The most important changes that took place in Indian society to my mind were the movie by Amitabh Bacchan DON and the remake by Sharukh Khan DON. In the original movie there was a dialogue by Amitabh ….Don ko gyarah deshon ki police doondh rahi hai…(the police of 11 nations is searching for Don). The same should have been Don ko 100 sey zada deshon ki police doond rahi hai…(Don is wanted in over a hundred nations), the breakup of the USSR (and consequently its police) into several small countries, the fragmentation of Yugoslavia and several other nations emerging was never reflected in the mindset of Indian movie makers.
Similarly, after 1962 Indian boys in Mumbai were asked to perform the same task they performed in the Himalayas, the weather was the only consolation. The Mumbai Police on November 26th 2008, with a prayer on their lips and rusted world war vintage rifles in their hands, charged terrorists carrying lethal automatics. The first and last line of defense the nation’s business capital had to offer at this time of crisis. Needless to say dozens including senior police officials died where the matter could have been settled with far less bloodshed. For three days a group of terrorists held an entire nation, its tanks, its air force, its navy helpless as hundreds of civilians were butchered and thousands of commandos were pressed into action to flush them out.
For a while IPL and cricket gripped the imagination of the nation, finally everyone was winning and making money too, at last there was money in sports…how much, however, we came to know later when allegations of match fixing and scams came up.
With money comes respectability is the new Indian mantra, how this money is made no one asks. So money became the new God of Indian society. In such a scenario a new hero was needed ….. he walked, he talked and he behaved and even looked like Mahatma Gandhi. From a village in Maharashtra known as Ralegan Siddhi came Anna Hazare the hero of the NGO movement the Avtar of water harvesting and water shed Management. An army Hawaldar with nerves of steel and a constitution to match, he wanted to change the Indian constitution and end corruption. He sat on a dharna in Delhi expecting 500 people to come but more than 5000 came and then came a lakh, an ocean of humanity forced the government to acknowledge his presence. He wants a Lokpal to send the corrupt to jail. There is nothing wrong with that so why do people not want such a law and such a system? Maybe because the corrupt now outnumber the honest ones?
The Republic of India needs more than a dharna and watershed management to solve its problems, Hazare may have turned a poverty stricken village into an economic success story in Maharashtra but his his Maha Dharna fizzled out after he entered into a war of attrition with the government. His friends and colleagues got into scrapes he did not imagine. This Mahabharat is still to end but the middle class which was Annas biggest supporter suddenly lost interest in him and got involved in the mundane act of making money.
Maybe Anna should come to Uttar Pradesh where more than a score ministers have been dismissed on grounds of corruption and development funds meant for rural health, mid days meals and what have you have simply disappeared. Where officials can perform magic and turn money meant for road building into SUVs for their pampered kids. The economic miracle that is Uttar Pradesh is a state where there are no roads but the latest and most expensive cars drive on dirt. Where there is no industry but there are politicians richer than industrialists. Where the common man has no job but is always busy running around for roti kapda and makaan. Where the middle class lives without its children in their old age as there are no jobs for the white collared in the state and state government officials take home daily packages that would make an IIM Grad blush with shame if asked to compare his paltry earnings in Mumbai or Delhi or New York with them. Where the people are poor but the NGO activists read relatives of officials are millionaires and the officials are billionaires. Today, Uttar Pradesh goes to the polls but only one party’s manifesto talks about the poor and the marginalized, and of cycles, cycles of poverty and cycles of hope. And let us not forget lakhs of stone elephants carved out of the funds for the poor to glorify their poverty.
It’s all a matter of mindset which does not change with the changing world where social websites like Facebook have become a political tool and a threat to India’s political masters. Congress Supremo Rajiv Gandhi’s computer has become the worst nightmare for the Congress party today.
Cheap bank finance has changed the face of India, there was a time when cycles were the main form of urban transport. Today, motorcycles and cars dot every Indian household and choke its narrow streets, public transport, however, only exists in the metros in the form of MRTS or the Delhi Metro. Other wannabe cities are trying to follow suit but only corruption fuels development in some. Even sewage treatment plants are designed to gobble up money treatment of sewage is a secondary option. In little Singapore sewage is treated to an extent that it becomes a bottle of drinking water and is sold as 'Newwater'. However, in India treated sewage is allowed to flow back into the drain? What is the government trying to prove? Or is it trying to hide the fact that after spending billions they can’t even produce one liter of drinking water?
On the economic front India has performed the magic rope trick. Without producing anything the nation is getting richer. Even as Indian factories close down trade in consumer goods expands. The productive economy has been replaced by the speculative economy. Major killings are being made in the share and real estate market so where is the money coming from? Well one thing is certain the bikes, the spares the sports goods, the shirts and the shoes all are coming from across the borders. The only thing made in India, which one can be sure of today – is Coca Cola. Be Indian buy Indian, this slogan has suddenly acquired a new meaning again in a changing world. In 1947 this nation threw out the British or rather they left. How did the British come to India a school boy in Lucknow was once asked.
They came by sea was the reply but was asked to do twenty push ups despite a Supreme Court order that physical punishment will not be given to any child. However, in this case he deserved it because the British came as traders even if they came by sea. Now I wonder who is coming as traders to India? Again a mindset problem?
With the mindset refusing to change in our changing world do we imperil our economy today? If this was a military situation it would be like a foreign power bribing the sentry to gain access into the country. We have never bothered to ask each other if we do not earn a couple of crores in four to five years then why does a flat cost four to five crores in a big city? Who is responsible for this? In an ideal situation a car should cost a year’s salary, a house four years pay and food should be the cheapest and most pure commodity in the nation. But 70 per cent of the milk samples seized by the Lucknow Nagar Nigam were found to contain detergent? Stunned? So what is happening? Are terrorists and drug lords pumping money into India in real estate and shares? Are we basing our economic prosperity on a system that does not exist? India’s nationalized banks and lack of a institutionalized credit system saved many jobs, lives and fortunes in India when the depression hit the West. Are we in our blind race to embrace consumerism doing away with these safeguards?
Also, what will we sell trade or do in case factories across the border refuse to supply us cheap imports? After all we have shut down the lock makers of Aligarh, the small units all over the country even torches and tyres from bycycles to cars are imported? So what is happening? The East India Company again?
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