E.R. RAMACHANDRAN writes: I met the Ace Political Expert (APE) at Cheluvamba Park doing his yogic walk. After a couple of rounds, he sat on the stone beach.
He beckoned me to sit and I asked him the question that was bothering me since the prime minister’s national press conference last week: “Who exactly is running our country?”
After taking a long breath, APE said: “There is a coalition government but there is collision at each and every step.”
It was a bad pun, but I let it be.
“Could you be more specific? Is Manmohan Singh running the country?”
“It is illusory to feel Manmohan Singh is running the country. He is running away from running the country, by visiting various countries. In effect, he is on the run most of the times.”
“He is not going anywhere. He himself said so during his press conference,” I interrupted.
“He meant Rahul Gandhi may have to wait a little longer to take his place as per the norms of the feudal democractic republic of India.”
“If Manmohan is not running the country, what about Sonia?”
“Well, Sonia is running the country and she is not! Let me explain. She wants the home minister to have a dialogue with Maoists. But Chidambaram is confused whether he should start a dialogue or act like Vedanta’s lawyer and box the Maoists for the bauxite. So he is doing nothing. Worse, he is doing a daily Q&A session with Barkha Dutt on 26 /11 forgetting there is an external affairs minister to do that job in S.M. Krishna.”
“This is all so confusing.”
“S.M. Krishna was busy monitoring and mentoring Shashi Tharoor who is anyway beyond mentoring and monitoring. That’s how he landed in a sweaty soup during IPL.”
APE continued: “Sonia wants the prices of tur dal and loki to be controlled but Sharad Pawar has apparently better things to do. He is busy getting new suits stitched for the post of ICC chief. So Sonia is not running the country either.”
“Sometimes it looks it is the opposition that is running the country.”
“That’s how it seemed to me too looking at the way Arun Jaitley supported the government to take tough action against Naxals and Maoists. I thought he was guiding Chidambaram. But Digvijay Singh’s bashing up of Chidambaram indicates neither UPA nor Congress is running the country. The much tom-tomed opposition unity on cut-motion fell flat on its face. So the opposition are not running the country either.”
I was getting desperate.
“The electronic media is all the time hysterical with their ‘Breaking News’ song-and-dance act. Are they running the country?”
“Sometimes I feel the troika of Prannoy Roy, Rajdeep Sardesai and Arnab Goswami are running the country. But their agenda is mostly restricted to the Ruchika case, Aarushi murder case, etc, followed by a lengthy acrimonious debate. If they don’t have any agenda, they bring in Lalit Modi’s IPL3 which always has something to offer—-cricket, Bollywood starlets, midnight parties, millions of dollars, match fixing , N. Srinivasan’s homa before the finals etc.”
“Could the armed forces be running the country,” I wonder.
“It looked like that when we won the Kargil war. But the fudging of records of Kargil war, painting heroes as villains and villains as heroes, and the periodic selling of our defense secrets like in the Navy warm room look belies such thoughts.”
“What about the ministers,” I asked.
“Mostly they are busy with their scams or tantrums. DMK’s A. Raja, the telecom minister is known more for his 2G scam. Instead of being a rail mantri, Mamata Banerjee is in Kolkata trying to overthrow the Leftists there, be it in the state, municipal, or panchayet elections, or even a local football match. I don’t think ministers are running the country either.”
I was getting exasperated.
“If Dr Singh is running away from the country’s problems, Sonia has no idea, ministers are not running the country, who is in charge or are we on auto-pilot?”
“ANC,” said APE.
“You mean African National Congress?”
“No. The ANC here is Anarchy, Nepotism and Corruption!” said the APE.
“Are they running the country?” I asked.
“They are ruining the country!” concluded the APE.
Brilliant! ACE is absolutely rrrrrright in his analysis. A good piece ERR sir.
ದೇವರೇ ಕಾಪಾಡಬೇಕು ದೇಶವನ್ನ…..
A good one. But seriously the country needs a huge Army sponsored jolt, which would ensure corruption is arrested. All political parties(including, BJP,Left) are different faces of the same coin. Even RSS, a supposedly non-political party is no different. Mercenaries, bomb makers and all anti-social elements have cropped out of them.
The Army seems to be the lowest corrupted, and hence stands a chance to redeem the country.
Wonderful.
I am surprised at Tanveer’s comments. His comment seems to suggest that all politicians are bad, army taking control would solve all the problems! This is exactly how (former) dictators in Pakistan thought, but in reality they only exacerbated the situation!! The problem doesn’t start with the politicians, it ends with them. Politicians are a mere reflection of the quality of the people (roughly). Each of us should spend more time and change ourselves first and see how publicly responsible we are. Nothing will change unless people change themselves. Apparently, before world war two, Japanese people used to be very aggressive, rude and impolite but they made a conscious effort to change themselves and succeeded. Only such a great effort to change the society bottom-up can change our society. Don’t expect one leader to change the whole society. By any means, we have had some very good politicians ruling our country – such as Manmohan Singh, Vajpayee etc. (whose personal integrity can never be questioned), yet, they can/could do very little to change the society as a whole. This shows that one person or one ruler can not change the society. It is the people who have to change themselves first.
So, the next time you are getting on a bus, be disciplined, the next time you are throwing garbage at a public place, think about it. The next time you are voting, be aware. The next time you are thinking of a shortcut to get some work done, think about it. The next time you are abusing another person on a public forum, think about it!!!
PS: here ‘you’ refers to whoever is reading this (and even to me) and not just to Mr. Tanveer.
Point well taken div, but the frustration comes when you cannot see light at the end of the tunnel.
The politicians who are clean are very few, and the whole system looks very degenerated. I accept we, the people make the system, but truly the onus also major rests on the politicians heads. People like Mayawati, lalloo,etc make us think if there is any relief.
Anyway As u rightly pointed out change starts at home first. And we the people should reform.
div, you are dreaming about an idealistic society, which is simply not possible in India, having such a huge population, complex problems, casteism, growing gap between the rich and poor etc. etc. I differ with your view that one man cannot change the system. If you look at the history, mostly, it has been one person who has brought any change. One Gandhi united the country. One Seshan changed the whole electoral system. One Indira Gandhi changed the system (with nationalization), one Rajiv Gandhi changed the whole deadwood system (with computerization and communication), one PVN brought back the country from the brink of bankruptcy….. Presently, we do not have that one man. A Statesman with a far reaching vision. What we have are ‘leaders’, ‘netas’ – plenty of them. And you know how they are leading, what they are leading….
A nice pun from ERR, but rather than pun he has held a mirror for what ever is happenning, true we are on auto pilot now…
@div you are right, even though it might look idealistic but defenitely a change can be brought about if every body start thinking in the same, first we need to bring about this change in the schools.. our education system needs an overhaul… children must be taught how to follow traffic rules .. simple things of day to day life… and the parents also need to be an example for thier kids.. children are the torch bearers for such a dream…
@somebody… it is defenitely not impossible…
i have tried for 60 years and failed.
things have only worsened.
Can Sant Manmohan Singh do something?
Unfortunately, Manmohan, an honest person by himself, is unable to gather a team of the same stature. But wants to stay there though by staying there he is being part (or shall I say sponsor) of the corrupt system.
What div suggest would have worked if we had pushed it forward a few decades back. unfortunately the whole mechnism of governance is in the hands of the goondas and are looting the kazana. The system needs to be revamped and the difficult part is that the persons who can revamp are the persons in power. Army rule is not the solution – absolute power currupts absolutely.
There is one angle to div’s suggestion that could be the only solution – to find the right team from the next generation who care for the country and have the honesty to fight corruption. Elders need to realise that the young generation has more at stake in the future of the country than person above the age of 60 or 70.
Unfortunately education on curruption starts at early school in our country which is a very negative and lasting impression on generations.
I belong to a generation who were more interested in our personal growth, acadamically and professionally, and expected others to take care of the country. I realise that there were a lot of us in the same mind set and left the stage open for the goondas to get in.
The rot is at a level where the minimum qualification to be a CM is to have orgnaised a dozen murders or embezzeld a few hundred crores. Bofors is being written off as small time.
We all claim politicians are currupt. They have been filmed taking money. No one has been convicted. Why? Where are the checks and balances in the system? You need a politician’s permission to file a case against another politician.