Of Tigers and Kingmakers
Well the rather odd title to this post reflects the many thoughts that cross my mind right now, thoughts that I wish to share and discuss for I cannot quiet decide whether the way I am perceiving things in each case is correct or not. So without ant further dilly-dallying lets get down to the point .
Lets go in the reverse order ….. the kingmakers. As many of you might have guessed, I am talking about the recent Lok Sabha polls that saw the rise of the Grand Old Party of the nation as the single largest party. These elections were revolutionary in many ways — I will be brief as you have probably read heaps about all this in the newspapers and magazines. For one the people daringly and boldly chose good governance over casteism and narrow parochial policies. The Lalu-Paswan-Mulayam jodi to cash in on dalit, Muslim and Yadav votes so that they could demand a lion’s share in the future government fell flat on its face. The Left Front’s narrow minded and obsolete stand on labour and banking sector reforms as well as the Indo-US nuclear deal have reduced it to a Left Out Front by the people even in its bastion states of West Bengal and Kerela. The statue happy chief minister of UP too took a drubbing from the people she claims to represent and is so appalled and bewildered by her loss that she has fired all the state representatives of her party, notwithstanding the fact that in her hurry to project herself as the prime ministerial candidate of the third front she cut herself off from her own people who worshipped her like a goddess, which caused her to fall from the pedestral. And so all the supposed kingmakers were shown their right place by the people. The people also voted for stability —– giving Congress a huge mandate by standards of coalition politics, perhaps hoping that with less parties pushing for their vested interests at the Center, the Congress will be able to take some bold decisions that it could not the last time it came to power. But already the party seems intent on breaking the people’s hopes and expectations. I was watching the swearing in ceremony of the new cabinet a few days back and was shocked to see that of the nearly 200 candidates of the party elected directly by the people, the Congress considered only 5 able enough to run a ministry as all the other ministers were form the Rajya Sabha. What kept the Congress back from giving out ministries to a young and vibrant brigade blooming under the leadership of Rahul Gandhi ? Perhaps Rahul Gandhi himself ? Rahul Gandhi was ‘the’ youth icon in this election and his charismatic and markedly distinct style of campaign helped breathe a new life into the party especially in UP, something that has stunned all political analysts. It was widely hoped after the elections that he and other young MPs like Sachin Pilot would be given berth in the cabinet and that they will bring out new policies and innovations into the political culture of the country. But the Congress seems to be afraid of giving youth a chance. Why ? Rahul Gandhi says he does not want to take up any position in the government and wishes to strengthen the organisation within. But in doing so he forgets that when people like him step away, people like Arjun Singh and Shibu Soren step in and we all know what happens when these people become ministers …….. reservation bells ringing again. The Congress was very lucky to have won a mandate in 2009 what with the inflation reaching a historic high under its previous government and reservations in education being a major bone of contention between the student community and the party as well as the Mumbai terror attacks, Delhi and Ahmedabad serial blasts. It should use this second chance to show the people that it is not afraid to take a tough stand when it comes to protecting the interests of the people. Instead it is once again trying to follow the beaten path of having an experienced (old-aged) cabinet of ministers and playing it safe by appeasing coalition partners, giving in to their irrational whims and cravings of power and position. The Congress seems to be lacking courage.
Now the tigers ………. yupp the LTTE. The Sri Lankan government has (in one of my favourite phrases) not only defeated the LTTE but has completely annihilated it. A thorn in the side for Sri Lanka for about 3 decades was wiped clean by the armed forces in just about 4-5 months when the army got down to the job. It took just one Prime Minister to stand up to the LTTE and the terrorist group came crashing down. The LTTE was a despotic organisation that while claiming to be the sole representatives of Sri Lankan tamils ruled with an iron hand and any dissenter met with a swift end. India has a lot to learn from this precedent. We have no dearth of our own LTTEs, what with the naxalites in the east as well as the southern states of Orissa and AP and the Pakistani terrorists in the north and the west. I do not think any thing needs to be siad about these perpetrators of violence and fear in the country. Its is shocking that even in 6 decades of independence, not one Prime Minister had the courage to order the armed forces to wipe pot these menace from their roots. They have no way to overcome the Indain armed forces even if the army were to use say even 10-15% of its total might. Wiping out these insects is not more than a few weeks job but vote bank compulsions and fear of what the international community will have to say have made our politicians mere chickens. And when these ministers come to express their sorrow on the death of innocent people at the hands of these terror organisations, the whole thing seems a mockery of human life. India, I am sorry to say, lacks courage. With such a sorry state of affairs within the country, there is no way we can ever hope that India can ever bring down the edifice of cross-border terrorism. I am not saying that war is always the only solution to terrorism but one must realise that in case of India with several terror organisations plaguing us, war IS the only solution. Every one knows that but everyone is afraid to agree. Of course it will not be easy and not pretty but then neither is people dying going to office in a local trains, eating gol-gappas on the street or worshipping in the temple.Yes, India lacks courage.
That has been the recurring theme in both the issues I have raised above …. courage. What is it ? As Dumbledore once remarked , the ability to choose between what is right and what is easy, yes that ……… exactly that. The question is —- why are we losing this ability more and more every day ? And what will it take for us to get that courage back ?
P.S. ——— As a blogger, this entry is a stark departure from my previous entries, which were all more or less personal. I am very anxious as to what you, the reader, think about it. So please do comment on what you feel about the above issues. And you do not necessarily have to be all sugar and honey. I would welcome a healthy debate anytime 
.
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About Me
Hi I am Aditya Sood. I am currently pursuing a B.Tech Honors degree in Electronics and Communication Engineering at IIIT-Hyderabad. Writing is one of my hobbies and it really gives me a lot of pleasure and excitement to write on any topic under the sun. So expect to see a potpourri of articles here — from politics to my experiences in college and from poetry to short stories.
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A very nice attempt to raise the issue but i don’t endorse your perspective that “India lacks courage” . The very rationale for my speculation goes as follows :
India is a developing country which is dependent on several other developed and developing countries for the very crucial ingredients . India is still not competent enough to feed all it’s population with food twice a day . It has to import the wheat from Russia and other countries . Forget about the other important things like nuclear fuels for producing light etc. The situation which is existent in front of india is something of this sort ::: WWE boxer say undertaker is on the 10th storey of a building and i just say him to jump from there , if he doesn’t jump from there, i will say that he lacks courage .
Akin to this if india choose the option of war then just imagine the loss of human life , money and property loss besides the loss of faith for the govt. in common man of india , as the govt. is throwing the soldiers into the well.
As a result of war with pakisthan , our economic growth will drastically reduce and end up somewhere near 0 or may be in negative . The prosperity that we have got from our independence will be shattered in a spur of a moment . Our position in the international community will be just like a beggar , who is always waiting for somebody to give him some or the other alms. The people may have to suffer heavy losses in their businesses . International communities will ban india for any kind of trade from those countries resulting in a situation where india’s technological , economical growth will be somewhere close to zero . Such dire repercussions are the culmination of just one initiative of war to our neighboring country .
Thus i would say that if jumping from a 10 storey building irrespective of whether he survive after that so called courageous act ( well , i would call it an insane act ) or not , is called courage then i accord that india lacks courage otherwise my dear , you need to redefine the word “courage” .
waiting for your response mr. sood.
@pankaj ………… I disagree with you on all counts my friend. Firstly, why would people loose faith in the government if the government is sending out troops to root out the cause of loss of innocent lives in the nation ? Did you loose faith in the government when the Kargil War took place in 1999 ? Mine was strengthened when our army securd our borders against the terrorists.
What good is a government if it refuses to deal with its problems for the fear of the international community ? Tell me if you have full conviction that what you are going to do is right and for the good of your people, should you not do it because you fear what someone will say ? Will you not have the courage to justify to the international community what you did and why you did it ?
Loss of human life and property and the devastation of economics occurs every time there is a terrorist attack on the Indian soil. What do you have to say on that ? Yes, there will be criticism from the international community at first, but with time things get better. When we first tested our nuclear weapons, U.S. imposed a slew of bans and restrictions on us and many countries cut-off diplomatic ties with us. And today it is those very countries that call India and China the emerging super powers of the world. And it is that very U.S. that has signed the 123 agreement with us. Point is Pankaj, there will be adverse conditions to our decision to defend our people because other countries see their own vested interests. It is we who have to make a choice what is more important to us —- our value system that calls on us to defend our land or what XYZ will say about our actions ?
No country I believe today has the balls to simply cut-off trade with us. We are a large provider of human resources as well as other agricultural items to the world and a key player among the developing countries. And if our dependence on some country causes us to compromise on our defence policy, I would rather do away with that dependence rather than compromise the security of my land.
And by the way, that Undertaker example ….. I just did not get it. [P]
@1twoka4…in the kargil was , yes india did get victory over the terrorist and you only know the result of the war in broader sense but the ground reality says there were many troops getting into heaven from both sides and huge loss of acquisition which hampered both sides very tremendously . There was an emergency situation in pakisthan after the war . Thus huge loss of innocent people ( yes, i am talking about troops ) in case of war .
but i am not saying that indian govt. should keep quiet rather my point is , war is not the solution .
The essence of Undertaker example is :: on what basis you say that a person is courageous or not ? i mean to say while performing a courageous task ( according to you ), it is definite that the person will go to heaven then would you still call him a courageous person on performing that task?? i would rather call him an insane because he already knew the gruesome outcome of that so called courageous task. i think you should get it now .
i didn’t say anywhere that govt. should refuse to confront with the problems of a common man , rather i was saying that war is not the solution to be adopted for that. A method of tackling our problems while keeping international community along with you is precisely what that is needed .
i agree with your point that we can’t compromise with our security irrespective of what international community has to say about us , but we can’t go ahead by choosing the way of war because you can only kill the person , not the inherent feeling that they have developed in their new generations . Tell me how many terrorist we have killed and how many more to come into existence ? rather than killing the person , kill the basic instincts behind the terror feelings and for that war is definitely not the thing . We may be called emerging superpower of the world in terms of human resources but still we are lagging in compared to nations like U.S. to a very large extent . so forget about the superpower.
So the essence of the whole thing is ::: adopt the better ways of attacking the same problems along with the international community . With war we will be killing ourselves in several aspects .
I think we should look for some broader channel of students to comment on the issue. at least 2k7 batch people !!!!
@Pankaj, your point can’t be ruled out totally, but still your argument is not strong enough. Besides, I reckon you’re digressing from the point Sood is trying to make. He is not suggesting that India should go to war against other nations, in the first place. India has enough perpetrators inside of it that are wrecking it from within like nectrophic pathogens rotting an apple.
@Sood, yes, the government has often turned a deaf ear to the security of its citizens, but you must know that out leaders are no saints themselves. Not much can be expected from them. Call it lack of courage, but there are so many strings attached that it could just as well be a lack of interest, if you know what I mean. In our state the policemen choose to chase lovers from the parks, rather than chase criminals on the streets. You call it cowardice; what if cops and the crooks are brothers themselves?
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? ( Translated: Who will guard the guards?)
And, BTW Pankaj was trying to say that Undertaker could jump, to show his bravery, but his bravery would be his funeral.
Thought Provoking Post. Good.
@sid …
lines taken exactly from the post :::
“but one must realise that in case of India with several terror organisations plaguing us, war IS the only solution.”
“fear of what the international community will have to say have made our politicians mere chickens.”
From these lines i can only make out that Sood is suggesting war and kargil war reference in one of his comments and security at border combinedly endorses his suggestion for war.
India may have some terror organisations inside itself but i think the main issue here is our border terrorism as it is evident from sood’s comments and post.
indeed a thought provoking post. couldn’t stop me from making comments again and again
@pankaj : i agree with your point that efforts should be made to address problems and social issues that cause terrorism to rear its ugly heads in our country …… btw did u read today’s HINDU ….. let me give you a headline from there —– ” Maoists blow up police station in Chattisgarh ”
Pakistan was slow in acting against Talibani terrorists who had infilterated its Swat region ….. I hope you know the conditions there today Innocent people dying of bomb blasts caused by the terrorists and the law of jungle in major parts of the country … I only hope India does not end up that way
While we should do all we can to stop our youth from taking the path of terrorism , shouldn’t we at the same time take care of those rotten scumbags who feel it so convenient to enter our soil and kill our people whenever and wherever they want ?
P.S. —- “loss of acquisition” ???
A very nice piece from you..I must say…Now to be honest I cant really comment on the Kingmakers part coz I am not much into the Indian politics sadly ,as you might also be knowing….But the tigers part is something I would be interested in.
Well truly the situation here in India is definitely critical and its nt only because of the terrorists sitting at the border but also bcoz of the internal perpetrators too that constitute the disturbing elements..!!..Well the policy of our govermnt in dealing wid thm has always been contentious…But I always refrain myself from getting in that issue coz its always easy to say ‘GO ON WAR’ and at the same tym I also admit that the policy we have is more on the defensive side…!!..So basically the issue always remain debatable unless & until u or I get the seat of PM..!![;)]..!!