Posts Tagged ‘oppression’
Are We Ready For Women’s Equality?
A reccomendation :
Are We Ready For Women’s Equality
It links up to Sushant’s Blog. He posts rarely, but they’re always brilliant to read. I guess that’s how things ought to be – in small doses, over extended periods of time.
How Many Zeroes?
They elected One. From among 300 million people.
We have to elect a few more. No, a lot more. From among a billion.
Sure our elections will cost more. It doesn’t take n in-depth study to understand that. O wait, that’s exactly what it took.
A survey conducted by Centre for Media Studies (CMS) back home pegs the estimated amount to be spent on the Lok Sabha elections at about Rs 10,000 crore (about $2 billion).
This does not include the cost of holding Assembly polls in States like Andhra Pradesh and Orissa.
While the cost of US election was spread over a year, India would see the massive spending in a matter of months.
The estimated Rs 10,000 crore cost for the Lok Sabha elections includes about one-fourth or Rs 2,500 crore being spent through “unofficial money” or the cash to be paid to voters by the candidates, the CMS survey says.
To think of the furore that the INR 60,000 crore relief package had created, and now, to stare at this latest number. This is what P.Chidambaram, then the Finance Minister of India, had said when declaring the package.
Sure, the elections aim to serve over 1000 crore people, from all possible walks of our society. Surely INR 10,000 crore is justified? Or is it?
For 5 years the UPA has ruled the nation. For 5 years the NDA have opposed them blindly. These are parties/alliances that have a nationwide prescence. In the constituencies under their rule, they ought to have done sufficient good, had they been responsible rulers. And people would have gauged whether to elect them or not. Why must they only now awaken to the plight of the people? Why is only election-time the period when they come down to the common man and speak of 5 ensuing years of bliss?
The 10,000 crore is not money spent in mobilising propoganda, to get elected. Instead, this is money spent to create ruckus – ruckus that drowns the failures and the sloppiness of the past 5 years, and to temporarily drown the spirit of the common man. To befuddle him. Throw so much money around, that a modest and well-meaning person gets crushed under the weight of his own limitations. And, crestfallen, he turns around and searches for hope in the ruckus all-around him. And then he latches onto whatever little promise the leaders scrap around, and falls prey for yet another 5 year period.
This is 10,000 crore spent to dupe us all over again. This is 10,000 crore, spent by those very men who intend to misuse, abuse and thoroughly rape us for another 5 years. And crush us if-and-when we try and stand up against them.
Bloggers, Journalists, and all the others of our kind will think, write, scream, and rant all-we-want, and believe that we’re making a difference. Believe that we’re helping awaken a sleeping nation. Believe that finally India will awaken, and demand from it’s leaders some shred of righteousness.
That belief is hollow.
For, these blogs are read only by others like us. There’re far too few, out there in the country, who even read the newspapers. And those who do, are too overburdened by their worries, inflicted upon them by poor governence, to even spare a moment and think about the Zeroes behind the ‘1′.
To the common man, it’s just a whole lot of Zeroes. Zeroes, that he shall never hold. Zeroes, that are earned, spent and minted by a bunch of men we are compelled to vote for, out of want for better choice. For, if we stand up against their might, we shall be blown away. And if we silently bear their rule, we shall survive, albeit as beggars.
But we shall survive. Survive. That’s all the Indian poor hope for. And amazingly, our rulers provide that exceptionally well.
They allow survival. But no more. Sometimes, less. But NO MORE.
Here’s to our elections. here’s to a nation of 1 billion, whose biggest, and probably only success, is the size of it’s vote-bank. On all other accounts – be it sexual equality, religious freedom, feminism, wealth distribution, law, agricultural growth or per capita income – it has been a runaway tale of mediocricy. Mediocricy, that has been so meticulously embedded into our very psyche, that we can hardly bother. We ape the West, and look up to it; but back here, we only frown, look down, and walk around.
I won’t blame the leaders. When i see IITians around me – incapable of using dust-bins, incapable of treating women as something other than sex-objects, incapable of seeing beyond thier own selfish futures – what can i hope to expect from the remaining destitute in my nation?
I won’t blame those leaders.
For, atleast they stood up and tried to manage us. Unlike so many of us, who speak and demand better governance, but, if asked to stand up and be counted, scorn and hide their fear behind well-crafted words. What the learned are unwilling to do, the sly and the crooked have taken up. And if they make a shoddy job of it, what right do we have to complain?
What right do we have? Except wonder, “How many Zeroes?”
verse: silence of contempt
The following verse is a master’s expression on how he treated his boy-servant; and why he did so.
