INDIA and Elections ‘24

Dear citizen:

 Elections ‘24 are almost upon us. Given the country’s present mood and pulse, it would be moot to ask “who will win?”, for the answer seems so obvious. Exultant after its recent assembly election wins the BJP is already breathing brimstone and fire and flexing its muscles to deliver a fatal blow and knock the living daylights out of the haggard, famished, fractured Opposition. As a simile it is almost like a dangal between pehalwan Dara Singh and the poor fumbling (‘drunken’) Kesto Mukherjee- our Bollywood comedian once. Thinking about the INDIA conglomerate, nothing but disgust washes over me. What a silly mess its constituents have made of it! Marked by two grand meets of its stalwarts it took off well engendering hope while giving jitters to the BJP. But alas! they flattered to disappoint. Succumbing to personal (‘Nitishian’) greed, self-interest, insatiable lust for power and perhaps some sam-daam-dand-bhed stratagems employed by their powerful adversaries, they imploded like a pack of cards. What a sad pity! The regional parties of this opposition collective have behaved like pampered brats or petty chieftains not willing to concede even an inch of their turf while demanding a lion’s share even where they have little or no presence. This holds true for AAP in Punjab/Delhi, our royal Bengal tigress Mamata Banerjee in Bengal, Akhilesh Yadav in UP, and the leftists in Kerala. Sharad Pawar remains elusive, unpredictable and a bit of a puzzle with his wily, thorn-in-the -flesh nephew making things worse for him. To me INDIA seems like a tree that blossomed for a day evoking hope and withered overnight dispersing gloom. With such an unappetising khichri the INDIA alliance presents itself as, the BJP is already enjoying the heady flavour of anticipated victory just about 2 months away.

Having said that, how momentous and life-changing these elections are hardly needs any Shashi Tharoorian phraseology for emphasis. Naturally therefore, as the BJP’s juggernaut of an autocratic dispensation (with ‘Ram’ and politics welded into a formidable club to bludgeon the opposition with, and ‘Jai Shri Ram’ its war cry), hurtles along to the victory stand, the prospect of a third consecutive term to the BJP - to any party in fact – evokes several troubling fears and forebodings in the mind.

Would it be a dystopian, totalitarian India of George Orwell’s ‘1984’?

I hope not.

INDIA is a shambles I agree. Its feuding leaders constantly sniping at each other arouse disgust, no doubt. Media, we all know, is what it is. Political discourse at all levels has degenerated to abuse, fakery and chicanery rather than a reasoned debate on core issues that confront India. Nitish Kumars, Ajit Pawars and Ashok Chavans in their new whitewashed avatar are brazenly making and breaking state sarkars with carefree abandon, sans political morality.

In this encircling gloom, can we still hope for any kindly light to lead us on? Will INDIA finally have its moment of divine enlightenment, rise from its ashes and get its act together, even if late? Will civil activists, the youth and every sane and savvy citizen who have managed to not let the deluge of “lies, damned lies and statistics” muddy their heads rise to the occasion too? Will India shed its cowardice and ennui… its mental torpor?

Can elections ‘24 herald an inclusive and wholesome – ‘sarvajan hitay, sarvajan sukhay’ - blueprint of a beautiful Bharat of peace, love, freedom and harmony?  … Bharat where religion hasn’t become a glitzy showpiece and mere politics? … Bharat imbued with religious piety in its heart and the sunshine of scientific ethos in its head?

If not, INDIA (and ‘us’) will not just have let our Bharat Mata down but would have been complicit in destroying the idea of India we have loved, lived and prospered by, and shown pusillanimity and egregious lack of accountability to the nation- for the coming generations to ‘thu-thu’ at our graves.

What say you, dear fellow citizen?

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Comments

  1. Dr. G. D. VashistFebruary 23, 2024 at 10:34 PM

    Caste religion n freebies r three dominant factors which r responsible for creating disruptions n destructions in social setup in our country. Any party can ignore any of these only at their peril, unfortunately though. So, we have to live with the situation much against our conscious. We can only pray for better days ahead. Good luck.

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