Suicidal Irony !

(On Farmer Committing Suicide in Bhopal.)

For the first time I paid (more) attention to a farmer’s suicide. I got two insights in the matter: one yesterday, one today.

Lets talk of today. I earlier thought that farmer’s suicide is an issue of states like Maharashtra, Andhra and Karnataka, even Bihar and UP, and the central government is ‘doing its best’ (announcing packages and debt relief funds, was it 60,000 crore?) to save them. I thought it never happened in Madhya Pradesh, so this suicide is a rare occurrence and must not bother us more.

But then I came across the data of farmer’s suicide in MP and was completely shocked to know that MP stands fifth in number of farmer’s suicide in the country with 1232 suicides, the top four states being Maharashtra (4238), Karnataka (2135), AP (1797) and Chhattisgarh (1593). As we know this is government data the actual figure would be much higher.

Coming over to the second point, we all are missing a crucial point in this suicide. While in all other places farmers commit suicide after being unable to pay the debts back, the farmer here was even denied the opportunity to take a loan by the corrupt government officials.

Adding to that, the road to thousands always starts with a single person and this is a very tragic and serious incident which may set precedent for all the other farmers facing similar situation, if the matter is not handled properly. The Tehsildar and Patwari have been suspended but a suspended officer can be reinstated. This can’t be termed as justice, action should be swift and stern against such officers, so that nobody dares to do something like this in the future, that’s the least we can do for people like him.

Please don’t call these people unfortunate because they are the victims of a well-planned and structured conspiracy not that of bad-luck and destiny. And we all are not only a part of the conspiracy but also active contributors.

From the Land of Bureaucrat-Politicians and Politician-Bureaucrats

I was reading through people’s queries on Jago website and the most common questions were related to its policies: Can it be done, how would you do it, etc. I have written about it many times (see here or here) but a new insight made me write this.

The question of implementation of promises and proposals is a crucial one for every concerned citizen but asking right questions at the right time is equally important. (I’ve got stuck in questions after the Where’s the Question article)

What has happened is the faulty functioning of our politicians for past many decades have changed our definition of a politician, we now see him as a bureaucrat-politician, one who does transfers and posting right from bottom to the top, who personally ‘delves’ in the matters of day to day administration and is remotely concerned with policies and agenda. After every election we see a series of transfers, cancellation of transfers, re-transfers, continue for many days.

Given such kind of functioning our bureaucrats have also turned the traditional definition of a bureaucrat upside down, they don’t hesitate to meddle in politics, many are directly involved in electioneering for their political bosses, they have turned into Politician-Bureaucrat. Any Politician-Bureaucrat is a darling for our politicians, who chase him till he does not join anyone of them.

This has made us ask administrative questions from politicians and political questions from bureaucrats. Ask a party why did you not do this work instead of asking how you failed to do it, Say I will vote for you once, you have to make sure all that you've said is done in 5 years otherwise I'll kick you out.

I tried to make a list of how a system should function , so that we can understand the difference between a politician and a bureaucrat.

1. The Political Party & The Politicians: a group of citizens who come together based on their belief in similar ideas and solutions. It contests elections, if comes to power makes the policy decisions (based on its manifesto and ideology), selects the leaders (not the whole bureaucratic team) for its implementation and supervises the work.

2. The People: decide what the direction of the nation should be through the elections. They are the real owners of the agenda of the political party they have voted in and they make sure that it’s implemented by the party by the fear of getting voted out in next elections.

3. The Government & The Bureaucracy: It is the tool, the instrument, the machinery that does the work assigned to it by the elected leadership, it does the all work, what it should do is decided by the political party in power, who is elected (decided) by the people based on the proposals and promises of the party.

The Conclusion is: (To Reiterate) The Bureaucracy does all the work, The Work is decided by the government which is a part of Political Party that gets voted in by the people. The People decide which Party gets their votes by the party’s agenda and manifesto.

Then the natural question is why people criticize the policies and proposals of a political party even when they can simply ignore it by not voting for it. The best explanation for it to me is that people feel somewhat connected to the party and its proposals, they try to test the resolve of the people behind it, they want to see are these people plain opportunists or persons of altogether different mettle.

Ready to JUMP?

[a little explanation of the title: I saw this photo and the question that came to my mind was Are they standing at gates so that they can jump out. ]

Well from past two days Indian railways has clouded my thinking I want to get over it so I am writing this.

The news of paper leak didn’t shock me that much as we have seen papers of CAT, IAS, PSC leak all over the country in the past decade or so, this is just a small paper. But then the light in my mind lit, the exam was for assistant loco pilot( don’t know what’s that it is Assistant ENGINE DRIVER), a chill went down my spine. Now my mind raced, here are some questions I asked to myself:

1. This is just one case, the person (culprit) might be involved in many other paper leaks and many would be serving in the railways already, what about that?

2. Can we rely on railways and its employees for a safe journey, what’s the guarantee that a ‘leaked-paper’ selected loco-driver will not misread a signal?

3. If the questions in the exam are testing general awareness and mental ability and have no connection to the job why even bother for an exam, recruit on a draw of lots with eligibility criteria of board exam results/ degree results.

4. Why every big leader from Bihar wants to keep Railway Ministry, is it because most people who appear in these exams are from Bihar and UP, with a large scale recruitment racket charging 2-4 lakhs from each candidate operating, this is a very lucrative business, and it is important to keep it under wraps.

5. Shouldn’t the Railway Minister be charged with homicide the next time a train accident happens?

6. The Indian Railways carry daily crores of passengers, is it not God’s grace that no major accidents have taken place on large numbers?

7. WHY PEOPLE ARE STILL SLEEPING? ANY DAY THEY WILL DIE DUE TO CORRUPTION AND OTHERS WILL BLAME BAD LUCK OR HUMAN ERROR FOR IT. GO AHEAD SLEEP, EVEN KUMBHKARAN CAN'T BEAT YOUR RECORD; EVEN I AM GOING TO SLEEP.

BYE!.

SEVERELY RETARDED: THE CONDITION OF INDIA’S INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES.

For the past few days we have seen a spurt in the warnings issued by the Intelligence Agencies. Terrorists have formed sleeper cells, they will attack Red Fort, they will attack Gujarat, they will attack Jamnagar Refinery, they will attack through Air, they will attack important locations in Eastern India. And so on. I want to ask what the hell is going on?

They are issuing the warning letters as if they are appreciation letters to the bureaucrats. By putting our forces and administration on high alert throughout the country, we are not only increasing the stress levels of them but the people as a whole. If nothing happens or fruitful comes out of this, the next time these reports will not be paid attention which may prove fatal. (heard the story of the boy who shouted bhediya aaya to tease people and then was caught one day without any help)

I am no expert in this field but this I know for sure that the intelligence agencies succeed in their duty and work only if they provide specific and accurate information, otherwise there is no difference between them and the Rumour Mongers. I think why not book them for spreading rumours, if their information is false, at least we will have some accountability, when all we know of them is they are the ‘khoofiya sootra/strot/agency’, ‘vishvasht sootra/strot’.