Saturday 14 March 2015

I am upset. Aren't you too? If not, let me know. I would then need to check my premise. But if you too are, please do share your grief with others who too must be hiding their grief.
The grief is a cumulative one. It is multi-pronged. Let me pick up one sample. Varied samples may be joined from your end, if any.
Nitish with those on his bandwagon are offering satyagrah in Gandhian style. Modi's Land Acquisition Law is being assailed. It is alleged to be a law that would ruin farmers' interest and would bring a windfall for the likes  of Ambani(s) and Adani(s). This protest is not a single corner protest. It is widespread. None, save and except the BJP has any admiration for this law in Narendra Modi's brew.
This is the backdrop of my grief.
It is not the upcoming law that upsets. Nor the tenor of protests that are building up. Nor the body language of the BJP on its back-foot.
Then what, you may ask.
I can not give a single liner reply, for that may seem imbecile. Let me , therefore, indulge in some circumlocution . As you know circumlocution is a redeeming device which our political masters have adequately mastered in the post independence era. It took even the so called literates all these years to belatedly realise the dwarfness in the height with which the authors of the incorrigible Kashmir problem hoodwinked the people. I hold back, else distraction would defeat the issue currently on the agenda.
Tell me one simple thing. Months have elapsed since these protests were aired. Have you noticed any single protester, Nitish, Lalu, Mulayam, Mamta or even Anna the neo-gandhi, telling anything specifically for public comprehension (as opposed to public consumption)?
Leave that aside. Have you heard or read any section of the media giving a clear substantial picture of what is being opposed and what has the BJP or Modi to say by way of defence?
Leave even that aside. Have you heard the junior Modi, the erstwhile political concubine of Nitish, speaking a single line substantially? 
My grief is that all are engaged in kite flying. My grief, further, is that my mind has begun to question whether these descendants of our post independence political masters still harbour the belief that their subjects have not evolved and are still stuck up at the level where the illustrious Gandhis, Nehrus, etc. had left them.
Let me add one more line.
I recall, i was in the examination hall. Dipak was by my side on the other row. Just behind him sat arun who copied an answer from Dipak. The one behind arun followed suit and so did the one behind him, enabling the answer to travel down to the rear-end. From there it travelled upside into the row where on the front I was seated. The answer reached me too. It was a wrong answer, so I did not use it, being satisfied with the one I already knew which I had incidentally refreshed minuted before ushering into the examination hall. After the sitting was over, we exchanged notes. Even Dipak, from whom the original error emerged, was shocked. The question was a square minus b square is equal to ....... whereas in haste he had misread it and gave wring answer for a minus b whole square is equal to .......
This was internal half yearly exam. Dipak went to the teacher and told him his misery. Teacher knew Dipak was a good student , hence was given  chance to rectify his error. Those who had fallen into the ditch in a herd, too sought like consideration, which the teacher quite benevolently permitted , asking the examinees to come one by one to pick up the answer book and effect the rectification. One came, picked up the answer book, but when it was his tun to rectify the answer, he was gaping, so did others, as none would afford to say that he would need Dipak's answer book too to effect the rectification. The teacher knew what their predicament was, as he also knew how the answer had travelled down to the back row and then travelled up to the front. 
The teacher gave an enlightening message to his pupil. The preceptor may or may not be correct but he would never fall or fail as he would have his turn to rectify, but the herd that follows might find themselves abysmally ditched without any hope of rescue. 
A Nehru, if not a Gandhi, is such a preceptor and it is for us to make out whether we belong to that very herd which got abysmally ditched or are ready and willing to filter ourselves out of the herd.

No comments:

Post a Comment