial page, its editor was called to the office of the I&B Minister, Mr. V. C. Shukla, who threatened him with dire consequences, as that kind of effrontery was not “permittible” (sic).
After glancing through the headlines of the front page one really needs a lot of courage to open the other pages, as more of the same damaging information comes across. The nation is so far gone that not one organ of its body seems to be functioning. The almost unbeatable combination of two Sardar economists, after great intellectual effort, have come to the conclusion that with Rs. 25 a day a rural citizen can lead a comfortable life, and would not need any support from the government. Earlier one of these two had commented that the recent rise in petrol prices was “good”, as it would demonstrate to the West how serious we were about economic reforms. The only people I know who can subsist on Rs 25 a day are the Members of Parliament. This fact can be verified by having a look at the price list on the menu of the Lok Sabha Canteen. With such Doctors leading the team, no wonder the newspapers continue to read like obituary columns!
The Hindu recently carried a column written by P. Sainath analyzing the increase in the wealth of our legislators. The figures he quoted were taken from the actual declarations made by the legislators themselves. The figures show that in the past four years a majority of these individuals’ wealth has grown exponentially. Their daily increment in wealth ranges from Rs 5 lakhs to a staggering Rs. 50 lakhs.
This kind of unabashed loot has happened under the continuous rule of the Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh and the UPA Chairperson, Mrs. Sonia Gandhi. Dr. Singh may not have added significantly to his own material possessions, but there are some people who find it headier to remain at the apex, and for that they will make any amount of compromises. Position, by itself, becomes their reward. If he lasts this term, he will be the only person after Jawaharlal Nehru and Mrs. Indira Gandhi to complete ten years at the helm. The manner in which he has outsmarted the other aspirants without having to undergo the rough-and-tumble of elections shows what a shrewd mind is hiding behind that bland expressionless look. He has successfully neutered the chances of his rival Pranab Mukherji and kept Rahul Gandhi busy with meaningless photo-ops. By a deliberate willingness to look the other way while his colleagues loot the country, and by keeping his hands firmly in his own pocket, he has created an impression among the intelligentsia that he is the only honest man in the party and thereby he has made himself irreplaceable. The media has bought this spiel and almost all columnists are willing to give him the longest possible rope. Almost all his acts of omission are forgiven with a statement that “the personal integrity of the Prime Minister remains unquestionable”. His handling of the Anna Hazare phenomenon further reinforces this theory when he kept himself in the background and allowed Pranab Mukherji, P. Chidambaram, Kapil Sibal, Salman Khurshid, and others to tie themselves up in knots and stand totally exposed and discredited in the harsh glare of the media light. Even Rahul Gandhi played into his hands when he made his intervention in the Lok Sabha and committed himself to a stand against the popular Jan Lokpal Draft Bill.
Tomorrow’s newspaper is unlikely to carry headlines that would cheer the common man in this unfortunate country. With the rupee having plunged steeply to almost fifty per US Dollar, and the stock market reeling under global recessionary fears, you can bet your bottom paisa that the prices of petroleum products, including domestic gas, will again be increased; inflation will cross into double-digits, and that the RBI will further revise the interest rates upwards. The Planning Commission will also, in the fitness of things, present a revised figure of Rs. 40 per day as the threshold income for BPL classification, and feel proud of its magnanimity. The depredation of our natural resources will continue unabated, while floods and earthquakes will strike some other part causing havoc, but providing our politicians with plenty of opportunities to conduct aerial surveys and get themselves photographed with their panoply of grandeur.
The pride of place goes to “Worried PM Tries to Limit Damage, Save PC”.
On the sidelines you will read “Sensex plunges 704 points”, Delhi Blast Accused Remanded till Oct 5”, “Four Roads Still Blocked in Sikkim”, and “Fresh Flood Alert in Orissa”. Other main stories carry the headings, “DMK MLA Made Rs. 238 crore from Illegal Land Mining”, and “Mines, Factories Razed 2 Lakh Hectares of Forest in 4 Yrs” under “Government Approved Deforestation”.
After reading such a catalogue of the drastic diseases that have paralysed the body of the nation into a deep coma, the news about the death of a great cricketing son of India on the same front page comes as a shock that makes one wake up to the fact that there are real flesh-and-blood people still inhabiting this land. The picture of the Home Minister “taking stock” of the damage done by the Sikkim earthquake, and apparently visiting some victims in a Gangtok hospital, accompanied by a single white-coated doctor, while flanked by a whole lot of security personnel, says it most eloquently. Of course, there is no mention of what the Home Minister said or did to alleviate the sufferings of the unfortunate victims of this “natural” disaster. But with regard to his involvement in the 2G scam, all he had to say was, “I have assured the Prime Minister that I shall not make any public statement on the subject until he returns to India”. Great words from an eloquent Harvard alumnus!
How the government must be wishing they could impose a similar kind of the code of omerta as has been observed/enforced in the case of the health bulletin of the Congress Party’s President! In 1975 it was tried with reasonable success when the earlier Mrs. Gandhi imposed her emergency on the country. While protesting against press censorship, when a national daily published a blank editorial page, its editor was called to the office of the I&B Minister, Mr. V. C. Shukla, who threatened him with dire consequences, as that kind of effrontery was not “permittible” (sic).
After glancing through the headlines of the front page one really needs a lot of courage to open the other pages, as more of the same damaging information comes across. The nation is so far gone that not one organ of its body seems to be functioning. The almost unbeatable combination of two Sardar economists, after great intellectual effort, have come to the conclusion that with Rs. 25 a day a rural citizen can lead a comfortable life, and would not need any support from the government. Earlier one of these two had commented that the recent rise in petrol prices was “good”, as it would demonstrate to the West how serious we were about economic reforms. The only people I know who can subsist on Rs 25 a day are the Members of Parliament. This fact can be verified by having a look at the price list on the menu of the Lok Sabha Canteen. With such Doctors leading the team, no wonder the newspapers continue to read like obituary columns!
The Hindu recently carried a column written by P. Sainath analyzing the increase in the wealth of our legislators. The figures he quoted were taken from the actual declarations made by the legislators themselves. The figures show that in the past four years a majority of these individuals’ wealth has grown exponentially. Their daily increment in wealth ranges from Rs 5 lakhs to a staggering Rs. 50 lakhs.
This kind of unabashed loot has happened under the continuous rule of the Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh and the UPA Chairperson, Mrs. Sonia Gandhi. Dr. Singh may not have added significantly to his own material possessions, but there are some people who find it headier to remain at the apex, and for that they will make any amount of compromises. Position, by itself, becomes their reward. If he lasts this term, he will be the only person after Jawaharlal Nehru and Mrs. Indira Gandhi to complete ten years at the helm. The manner in which he has outsmarted the other aspirants without having to undergo the rough-and-tumble of elections shows what a shrewd mind is hiding behind that bland expressionless look. He has successfully neutered the chances of his rival Pranab Mukherji and kept Rahul Gandhi busy with meaningless photo-ops. By a deliberate willingness to look the other way while his colleagues loot the country, and by keeping his hands firmly in his own pocket, he has created an impression among the intelligentsia that he is the only honest man in the party and thereby he has made himself irreplaceable. The media has bought this spiel and almost all columnists are willing to give him the longest possible rope. Almost all his acts of omission are forgiven with a statement that “the personal integrity of the Prime Minister remains unquestionable”. His handling of the Anna Hazare phenomenon further reinforces this theory when he kept himself in the background and allowed Pranab Mukherji, P. Chidambaram, Kapil Sibal, Salman Khurshid, and others to tie themselves up in knots and stand totally exposed and discredited in the harsh glare of the media light. Even Rahul Gandhi played into his hands when he made his intervention in the Lok Sabha and committed himself to a stand against the popular Jan Lokpal Draft Bill.
Tomorrow’s newspaper is unlikely to carry headlines that would cheer the common man in this unfortunate country. With the rupee having plunged steeply to almost fifty per US Dollar, and the stock market reeling under global recessionary fears, you can bet your bottom paisa that the prices of petroleum products, including domestic gas, will again be increased; inflation will cross into double-digits, and that the RBI will further revise the interest rates upwards. The Planning Commission will also, in the fitness of things, present a revised figure of Rs. 40 per day as the threshold income for BPL classification, and feel proud of its magnanimity. The depredation of our natural resources will continue unabated, while floods and earthquakes will strike some other part causing havoc, but providing our politicians with plenty of opportunities to conduct aerial surveys and get themselves photographed with their panoply of grandeur.
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