Elections 2024: musings

Who you think will lord over 1.4286 billion of us Hindustanis from the hot and high PM’s seat after Elections 2024? As the year of our Lord 2023 with a sorry saga of mayhem and misery, Manipurs and Nuhs, shouts and shoutdowns (in the parliament) makes for a noisy, ignoble exit, the question is bound to cross our minds with growing urgency. For bhakts – both andh and moderate – the answer is obvious. Set in stone. A foregone conclusion. For the bourgeois class in general of which I am a rabbit-holed, self-aggrandizing, never-stick-your-neck-out type, I think the answer would be the same. For the toiling millions busy with eking out a living the hard way, sweating it out day and night, it matters not. Whether it is king A or B, their destiny is carved in hard rock: immutable. Hungry stomach has no appetite for these idle, elite ruminations. But they are a game for the lawmakers to bribe, corrupt, seduce and bamboozle with some quick cash and a bottle to boot. It is these millions who are our true ‘Bharat Bhagya Vidhaatas’ and decide winners and losers.

Be that as it may, political discourse has undergone sea change of late and hit rock bottom.  Religion, baring all fangs, has arrived with all its thunder and bluster, firing on all cylinders.  Even the core questions of very survival, bread-and-roti, unemployment, ‘tomatoes’ (forget about ‘esoteric’ questions about our fundamental rights) have taken a back seat. Riding piggyback, religion reigns supreme like an omnipotent despot, the ultimate arbiter of who becomes king. To lend it more power and heft, we have our Goebbels and the propaganda-factories working non-stop ladling out a thaliful of lies, hatred and even poison. Fattened on this daily diet, who but the stupidest dunce would doubt or dispute the return of the present ruling dispensation.

But, call me whatever, I have a different take. My inner core hums another tune. This our motherland is a vibrant and smiling “sujalam, sufalam, malayajasitalam, sasyashyamlam mataram”. Its utterly motherly benevolent bosom throbs with the loftiness of the Himalayas, depth of seas, richness of its lands and the love of its people. It has withstood innumerable onslaughts and depredations since centuries with fortitude and risen to shine bright and beaming. I have faith in my fellow Aam Aadmi. It is love, harmony, “vaishnav-jan-to-tene-kahiye…” sentiment that flows sweet and mellifluous in our veins. Therefore, brushing aside all false narratives, propaganda, cacophony, lies and damn lies … all the bulldozing of values that provide meaning to life and make it worth living, noble and great, will rise as one and vote for change … will rise above religion-turned-into-an-inferno-of hate. My sore ears hear the thrum and beat, albeit faint, of a deep angst running underneath our outer, seemingly apathetic skins to vote for love and peace. I sense that our muted tongues will get their voices back when the time beckons us to make our ‘mataram’ proud and happy.

I know my flamboyant rhetoric sounds so utterly preposterous - even silly - right now when the opposition combine INDIA is still a struggling babe adrift in the murky seas of raajniti. To foul the waters there are black sheep and feudal lords too in their midst and outside. Yet this feeble voice of mine insists that irrespective of all the odds, the innate genius and ethos of the people - simple but politically savvy millions - will reassert itself and 2024 elections will be a triumph of the core values of love, peace and freedom that dwell in every human heart … that distinguish Sapiens from Neanderthals.

Bande Mataram!  

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