मिस्ड कॉल से देश बदलिए – मैगी नूडल आर्डर करें व् बिल के साथ बदला देश भी पायें

Sunday, 12 January 2014 | Swapan Dasgupta | i

 The   melodramatic proclamation left me cold. I had heard like-minded, self-proclaimed liberals say similar things in 1997 when the likelihood of a BJP-led Government became a real possibility. No matter that Atal Behari Vajpayee was regarded as the sole enlightened voice in a party of cretins and fanatics, when it comes to impending political change there is always a great deal of nervous over-reaction.

Last week I went to a similar dinner where the guests were a familiar mix of the literary and the media. Once again, politics entered the conversation but this time there were no hyperbolic assertions and inquiries about one-way tickets out of India. On the contrary, the members of India’s “creative” community were visibly relaxed. The consensus was that the momentum had gone out of the Modi campaign and that The Economist’s dire warning had worked. Just as Hurricane Katrina had blown away the Republican challenge to the Obama presidency in 2012, the feeling was that a flood of missed calls had choked the Modi campaign. “Just wait and see”, the resident pundit with a taste for socialism and the good life told me, “Aam Aadmi Party will win 80 Lok Sabha seats.”  Modi, I was told in no uncertain terms, has “lost the plot”.

I am no prophet and it is indeed possible that the Indian electorate will use its vote to register a protest, putting aside the more daunting task of electing a Government that is empowered to perform. Whatever the ultimate decision, there is no question that the first fortnight of 2014 has been intensely educative for all.

First, we have seen the conventional wisdom surrounding political mobilisation or, indeed, insurrectionary politics, being turned on its head. Contrary to the belief that motivating people to engage with civic and national life involved a long and even thankless slog, we have now been informed that governance and participation is all a matter of a missed call. A missed call, the innovators would like us to believe, can change India and propel the forces of goodness. I would strongly suggest that no citizen of India loses this opportunity. It is even better than clicking the ‘Like’ button on Facebook.

Secondly, an otherwise sceptical media that hitherto made ritual genuflections at the altar of neutrality have suddenly decided that this is no time to be mere observers and reporters. The Indian variants of Lord Beaverbrook, Lord Rothermere and Rupert Murdoch —each one blessed with a Citizen Kane-like belief in their power to make or break Governments — have decided to throw in their lot with the Missed Call Party (MCP). The media has chosen to be a force multiplier for the MCP. The consequences have been absolutely bizarre. National news and even local news have been subsumed by the city news of Delhi.

Thirdly, the past month has seen the very same people who served as social, cultural and intellectual props of the Congress and the UPA Government shift their preference to the MCP. Nandan Nilekani may be the solitary aberration but it would seem that the tribe of individuals who were rewarded with committee memberships, research grants by Ministries and umpteen business class tickets for seminars in the Occident, have realised that dynastic politics does not have the capacity to ensure the perpetuation of their perquisites after the summer of 2014. After the December 8, 2013 results of the Assembly elections, they may even have fearfully concluded that their Establishment would be replaced by a Counter-Establishment comprising those committed to rapid growth and Indian resurgence — a far cry from the lachrymose advocacy of the National Advisory Council agenda. Today, in the exhilarating buzz around the MCP, they have sensed an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone: to stop Modi reaching Delhi and to remain relevant during the ensuing chaos.

Finally, the dramatic energy boost of the MCP has come as a godsend to at least one powerful country that is fearful of a Modi-led Government. The reasons for this fear are complex. There is of course the burden of the strategic miscalculation that led to a US Administration peremptorily announcing the revocation of Modi’s US visa. But there is a far more complex reason. India’s “potential” to be a global economic power and be a factor in the strategic calculus of Asia has long been recognised. At the same time, India’s inability to live up to expectations for the past decade has been greeted with smug satisfaction. In Modi the big powers anticipated the possibility of the Indian elephant rising from its slumber. It would have meant recalibrating international relations — a bothersome and hazardous exercise. However, an India gripped by political turbulence and preoccupied with navel gazing, symbolism and missed calls would end all uncertainty. India would happily re-establish its pious irrelevance.

There are many smiling faces in the Capital these days. For the old sinners, the missed calls symbolise the counter revolution; for India, missed calls could be the harbinger of missed opportunities. The choice is ours.

TAVLEEN SINGH ON WHY NOT TO VOTE FOR AAP

The bubble of euphoria that is making a disturbingly large number of Indians see the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in soft focus needs to be pierced before it is too late. And, as someone who has been wary of Arvind Kejriwal, Anna Hazare and friends from day one, I consider it my duty to perform this task. It will make me less popular than I already am with Leftists, secularists, Stalinists, Leninists et al, but I did not become a political columnist to win a popularity contest. So the venom they spew worries me not one bit.

The truth is I worry much more when they agree with something I say, and it is partly because of their unstinting support for AAP that I feel the need to start ringing alarm bells. No matter how good AAP looks at the moment, no matter how humble Kejriwal’s demeanour and how sweet the song he sang at his inaugural, we need to be very, very careful. Incidentally, the song that he said was the AAP anthem is from an old Hindi film called Paigham, and it was disingenuous of him not to mention this. I thought it had been written by AAP’s resident poet and was quite astonished when a friend pulled it up on YouTube and I spotted Dilip Kumar and Vyjayanthimala in starring roles. But, a small deception compared to the bigger deception that AAP is trying to pull off politically and economically, with the unstinting support of Leftist hacks and a caboodle of semi-retired ‘professionals’ who have leapt on the AAP bandwagon.

These include bankers, businessmen, dancers and IT whiz kids, most of whom appear not to have noticed that the economic policies AAP stands for are the opposite of those they made their money from. So let’s talk about AAP’s economic vision. It is usually best expressed by Prashant Bhushan, who unfailingly makes it clear that he despises the private sector for ‘looting’ resources that in his view belong to the people of India. He forgets that this is exactly what Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi believed, so they banned the private sector from most areas of enterprise and poured people’s money into the public sector. It was when public sector companies failed to make profits (except for corrupt officials) that the private sector was allowed in, but only in a small way. No matter what the losses of ‘Coalgate’ and 2G, they are minuscule compared with the losses caused by coal that burns in underground fields and the natural gas that is wasted daily because public sector companies do not have the technology to exploit it. AAP’s ideologues know that corrupt ls have ruined India. That is why there was the movement led by the mighty Anna Hazare for a strong Lokpal. But what is puzzling is AAP’s solution.

 This in one simple sentence is: we know officials can be corrupt, so we must give more power to honest officials to catch the corrupt ones. Where are these honest officials going to come from and how long will they stay honest? And, if private investment is so evil, where is the money going to come from to give the ‘aam aadmi’ free electricity, water, schools and healthcare? AAP’s political vision is so frightening that if implemented (may the gods have mercy!), it could turn India into a Stalinist police state. Citizen Kejriwal has asked every citizen of Delhi to start conducting private ‘sting’ operations on officials who ask them for a bribe or indulge in other forms of corruption. What happens then? Will there be a guillotine in Vijay Chowk to which these officials will be led or will they be tried by an already clogged justice system? And, when every citizen becomes a policeman, what happens to the rule of law?

As for AAP’s more gimmicky political ideas, these have already started to die their own death. All that drama about using public transport for the inaugural at Ramlila Maidan was just drama. Because the very next day Kejriwal gave his ministers Innova cars. And, all that talk about living humbly was just talk because the chief minister is now looking for a ‘smaller’ house, but smaller than two five-bedroom houses is not exactly small. As for the new ministers, will they be living in the filthy alleys and squalid bazaars in which the ‘aam aadmi’ lives in Delhi, or will they find ‘small’ houses in more salubrious areas? It will not be long before even the most gullible new voters see through the deceptions of AAP, but it is important that the deceptions become apparent before the 2014 general elections. Recent polls indicate that Kejriwal is being seen as a more credible prime minister than Rahul Gandhi. Can you hear the sound of those alarm bells? Follow Tavleen Singh on Twitter @ tavleen_singh –