Some shameful political ironies....

Today I heard in the news that Babubhai Bokhiriya sitting water resource minister  convicted for illegal mining in one of the India's most water scare state. Belonging to the cabinet of Mr Clean & solution to every problem in India. It becomes more contrasting when he is sentenced in Porbandar, a place where MK Gandhi started Dandi march, his first successful mass movement. A land that once gave  'ahimsa', the concept of non-violence agitation to the world. 

Sabarmati was the place where MK Gandhi established his first ashram to preach non-violent and selfless human values. Ironically Sabarmati was the name of the ill fated train that was burnt in Godhra that let to state wide pogrom. 

Gujarat again, Amit Shah ex-home minister who controlled the police and intelligence in the state allegedly conspired with police to kill its opponents in fake encounter. 'Jab rakshak hi bhakshak ban jae, to janta kahan jae'.
  
For some reasons political ironies are more common in Gujarat. Maya Kodani ex-minster for child and women welfare was convicted for conspiring to murder of women and children during riots of 2002. Her shameless master who appointed her as minister, filed affidavit against her to save himself.

From Gujarat to UP, where Raja Bhaiya minister of Jail was allegedly involved in murder of two village pardhan and when a brave investigating officer was about to corner his goons was also eliminated.  Isn't it an irony that minster of Jail is in Jail.

One parlance if not irony, Khalid Mujahid died in mysterious circumstance in UP police custody recently. Human rights activists are claiming it a murder by police and are agitating for the arrest of involved police officers and labeling deceased as a martyr. Same Jab rakshak hi bhakshak ban jae, to janta kahan jae'  scene here too. But irony lies in name itself as the word 'Khalid' in Arabic means Glorious and 'Mujahid' means Martyr. Only time will tell if he was one or not but literally his the name does.

Why we will never vote for Modi

Modi, perhaps the idol of governance and development for a majority of urban India. Although some are trying to challenge the very notion and dump it as his propaganda to claims the top job. No matter which side of the rift we belong, we have to agree that Modi is a phenomenon which is the most common subject for discussion in our air conditioned Television studios and living rooms. With Modi almost certain as BJP's PM candidate, this polarisation will continue till the final voting of next election. These elections will be the most polarised elections in the history of Independent India and the results of this election will decide the future course of Indian secularism and diversity.

Myself as a Muslim Indian has been encountered with questions about our continuous opposition to Modi and his aspiration; they believe that Muslims wrap themselves in victim-hood and hide. It would better for you guys to understand our perspective and our preferences for voting, which might be contrary to those asking the question. The choice can never be based on the speeches and manifestos written by paid advisers but on the challenges that we face in our daily life. Our first and foremost concern is security of our families and community, followed by the popular 'roti kapra aur makan', then governance and development while the corruption is good fourth sometimes even lower in the list. This might sound weird to new genre TV anchor, their experts and viewers as the corruption cacophony every night are the best steroids for TRPs.

Before you eliminate the corruption, we wish to eliminate the fear. Fear of our sons returning home in the night, fear of our women's womb being slit, fear of our shops being arson, safety of our religious places and the list continues. This fear psychosis has pushed us to live in ugly ghettos and avoid reaching out to other communities.  We also know that scions of Gandhis, Mulayams or Lalus, the so called saviors of our community have only used our votes for their political mileages. We know that the 'pseudo-secular' league has not delivered on the promises to implement sachar recommendations, reservations etc. We also know that there is huge leadership deficits in our community. But friends you don't know that all these 'Don'ts' have not seized our rights to exit, our rights to wear burqas, our rights to build mosques and pray.

If a candidate passes the first stage and we feel that we can manage to live under his reign. Then only we can think about 'Roti Kapra aur Makan'. For a community where majority of population is self employed, government has limited role to play. Of course, the power shedding will be more in the ghettos where artisans live and work, thankfully these guys are still using the technologies developed before electricity was invented. We definitely hope that one day our legislators will reduce our dependence on self employment. But for now we simply thank god that we are living.

You guys would have been watching American election debate and would have thought why Indian elections can't be fought on these Financial Policy, Foreign Policy, Healthcare Policy etc debates. These governance and development issues shall be debated in public and voters shall consider it before voting. But dear friends in mainland India we debate unaccountability, racial and gender discrimination, caste atrocities, rapes, feticide, injustice in thousands every day. In our country respectable survival issue is so pertinent that policy debates have become irrelevant when we queue to cast our franchise.

Hey, where did the corruption go? Don’t worry friends it comes. First, ask yourselves which corruption we are discussing and planning to eliminate - Theirs or Ours. Also think of a working class from Army to Judiciary, Religious Bodies to Charities, Media Houses to Corporate houses that can claim high moral ground of being non-corrupt (Surely there will be miniscule percentage that are still immune). It is the most ubiquitous menace in India so why blame any party or class. My choice before vote is between less and more corrupt, so why should I worry about the prefix when the word corruption is common amongst all parties. Where is the choice then?

My argument may not sooth your sentiments, if it doesn't then you can argue that irrespective of my claims the clamor of Modi is rising every day. Even certain sections of tribal and backward are joining his bandwagon. For us it is unfortunate that the Indian political centre is moving towards right. We are aware of this transition and will try our best to vote against any person, ideology or party that aims seize our rights. We would continue to vote for leaders who can defeat the rightist. Leaders like Maya, Lalu, Mulayam etc who symbolise the uprising of downtrodden, which are living under upper cast suppression for thousands of years. We believe that the survival of Indian democracy lies in the unity of neglected communities. And you know guys, these ugly looking lads understands the real beauty of Indian diversity and coexistence.

edited version was published in Muslim Mirror

Irrelevant Azaadi

Myself and my Kashmiri wife, both of us love to read about politics but our views are often different and sometimes opposite. Initially we used to have never ending arguments over politics but we started avoiding such discussions for larger peace of our family. However, this weekend me and my wife were discussing something and it was becoming an inconclusively long discussion like politics. The subject wasn't important enough to swallow our precious time over the weekend. Me realising that discussions is going nowhere I restlessly said, 'this why the Kashmir issues is not finding any solution' and in a quick reflex she replied, 'Yes, but we know that we are fighting for our azaadi and with fully honesty'.

I was so amused with the response that my insatiable mind started to dissect the ir/relevance of the two sentences in relation to public psyche in the valley against others like myself. I said so because I was trying to compare our failure to conclude in our discussions with dispute in Kashmir. Where there are so many leaders with so diverse opinions that every leader is now a party.  Later they decided to form a party of parties called Hurriyat Conference which later got split into two. Today, if you ask a Kashmiri who is your leader, he will most probably name none. In a small region like Kashmir when you have so many voices, all claiming to be true representative. It is a chaos which leads only to cacophony and little concludes to solution. Which I thought was relevant comparison.



I thought how can she talk about the honesty of Kashmiri struggle, when the failure to find solution or voice is questioned. It appeared to me as an irrelevant response and I decided to quit the discussion, as we avoid debating politics. Although we discontinued the discussion but I continued to think about relevance of her response as the spontaneity with which it was said certainly had some depth. I feel the failure of leader ship to conclude any solution with Indian and Pakistani accession has led to disbelieve in the leadership. 

During this period of 60 years, while both the political and militant struggles were failing; the atrocities were continuing. This led to an environment of disbelieve and frustration. In this supercharged and chaotic environment, the vengeance towards the aggressors kept on accumulating. Lack of convergence towards a solution has led to lost of hope for the Solution itself. Now when the aspirations of youth are not being channelised, all they want is to keep their spirit of struggle alive. I believe this would be the reason behind sprouting stone pelters every summers. In this long history of struggle all is lost except the spirit of freedom which is becoming younger every year.

Now the response of my wife appears to be a little relevant as all she care is continued chant for azaadi.