A Vote of Thanks: Jago Bhopal Blogger Symposium 2008

Thank you all for making this event the most successful one I have ever organized in my life. You will laugh at this statement but this is the truth.

These four responses to my words from people I don't even know, I haven't even met, are more precious to me than those from people I know. It fills you with pride that such people are there in our society who are ready to listen to strangers, it fills you with responsibility that people are listening to you, watching you, talking to you.

Since this was an unadvertised (and random) event by an unknown representative of an unknown party , I was hoping for just one response this year to continue this mission, but got four instead. Apart from the above, it also signifies that how grim the situation is, how fed people are with the system, how they are willing to change it, even run it. It hurts all of us that our country is not going in the right direction and we are unable to do anything about it. As said in 'A Wednesday', we are a part of this rot not by choice but by force.

I want to stress again the point that this problem stemmed from democracy and democracy alone can solve it. The secret ballot is the most powerful weapon in this war, nobody can tell whom have you voted, that's a power par excellence.

The main problem today however is the Crisis of Leadership, we don't have right people at the right places, I think most our problems will be solved if we can ensure this. For this people, the common citizens have to come forward to contest elections and participate actively in our polity. Nobody has probed the pulse of the citizens, Jago Party can and should be that platform, why should people be afraid or ashamed of doing something right.

The job that requires the least qualifications but has maximum impact on our lives has no takers of good people, why do we fear this job, we just have to order the bureaucracy and the government machinery that people want this get this done. They have to do it, its their job to do it and the job of people's representatives is to ensure and supervise this work and change the leaders of the teams if found inefficient. Is it a very hard job? Why don't people come forward to accept this simple fact and their responsibilities?

These four people are thus worthy of respect and a hearty thanks, because they came forward when nobody else did.

Leaving you with this video hoping that you may awaken (pay attention to what Gehlot has to say):



Do you remember the lines,
Shame on you if you fool me once,
Shame on me if you fool me twice!

Keep thinking over these lines, think about what's going wrong,

Jai Hind.

Latent Dissent.

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.

The Cabinet is Balanced ! (Shivraj Singh, MP's Chief Minister)

[PHOTO: Everything is balanced and under control.]


“The cabinet is balanced. It has been formed keeping in mind the regional balance and caste equations. Efforts have been made to give representation to all the regions and castes in the state,”
- Madhya Pradesh's Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan. [READ FULL STORY HERE]

See I have no problems with how these politicians balance their seats and power, I have a problem with the way it has been made essential part of our polity where even a single politician may hold the government at ransom claiming to be of a particular region or caste. And they claim to work for eliminating casteism and regionalism from our polity. This will never be done, never by these people, what they will do till their deaths is to hollow and divide this country so that we are again captured by some foreign powers. Remember not a large army was needed to subvert India in the past be it the Plunderers or the Traders. It is not impossible that one day Pakistan will be ruling India.

Have people voted you for caste and regional issues Mr. Chauhan, where's the development card you were playing before elections. I have said in my article on MP's election results that your real test will be held in 2013, not in 2008. Till then balance your 'kursis', 'gaddis' and 'satta'. By the way, for your kind information, your predecessor Mr. Digvijay Singh, whom you call Mr. Bantadhaar, also tried this kind of social engineering and see where he has been exiled to, hope you learn from his mistakes too.

For all my friends I want to say see for yourself how the tone, language and vocabulary of politicians change after elections.

"This is the victory of the BJP and its government's policies specially the welfare measures taken by the ruling party for the people of the state. It is a victory of 6.5 crore people of the state," jubilant Chouhan accompanied by the party's national general secretary and state incharge Anant Kumar told reporters at his official residence." [READ FULL ARTICLE HERE]

JAAGO INDIA JAAGO !

United For Terror:

[N.B.: The person who has written this text seems to be mentally deranged, kindly read with caution!]

OK the Mumbai attacks have at least brought unity in our country’s political parties both seem to be United FOR Terror, each issuing a new message to terrorists and Pakistan with each passing day. Here is a small compilation of these statements in form of open one-sided contract:

1. The UPA led by Congress:

1. Terrorists may attack at will, we will ensure that all our administrative and intelligence machinery will sleep, to allow them safe passage.

2. Pakistan’s foreign ministry need not worry, we will ourselves create rift between the Hindu and Muslim communities, so that our citizens may not ask hard questions from you.

3. We promise that the changes in our administrative system will be cursory, the depths where the real rot is will be left untouched.

4. We are a secular party but behind the doors we believe in the concept of ‘Transmigration of Souls’ (mentioned in Gita) and we have applied it in real life. Our Real Life Gods, our leaders ensure that whoever loses his seat is fixed at a new place (seat) as soon as possible. The Transmigration is based on loyalty to ‘The Family’.

2. The NDA led by BJP:

1. Attacks would not be tolerated especially if they are on politicians, but we promise to fulfill all the demands in cases of kidnapping and abduction.

2. Pakistan’s foreign ministry must be prepared for some random acts like we will fight while having summits, shout ‘Hot Pursuits’ and ‘Aar Paar Ki Ladaayi’ but sit over our arses, so that the confusion persist for long and we can take any stand depending on the situation.

3. We promise far reaching changes, we will make stringent laws but won’t change the system so that we can use them for our benefit, we will further polarize and crystallize prejudices against Muslims in Hindus. We will ensure the adrenaline rush so that half of people die of heart attack and the rest fighting in riots.

4. As you know our party is based on Hindu ideology, our leaders ride ‘Rathas’ (Chariots), we firmly believe in the concept of Transmigration of Souls and Seats. The Transmigration is based on person’s utility, power and money, either the profiles are changed from high to low, in some rare cases the person is kicked out from the party.

3. Hearing that we were doing a story on Terrorism (which is selling like hot cakes nowadays), many other important politicians contacted us, here is a compilation of what they have to say:

1. We promise to disrespect the country.

2. We promise to disrespect its martyrs and true leaders.

3. We promise to disrespect its people as and when possible, in as many ways possible.

4. We promise to create hullabaloo during election days and first few days of any crisis, rest of the days we will do what we are best at doing. (details of this work have to be filled by the reader!)

So friends this is a small compilation of our political parties’ stand on our war on terror where we are not united against terror but UNITED FOR TERROR, take it in writing the next attack is very near.

JAI HIND!

[P.S.: KINDLY TAKE THE ARTICLE IN THE WAY IT IS INTENDED, FOREIGN FRIENDS BEWARE!]

[Influenced by successive statements of politicians: Vilasrao Deshmukh, R.R. Patil, V.S. Achutyanandan, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, A.R. Antulay, Jaswant Singh, Digvijay Singh, and others.]

Stop Piracy. Why?

Piracy is stealing; it kills the industry associated with it. But it poses a greater threat, most of the pirated music and film business runs from Pakistan. Their websites as well as people earn money that belongs both legally and ethically with Indian Music and Film Industry.

But our industry is also at fault, they don’t listen to what the people are saying. Can you compete with a Free of Cost Download or a Cheap DVD by calling it illegal? No. The problem is first you yourself steal tunes, stories, etc. from somewhere else without paying royalty. Then you hide the actual cost of making the movie/album and financial sources thereof. Adding to that, you fail to understand the Demand and Supply.

Most trade analyst agree that the Film Industry now runs on the first three days. Why can’t you release the DVD or telecast it online or put it up on Movie On Demand channels of various DTH that are available on the fourth day. Plus the price of many DVDs is still prohibitive. You don’t give the customer a choice and call his actions flawed. Make the services available and people will turn to you. Nobody likes to steal, with proper awareness campaign more and more people will join in.

Similar is the case of Music Industry. The Technology has all changed but even before that people preferred Top 10 or Double albums than whole album. It is fooling yourself to say each and every album has all 8-10 songs perfect and likeable. Often there are only a couple of songs people want from your album nobody has the time or patience to analyze your album. Whatever pleases the person is in rest all is out. Coming to technology people now are keeping their songs on ipods, computers and mobile phones. The game of Tapes and CDs is gone. The Music Industry should start selling music online, that too individual song not the complete album (they can even have special offers for complete albums) at right cost. Start doing this and see people coming to you automatically.

What have they to loose. Music Albums and movies are made available for downloads the same day what do you gain from it? The person or rather country that gains from our efforts is Pakistan. THINK AGAIN !

I am child of a corrupt person. Now what?

With corruption a way of life now, a non existing issue now, we all a part of this great ‘Chakki’ (grinder). I find the concept of Karma useful here.

You are responsible for your acts and not others’. Hindu mythology has a number of stories that deal with the issue. A solution was seen recently seen in the movie Rang De Basanti. Nobody is asking you to kill your parents, but try not to use the money or try to do some good work with it rather than conspicuously consuming it on yourself. Try to explain to them that you don’t need that much money.

Also remember they have lived their lives based on their principles, we can never understand the conditions they grew with. But we are responsible for our future and the coming generations, do you want your child ponder over this question, ASK AGAIN.

America is Unreliable. Why?

Whatever people claim, the reality is that USA funded Al Qaida and Taliban which turned into a menace. Even now, in lieu of the Pakistan’s support of War on Terror they are giving away million of dollars. Will they disclose the accounts that show what is happening to that money. Even the Iraq War started with the issue of WMD but it was part of their Oil Diplomacy.

War with Pakistan: Not now. Why?

First, proof is not out there. Then, as we are facing, Pakistan could also have disconnect between the government and the citizens. Even if we consider Pakistan guilty of the attack, we must also consider the scale of operation. They might have researched a number of loopholes in our system, bought off a couple of officers, consider the aftermath of attacking them. The whole world will laugh at us, let us first clean our house then take on the external enemies.

Politics is the field of scoundrels. Not correct.

The scoundrel line is the triumph card of those in politics. Through it they can keep away people from politics thereby reducing competition and securing a place for their generations to come. Also by doing this, they can do whatever they want without any accountability.

The onus is on us to break this code.

Information Technology can change our politics. How?

First, you are reading this blog so its impact and reach can’t be doubted. Then the advertising cost can be severely cut through it. It can also help bringing in transparency as every step of politics and governance can be debated and discussed on it. Even the choice of candidate can be made on it.

Nobody has tried or proved it cannot be done, so we can try it. Remember, the smallest action is much better than the noblest intention.

A Faceless Party. Why?

The whole sub-continent is suffering from the problem of Family-based parties. Rather than focusing on What one has currently done, emotive statements are made of sacrifices made in distant past. Moreover, sacrifice is made voluntarily; nobody pushes one to it. If people want to show their respect they will. What kind of person are you if you sell the sacrifices of your near and dear ones. (N.B. Mark the difference between the People and the Government, their roles are different in such cases).

A Faceless Party is one where any ordinary citizen can become an MLA/MP based on his qualities and qualifications, not by serving the narrow self-interests of an individual or a group of individuals.

As the people are faceless so should be their party.

Narendra Modi style of leadership will do no good. Why?

It is based on fear. He instills confidence because all other leaders are simply non-leaders. It’s like ‘Andhon me kana Raja’.

Fear feeds on fear. Everyday new stories will be floated about some sleeper cells, bombs will be discovered, rights and freedom will slowly be usurped by the State. A kind of dictatorship will run with our permission. It is not imagination this has happened everywhere in world even think for a second what happened in Gujarat.

Before criticizing me think if you wish to visit the Ram Mandir (if ever built because the issue dies with its construction) in Ayodhya. I don’t.

Politicians’ passing the buck to Bureaucracy and Police is unacceptable. Why?

Politicians are elected to lead the government; they are people’s representatives in the government, they have authority to choose their team and if team fails the leader goes, as simple as that. If you didn’t have the strength to control the department leave the chair, let other do the job.

SMSing and Candle Vigils are good only for TV cameras. Why?

As the candle will burn out, so will your patience. Your whole effort and emotion will get wasted without making any worthwhile change in the polity. For TV channels too, some other issue will crop up. Kindly note that I was myself in front row to sms my views but this time I thought of becoming active, taking things in my hand.

To make a dent in politicians’ contempt of citizens (along with the bureaucrats’/policemen’s arrogance) we have to hit at their weakest point POLITICS. Join Politics, take active interest in it or be prepared for worst.

I want give a simple example: everyone wishes to build a house for himself, the property is registered, so government is the one you will turn to in case of a dispute, what if the records don’t name you as owner. (From the hindi movie Khosla Ka Ghosla). Your money is of no use in a FAILED STATE.

Corruption: an easy Model.

We cannot deny the impact of corruption. It affects us through Terror Attacks but a major part of its impact lies hidden. But the main point is it affects us all. First let us talk of bureaucratic corruption.

I think that about 15-20 percent of the officials are perfectly honest, about 30-35 percent absolutely (and compulsively) corrupt and the rest 50 percent form the marginal category.
The marginal category has both kinds of people: one who can be honest (provided the leadership and laws are perfect) and others who aspire to be Billionaires (at the cost of . . .).

Now the solution is simple. Identify and execute the compulsive corrupts (This of course have to start from judiciary and police). For the marginal corrupts aspiring to be compulsive corrupts create a ministry called the Ministry of the Corrupt, Under-Performers and Responsibility-Shirkers (MOCUPARS). Transfer the dead weight to this ministry, advertise their posting here, give them work similar to jail inmates (Constitutionally and Legally they cannot refuse work) and telecast it on MOCUPARS Channel.

This exercise should be done fairly, not like that is practiced today where honest ‘hard to crack nuts’ are targeted while those guilty walk free.

I think this model can be applied to society as a whole, where a majority of people sit at the margins to make a fast buck but if properly motivated they can be good and honest citizens.

IMAGE FROM: http://www.icgg.org/downloads/CPI_2006_Map_1024px.png

What is the most basic problem of our political system?

People have no say in the selection as well as rejection of candidates. Candidates are selected on the basis of their winning potential not what’s their background, experience and training. Also there is the Cash for Ticket policy.

Much has been debated on the demerits of ‘First Past The Post’ system, when only 50-60 percent voting takes place, the winning candidate does not represent more than 15-20 percent of the population, even when 70+ percent of them don’t want him.

Democracy is good for us. Why?

Believe it or not Democracy is good for us. The beauty of Democracy lies in the Secret Ballot. Nobody can tell who have you voted. As I see it the problem lies in our Attitudes and Mindsets.

Answer this question: Do you think that a person from slum is inferior to you. We all are prejudiced to some extent or more, so don’t be ashamed. Our political parties feeding our prejudices and mindsets take it to another level. But consider him inferior or a monster, you can’t change the reality.

Only in two places, Man is equal to Man, either in front of God or in Democracy. The value of your vote is equal to the value of his vote.

The time has come to treat each other with dignity and respect and leave the feudalistic mindset behind.