Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Press release by Digvijay Singh


Countrymen, Today we should hang our heads in shame. This nation of Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi and oh yes Mahatma Gandhi has been disgraced today. Our honourable Supreme Court has passed a decision that smacks of communalism and religious bigotry. Ajmal Kasab has been handed the death sentence. I, for one, find it shocking. Does it not dishonour our collective national conscience that a member of the minority committee has been sentenced to death by the highest court of law of a secular nation? Is this what it has come to? This is brazen abuse of the ideals of secularism that the fathers of our constitution had scripted. Are we a Saudi Arabia or a Pakistan, where members of the minority community have no rights? 

Facts first. Ajmal Kasab was caught allegedly during the Mumbai carnage in 2008, this has yet to be proven. I have substantial evidence on how TV clippings were doctored to incriminate an innocent member of the minority community. Who is to prove that he was not one of the victims of the carnage? The very fact that the Maharashtra Police arrested him and kept him in prison for 4 years makes him a victim of the Mumbai attacks. Oh! What tortures he would have had to bear, and that too when he is a member of the minority community! And for God's sakes, he was fed Biryani at a time when even school going kids eat only Subways! Hasn't the country gravely harmed the physical well being of a member of the minority committee by doing so? And to top it all, he is being sentenced to death. What a mockery of justice!

To wash away the sins of this nation, I propose the following-

i. Death sentence of Ajmal Kasab to be cast aside. He will be nominated by my Congress party as a candidate for Lok Sabha for 2014 elections from Mumbai South constituency.

ii. Minority quota of 67% to be introduced for all legislative assemblies and Parliament. This will be over and above the quota for SC/ST/OBC etc.

iii. Mumbai to be renamed Ajmalabad or Kasababad. 

Long Live Madam Sonia Gandhi!

Friday, August 17, 2012

Its raining expectations



Its scary. All these expectations, I tell you. 3 years of corporate life has meant that I am (decently) financially independent. And just when you thought you could do whatever it was you wanted to do for all these years, expectations pop up. Well actually, they pour down… incessantly…. Buy a car….Get your own place to stay… Book a flat… Get married… Settle down…. Get a better job...Get serious about life… Blah blah  blah blah…. Family goes crazy, peer pressure mounts... I mean, how is a man to live like this!

The worst are the comparisons. You know him, he has bought his second car…. That friend of his, he got engaged last month…. That person who stays near our place, he booked a flat…. That acquaintance switched jobs, he now earns gazillions...Can't even believe you are still living like an animal…

And so the expectations keep pouring in.. One after the other… Sometimes, I get irritated, at other times, I get depressed…Some times, I laugh them off… At other times, I confront, I argue, even ask people to shut up… But mostly, I listen, I smile and tell myself… This too shall pass :)

Oh India!



I guess India was founded on ideals that were too lofty, too idealistic and unsustainable in the long run. I mean there is probably no other nation in the world which has been forged together with such disparate groups whose interests are so different, and at most times antagonistic to each other. Probably, the Balkanization of India is inevitable. We can only pray that it doesn't happen in our lifetime, because it is guaranteed to be messy, bloody and chaotic!

Lets accept it, the concept of India as a nation is only 60 years old. There has never existed an Indian nation, ever in the history. There have been empires of Ashoka, the Mughals, the Marathas etc., but there has never been an India, united in mind, or in body. Hindu nationalists point towards the great empire of Shivaji's descendants, who united India, 'from Attock to Cuttack', as they say. This was barely a state, with warlords ruling and with the local populace having no common cause with the plundering, ravaging raids of the Maratha army. The Mughal empire united the entire subcontinent, but the overwhelming majority remained hostile to the rule of outsiders, whose customs and rituals, they could never relate to. British India, was never even a state. It was a patchwork of territories occupied by cunning Britishers, fiefdoms and despotic kingdoms.

The concept of India or Akhand Bharat, personified by Bharat Mata, came to the fore only at the time of Independence. Fanned by Congress and Hindu nationalists alike, it succeeded in laying the foundation of the concept of the Indian nation, but antagonized the Muslims, many of whom eventually seceded from what they perceived would be Hindu hegemony. And thus was born India, for the first time in history- divided by caste, creed, religion, customs and what not, United, only by its recent struggle for independence.

The moth eaten India (unlike the envisaged Akhand Bharat) could endure for eternity if the ruling political classes chose to 'Put India first'. But they chose to put the interests of their vote banks before the nation. So you have Mayawati, courting the Dalits, bringing disgrace to Babasaheb Ambedkar's legacy that she proclaims to uphold, you have Narendra Modi, who, till a few years ago, was spewing venom against the Muslims, you have Rahul Baba, who sometimes woos Muslims, and sometimes woos Dalits- Well whatever gets him a seat in UP! This race of politicians, united in their rejection of the idea of India has threatened the very existence of the nation.

The Assam violence and the corresponding flight of North easterners should not be viewed as an isolated event. Along with instances such as the Gujarat riots, the flight of the Kashmiri Pandits, the anti-sikh pogrom etc.,  it threatens to tear this nation apart. For whatever be the ideals, lofty, idealistic or unsustainable, this nation has endured for 60 years! It has given hope and opportunity to millions. India is already surrounded by a string of failed states on all sides. Look at what their leaders have done to their people, what abject misery those populations have been reduced to. For all its shortcomings and structural fallacies, India needs to endure. There is no other alternative.