The existential crisis of caste and other variables...

Am not a political pundit but there is one thing that I found heartening about the state elections just concluded.


The electorate are now repeatedly reminding the politicians that they are unimpressed by histrionics and are immune to the divisive politics of communalism and caste politics. And there is the Anna effect - corruption is now big factor. Starting with UPA-II and Nitish Kumar's triumphal re-election, the voters around the country are awakening the indian polity to the fact that all the mathematical equations of combinations that they had learnt regarding caste and creed, which before had assured someone like Lalu Prasad Yadav to uninterrupted rule, has fallen by the wayside.


Nitish Kumar seems to be here for the long haul because he continues to do what he was elected for. UPA-II is headed for a rout because they have forgotten.


No more will a politician thrive on top solely on caste alliances. If they cant build roads and cant provide real improvement in the life of the people, they will be booted out. And they will keep getting booted out until they learn.


And a lesson to politicians like Mayawati and Rahul Gandhi - two spectrum of the erstwhile feudal class. One playing the victim card of three millennium in order to hoard diamonds, believing that Dalits will vote for her just because she is a Dalit in power. The other, strutting around like a maharajas of old, deigning to dine with the outcast, expecting swooning crowds to vote for him, blinded by a aristocratic lineage and a dimpled charm.


The fact is that the people voted for those who advocated development. And the parties which had their ear on the ground won. A party like Samajwadi Party led by Akhilesh Yadav realized people are in no mood for the rule of old. They snubbed the people who had tainted past and claimed to be a party who is shedding its lawless image. And they won in a landslide.


Of course, all politics is local and all is fair in politics, so it for posterity to see how the elected behave. But one thing is for sure, the people are speaking up. It is for the the elected to listen...

Ek revolutionary ki mauth…

I took some time to write about Kanu Sanyal, one of the fathers of what is arguably the only genuine revolutionary insurrection in post-independence India. I took some time to write about his death not only because it was a suicide but also because writing about the death of a revolutionary means bringing in his life as well…

Kanu Sanyal was found hanging in his house, at the same place that saw the break of the Spring Thunder in 1967. The end seemed almost poetic, but then you need a Neruda for to make poetry. All that the old warrior had was a few columns in newspapers, one of whom actually described it his death as the “death of a top Naxal leader”, as if he was still in the neo-Naxalite movement…

In the end, all he had become was a blurry myth and a sad present, repudiated by those who carry his legacy and casually ignored by those who once feared him…the fate of all great men who did not die in the blaze of glory and whom history passed by in search of fresher and more photogenic heroes…

His death came a few days before the Naxalites massacred 76 CRPF jawans in an ambush, the biggest attack by them to date. The government and the Naxals have declared open war, in which for now, the government seems to be on the backfoot.

So, at a time that the Naxalites have become, officially, the biggest threat that this country has ever faced (J&K terrorism pales by comparison), with them having a presence in a quarter of the country, with their tentacles reaching out into urban centres as well, you would expect the symbol of the Naxalite movement to be satisfied. At least, the last thing you would expect him to do is to go hang himself…

But then you got to ask yourself – was he a Naxalite anymore? Maybe in his last moments he would have muttered to himself paraphrasing Marx who once famously said “If that is Marxism, then I am not a Marxist”…maybe he was aware that no matter what he did, the media and the society would fail to spot the difference between what he believed in and what the Naxalites today believe in.

The Naxalism that arose from the simple need to fight for dignity slowly became a movement in which violence, not justice (which is an abstract term anyway) became the priority for maintaining momentum. It became a movement in which poor must remain poor in order for having a raison d'etre for the movement.

If an insurrection goes on for too long, it begins to look like what it intends to supplant. Maybe that's what Kanu Sanyal saw and realized.

When Naxals make pacts with dodgy politicians and when they start to blow up schools, when Naxals become the tipping factors in elections by way of fear, when they begin to claim glorious victory by killing CRPF men who have been pushed to be cannon fodder, maybe he realized that it was a war for its own means – a never ending war in which the people to be killed will be the ones whom he wanted to give a different life all those years ago…

Maybe the end came for him much before the noose tightened. Maybe at the end he had had enough of the power that flows out of the barrel of the gun…

Maybe its time to mourn him as we mourn those great visionaries who dreamt big and tried to live upto that dream, no matter how much the rug was pulled under them.

That takes courage…so does preparing a rope for yourself…

RIP Kanuda…

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Of Defiance and Death – Pinter’s Nobel speech..

G had recommended the Nobel acceptance lecture by Harold Pinter. I got around to reading it after a while…

And boy was it a read…there are some things you read once in a while that sends your blood coursing down your views and leaves you throbbing awake, with all all your senses pounding away…This article did the same for me, having read words of such power after a long time.

The words turn from being dreamy and philosophical at first to savage and bitterly laden with irony by the time it comes near the end. It does not end on a sweet or hopeful note, which is the best way it could have ended…and it has a poem by Pinter which I had not read before, termed “Death”…beautiful!!

The best antidote to banal and tabloid reporting that besieges us everyday…an article for keeps…

Read it here

Of course, an added reason I like this article is that one of the poems that has affected me profoundly is cited here - “I'm Explaining a Few Things” by Neruda…the power of the words in that poem seem tailor made for the article…

A hurray for Pinter…you are sorely missed…

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Two Cheers and an amber light…

The Congress has won in many ways its a welcome result.

Mainly for two reasons…

Firstly,

This is a signal from the population that they are tired of the parochial and narrow obscurantist politics that the likes of SP, BSP other regional satraps follow. We give the people of India less credit than they deserve every elections, which is why we were surprised by the positive vote for peace that was they gave in 2004 and again in 2009. Which is why we hear Mayawati threatening her party members that unless they concentrate on development, she would throw them out (one can only hope that she does not mean developments of her innumerable self-glorifying parks)…the people of India have succeeded in making the most boastful of politicos smell the dirt…Lets hope that regionalism keeps on receding (that would depend on the work that the Centre does now)

Secondly,

This result can be seen as a resounding yay for constructive politics – for development, for a better standard of life, for peace and harmony. The fact that everywhere the people have voted for parties which have done constructive work. This has cut across the party colours. BJP and Congress have both been beneficiaries of this. Delhi, MP and especially Bihar are apt testimony to this…As I said, we give the masses lesser credit than they deserve. They don't really want people whose agenda is temple building or who have  hazy concepts of antique ideology or who want to abolish English for that matter. They want the opportunities to get to a good life and they will vote the party who will concentrate on that…

Now for the amber light…

Ask any graphic novel reader and they will tell you that every superhero needs an arch-villain to be a superhero.

Without a challenge, the best of the people and the best of the organization become sluggish and worse complacent, which is why the opposition in a vibrant democracy needs to be strong to keep the ruling government on its toes.

For all the faults of the Left, they were the few people in the country who can initiate a serious debate. Many of the achievements were successful because of the vociferous debates that the Left brought about – NREGA being just one.That would be missing this time.

The opposition to the Congress has been virtually decimated. BJP is lost in the woods and virtually bankrupt of ideas. Their appeal has died down and their militancy on the basis of exclusivist religion has  takers only in some parts of Gujarat and Karnataka. Unless they can see the writing on the wall and reinvent themselves as a more inclusive conservative party, they will cease to be a serious contender by the next elections. The Left has been brought on its knees because their approach has been seen as obstructionist and based on an ideology that has not stood the test of time. Karat and Co still live in 1917 whereas the socialist rulers of world today – from Castro to Chavez and Morales have moved on to a more indigenous variety that has been tailored to their country. And of course the left supporters have been appalled at the party aligning itself with characters like Mayawati and Jayalalitha. The regional rulers have been mauled badly.

In this situation, Congress has the whole field to themselves and have no excuses not to perform. But this situation is the perfect recipe for lethargy and complacency after a couple of years or worse, dictatorship of opinion and action due to lack of strong opposition which may lead to wrong policies that would harm the country. That has happened with Congress in the past and can happen again…

If that happens, it would be a tragedy and the gains of the last two elections would be lost…

All we can do is wait and watch…these should be exciting and instructive times…

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