Changing Electoral landscape

The exit of Nitish Kumar from the BJP after a successful electoral alliance of 17 years is a turning point in the Indian political scenario. When the BJP emerged as a political party capable enough to counter the congress, it was the regional parties which sided either with the congress or the BJP, creating a bipolar political balance in the name of UPA and NDA. Since then we have been seeing the rule of these power blocks for more than a decade.

The current development is likely to result in the formation of a third front of regional satraps leading to a tri polar electoral battle in the coming Lok sabha election. On one side this runs the risk of no group getting an absolute majority resulting in a weak government and governance. On the other side it is an opportunity for the people to select a single party. India’s political landscape is now filled left right and centre and this elections are going to be a watershed elections paving way to new experiments in democracy . Lot of debates on secularism, nationalism, corruption and regionalism. Which issue is going to tilt votes is yet to be seen

''Modi'' fication' of the BJP

The “Modi”’fication of the Bharatiya Janata Party has finally began. Narendra Modi after being first inducted into the Poll Panel is now expected to be its chief campaigning for the BJP for the 2014 general election. The BJP national executive currently under session at Panaji is likely to make a declaration to this effect.

Narendra Modi and the modification of BJP has been a case of intense speculation since a year which attained momentum after the successful Gujarat assembly polls and lately after the sweep of the BJP in the Gujarat and after the change in the President ship of BJP from Nitin Gadkari to Rajnath Singh.

On one side it is an acknowledged fact that the BJP is in a major stage of leadership transition. It is similar to the transition of the BJP which we witnessed in the early 90s when L K Advani started the Rathyatra which resulted in the emergence of BJP as a national political party in India. In all such transition there is always a state of dissent and the resultant media speculation. If you recollect the 90s, when the baton was moving towards Mr Advani, there was speculation of an hard-line Advani camp and the Vajpayee camp. While the moderate Vajpayee camp disapproved of the hardliner’s Babari masjid campaign, the rest is history. The hard-liners  won the election under  Advani’s leadership, and BJP became the principal opposition party. Subsequently after the formation of the NDA, when the BJP came to power, the “ hardliner” Advani humbly paved way for the soft and acceptable leader AB Vajpayee to become the Prime Minister.

Today when a similar transition is being witnessed, will Mr Modi show the same audacity and humility to pave way for the veteran leader Mr Advani to be the Prime minister and he occupy the home minister’’s role? Well that is yet to be seen. However there is much debate on who should be the BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate. Today in a media managed election campaign when Modi is at the helm of BJPs election needs’, an analysis is necessary, especially for my overseas readers, of what makes or unmakes Modi as far as far as the Prime Minister ship is concerned . As a general secretary and spokesman of BJP,  Modi in the early 90s was sent to his home state of Gujarat to counter the severe infighting, corruption and nepotism within the then BJP in Gujarat epitomized by the vagaries   of two leaders viz Keshubhai Patel and Shankar Singh waghela. The state of Gujarat was also traumatized after the killer quake of 2001 . There was enormous caste anarchy with the Patel community ruling the roast. It is into such a socially and politically turbulent atmosphere that Modi was sent. His background as an RSS pracharak in Gujarat had given him a strong insight of the social fabric and its sensitivities. Three months into his position, Gujarat saw the worst communal violence of the time predominantly a retaliation of the Hindu fundamentalists against the incidence of the Muslim radical’s attack on a train killing nearly 57 Hindu men and women. The uncontrolled and unabated violence left nearly 2000 people killed. The involvement of the BJP cadre led by local leaders , and the inability of Mr Modi to quell the violence – making Vajpayee warn him of following Raj Dharma or Statecraft – indeed resulted in the “”monstor-ification “’ of him as a fascist iconoclast and inimical to the essence of secularism and national unity. Well whether he followed Raj dharma or not is not the purview of this article, but since then Modi ruled Gujarat with a single point agenda of development of the economy and bringing up the Gujarati asmita or pride. His successful re -election and the development in investment and infrastructure thereafter and most importantly the connect of the common people with him increased his popularity as we stand today.

However this achievement does make him a PM candidate. Yes as well as No. The reason he is clamoured as a future PM is primarily due to the leadership crunch faced by a nation. He is a man who has proved to be a leader and thought about the nation and his State beyond his self Interest. He is astutely principled, non – corrupt and a strict disciplinarian. Moreover he is accessible to the common man sans his security needs. The nation requires a PM who is decisive and tough and a strong implementer unlike the current PM. While this makes him eligible what lacks in him is the pan national acceptability, shrouded image of a hardliner Hindu radical, above all inexperience in national level administration and statecraft. This can happen if he follows his mentor LK Advani, by winning an election and abdicating the desire to be a PM, and instead be a Home minister paving way for the nationally acclaimed patriarch LK Advani to be the PM only to be accepted later as a national leader later in life. What happens is yet to be seen, but wishing Narendrabhai all the best

Sanyasi

Honey and Money: Story of Indian cricket:

Dear All

Many years ago when Kautilya wrote the Arthashastram , in one of the verse he mentions that Money is like Honey, where ever a drop falls ants follows it and hence it is something to be handled with utmost care. It is this verse which comes to the mind when we hear today about the cricket fiasco. Cricket looks today a vulgarized game.

The genesis of this trend begins with the popularization of the 60 overs one day matches against the traditional 5 day test match format. The matches played at Sharjah way back in the 80s, with a cocktail mix of the underworld, Bollywood and the cricketers became the beginning point of betting and max fixing. Scandals over scandals followed then.  The 60 overs one day cricket was then further reduced in this decade to that of a 20 overs match, which finally has taken this form as Indian premier league matches.

The beauty of cricket is not its speed but in its style and slow pace. Unlike football where the speed of the game matters, the essence of cricket was in field management, intelligent batting , pitch performance, handling different types of balling , and its interest revolved on the talent and style of performance of players and teams,  spread over 5 days mainly on winter seasons. Increasing the speed of cricket by reducing the overs in fact killed the game and the 20/20 cricket style was the last nail in the coffin.

I could recollect the early 80s when I played cricket in my village, a time when neighbourhood boys beamed at us looking at this strange game. Cricket was confined to the elite schools and middle class office goers who, moved around with transistor radios listening to the commentary. The frenzy of limited over matches increased since the 90s and was mainly attributed to the popularization of cricket in the Indian subcontinent due to the TV revolution and the proportional commercialization of its growth. Pepci Co and CoCo Cola and other FMCG companies found cricket sponsorship the ideal marketing tool to reach to the masses. With a liberalized economy and a burgeoning growth rate the 21^st century India was the best bet for any company to throw money to the cricketing fraternity and increase their market share. With cricket percolating to the rural areas, more money flowed in to tap the vast rural market.

Cricket attained an horse trading format when players where hired and played as stallions on race course with corporate houses and high net worth individuals looking at it beyond brand endorsements to that of  wealth, luxury  and lavishness and the whole of cricket has become an ecstatic pleasure as epitomized by the sizzling dances of the cheer leaders.

Where do we stand today? As long as you are ready to pay and enjoy the orgasmic pleasure of cricket what is wrong about the whole deal. Should the government intervene and where is the dividing line of righteousness, ethics and civility? While we ponder for these answers what is lost is the game called cricket.

As Kautilya said spill  honey attracts ants and these cricketing ants have spoiled the game  and as our law enforcement agencies arrest more of them be it  cricketers, film stars or executives , let us be nostalgic of  those old cricket days with its traditional commentary …Incomes Kapil dave, right arm over the wicket…..

Relationship: Philosophical pondering and practical solutions:

 Dear all

Most of the time, when we are either happy or is sad, and when we introspect, we would be forced to ponder about a question. Is our emotional state dependent or independent over a relationship? Before we answer that question let us look into what others have told about this.

According to the Dalai Lama the need for support is felt at the early and late stage of life, and he advises us to show compassion and love at a stage when we are not dependent, which means at the middle ages the dependence is minimum. Paul Coelho in his blog says that emotional non dependence leads us to know where and dependence brightens our life and if we live superficially the soul is then set on fire.

I recollect my late chemistry professor , who lived all his life alone in a crammed room , running after his evening lecture, to the fish market only to fetch fish for his two pet cats whom he lovingly names methyl and ethyl   ( the two alcohols). He had poured his heart to those cats but unfortunately he died recently mostly a case of suicide. I have also heard about an English woman who gave her fortunes to her dog well written over a will she had made prior to her death.

So what is that we miss and that we want to relate to and that is what we do by building a relation. Let us look into what J Krishnamurthy says .According to him ‘’life is a movement in relationship’’ and perfect individuality is perfect harmony. However imperfection being the DNA of creation-which our saints called Maya- a perfect individuality does not exist and the only perfect individuality is the creator itself. So an in perfect individuality like me or you or us strives to be perfect as it is its ultimate goal and creating relationships are an effort in that direction. However this effort in relationship making in life, according to Krishnamurthy is controlled by two elements that are, image and need, which means we behave and expect from relationships what we imagine of that relationship and what we want from it. So what he concludes is that the need that is imagined to be sourced from that relation is meant to escape the imperfection felt when you are alone,  a state which precipitates need. Hence for him relationships are always imperfect and in a lecture that he delivered in 1971 at New York, he calls this imperfection as a social corruption. So to be in perfect relationship he asks us to look at relationships without an image. I quote him here from his lecture . ‘’ Can you look at your wife, or your friend, or whatever it is without the image? The image is the past, which has been put together by thought, as nagging, bullying, dominating, as pleasure, companionship and all that. It is the image that separates; it is the image that creates distance and time. Look at that tree, or the flower, the cloud, or the wife or the husband, without the image’’ he concludes that we should strive to create a perfect relationship by looking at individuals not through the prism of expectations but on compassion and sharing, which he says is perfect love. So a perfect relationship is that relationship which we should pursue where there is no need for dependence, no need for comfort and care, and when not used as an escape route from loneliness, and where it is only giving but no taking anything from the other. The Gita also echoes the same thought and Krishna advises us to have a determined intellect ( viveka bhudhi) by practice of Yoga that  get into  a relationship where we are involved in desire less action ( nishkamakarma) .

This imperfection was realized by the society ever since it started a civilized life of dependence and the institution of marriage has its genesis thus as a social construct to this problem. A construct to cater to the biological, psychological and economic needs of two individuals who need to be related and create further relations to strive in a need based society. So we need mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters and we collectively create them and call our self as a family and such families create and sustain society. I gain refer Krishnamurthy who says that this social construction is habit and habitually continued  and has a meaning if there is a perfection of needless compassion within the unit which rarely exists.

Today I read in the newspaper that a lady in Rajkot just killed her son in despair and was attributed to her marital discord. You all are aware of the needless story of marital discord and resulted turbulence. It might be violence somewhere, suicide elsewhere or sheer suffering in silence just for familial existence. Why this suffering and why do we keep individuals in water tight compartments no scope of escape

Where is the end and meaning to this? Finally I read Osho and got the answer to it. He says love and relationships are two different things and not at all related. A relationship is absolute but love is dynamic. A relationship is a nown and results in a full stop. His call is to forget relationships but learn to relate, as once we get into relationship we take us granted and creates images and ends in misery. So by continuously relating we search for more in an individual and the more we search, the more mysterious we feel and the more we pursue and relate and this process does not end and it can happen only through compassion and selfless action:

Sanyasi

 

 

'Monkey lost its Mango: Congress win in Karnataka

 Dear readers

 

The victory of the Congress Party in the Karnataka elections as somebody has said is like the electorate giving the keys from the thief to the dacoits. Ever since the time of the late  Ramakrishna Hedge who brought in a political leadership in Karnataka in the 80s, Karnataka politics have been a boiling pot with political leaders with huge business interest taking centre stage. It was when the BJP came to power, the first time in a southern state that the people in the country thought that political decency would come back into Karnataka. However Yediyurappa who became the BJP chief minister proved to be not only corrupt but a power monger . Electorate this time had no other choice but to bring back the Congress to power. Well how the new government is going to perform is yet to be seen, but the most important aspect here to be noted and learned is that the BJP has again proved its political bankruptcy.  In spite of mounting pressure to sack Mr Yedurappa, the central leadership of the BJP was dillydallying thinking that the politically strong lingayat community vote bank will get eroded. It kept on a closed eye to the mining scam and arrogance of Yedurappa , till he became belligerent to have formed his own political party. The result is that BJP lost its southern entry post with severe ramification to its aspiration of increasing its vote share in the south of India prior to the 2014 general elections and the lingayats voted for the congress. BJP today looks like fallen horse with only a Modi to bank upon with.

Political decision making in a democracy should be very much weighed on its impact on long term credibility. BJP had done the same mistake when they failed to dismiss the Narendra Modi government as a sequel to the 2002 riots, with only an advise of rajadharma principle from the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Presently the congress led UPA government is also in the same mind set when they are still allowing the railway Minister and the Law Minister to cling on inspite of all levels of public opinion to make them resign.

It is a time now that political morality as a principle is back in the public life of parties and politicians. Short term gains will always cost in the long term. The Karnataka elections are the latest case in hand. As Judith Cook , the American novelist , has mentioned in her seminal book  Price of freedom, in democracy political expediency outweighs nepotism and corruption. Yedurappa , Pawan kumar banzal and Aswini Kumar are only few beads in such an endless chain of political expediency within our turbulent  democracy

Sanyasi

Book Review : Sons and Lovers:

Dear all

DH Lawrence (1885-1930) ,  first published his Autobiographical novel, Sons and Lovers, (S&L) in 1913 . Hundred years later I finished reading it for the second time .  S&L, is placed as ninth among the best hundred  novels of the twentieth  century and  was first published when Lawrence was just 28 years old ( He died at the age of  44  )

S&L was written exactly 14 years after Sigmund  Freud published his magnum opus Interpretation of dreams where he propounded the concept of  Oedipus complex  , psychoanalytically a dynamic  emotionality  and possessiveness of a child to its  parent of the opposite sex and vice versa.

As per the proponents of the Freudian psychoanalysis, Oedipus complex is construed as repressed sexuality. Its prevalence in human society is argued by the Pro-Freudian modern psychologists as the reason for idealization of man –women marital relationship to that of a parent- child relationship syndrome, creating a structured identity complex among men and women in their married lives leading to divorces and unhappy marriages.

In S&L, Lawrence propounds over this theme by his intellectual subtlety through the portrayal of the protagonists Paul Morel and his mother Gertrude Morel. Mrs Morel had a terrible relationship with her husband , a collier,  who gave her seven children and paltry income to survive. Mrs Morel being from the higher class was magnanimous in her character and behaviour and she was able to bring up the children against the vicissitudes caused by a drunken miserable husband who gave her no love and care. The struggles of a mother in a post industrialized 19^th century England - a time in English society where marriage was considered sacrosanct and no scope and means for separation – is vividly portrayed in this novel. As time passes, Mrs Morel develops a strong bonding with her son Paul , which gets reflected  in her annoyance to the passionate relationship Paul have with  two other women in her life,  Miriam and Clara. Paul on the other side realize that there is nothing beyond  passion that his lovers could give him and breaks off from them with a conclusion that true love of man is always with his mother.

The Novel is autobiographical in nature as Paul is the characterization of Lawrence himself when he was torn between his love for his mother and his passionate relationship with his lovers Jessie chambers and later Frieda weekly (subsequently Lawrence married Frieda).

In India, characterization of the relationship complexity of a man with his mother on one side and his sexual partner (Read wife or lover) on the other side is the basis of all   Sas-Bahu serials and Lawrence’s theme is relevant in today’s Indian society as well.  Ask any man and women married in a traditional Indian set up on this proclivity and they would have something to say.

Is  the miserable Indian male  getting strained in between true love and passion with an   Oedipus complex is not the purvey of this writing nor I intend to pursue further on this speculation, but the novel is 100 times worth reading on its hundredth year of publication…. A free downloadable version is available in Kindle.. good reading

Sanyasi
 

Road accidents: 10 earthquake equivalents in India

Dear all

The callous attitude shown by society to accident victims were amply demonstrated when a family in a two wheeler was hit by a speeding truck in Jaipur on 16^th April. The man lost his wife and daughter while he was yelling to the passer-by’s and vehicles for an hour to save his kin. The whole incident was captured by a CCTV camera and shown in the media. It should be recalled that there is a high court judgement which protects the passer-by from police or court harassment, but in spite of this the social insensitivity was  seen in the open.

Lakhs of people die every year in India alone due to road accidents and this is a continuous catastrophe  in this country . We are in fact faced with the death toll of 10 earth quakes a year on  a continuous basis. Lack of driving sense and culture is the single reason for this malady which is high time to be rectified by strict action. An immediate public sensitivity program should be initiated by the government and the civil society both at the schools and organizational levels. This should be followed by strict vigilance on the roads. Gujarat is far better in this regard than other states with the 108 EMRI service available on phone call. Similar quick response teams and mechanism should be implemented with no room for intolerance.

The ministry of Road transport and the traffic department conducts numerous programs on road safety weeks , but all this programs has not found any effect as the public participation and practice is not enforced. It is easy in this country to break rules and pay the local police and escape, and off late only major cases of media intervention has found remedial action, making our safety management  systems continue its death journey

 

Sanyasi