Dear Singh Sahab,
People spread all kinds of rumour and infamy about you. Some even say that you are the Prime Minister of India.
There
used to be a time (before May 2004) when the term Prime Minister of
India used to mean something. Now it only means a puppet subordinate to
the orders or pressures of various groups or a super chairperson. It
might be amusing to some but it surely is a painful fact as far as the
country is concerned.
Its
so sad for the Prime Minister of the country to be a mute or a
completely invisible element in almost all aspects that are vital to a
nation’s survival, may it be economy (Sorry Sir, “we will grow at 8%”
wont suffice. I mean if a person is hungry, what should he eat? The
sensex? Or growth? ). Last eight years have seen the slow but steady
undoing of the great India story which began in 1991, with your budget
itself, when a then bankrupt country began its march to being one of the
world’s most formidable economies. Your role as a Prime Minister has
been a far cry from your role as the Finance Minister back then. When
one sees the same person giving upto the leftist elements who want India
to go back to the days of license permit raj and long queues, one can’t
help grimacing. Since the last eight years, the cost of living has gone
up steadily and swiftly so much that the day is not far when even
drawing a breath will be taxed. The prices pre UPA govt have become
somewhat of a nostalgia to the public of India, a time when filling the
fuel tank of a vehicle with petrol/diesel didn’t exactly feel like
someone was siphoning off blood from your guts or buying a kilo of
pulses didn’t feel like cutting your own piece of flesh to pay for it. I
used to express wonder at Zimbabwe with its 3210000% inflation, the
exodus of the middle class from the country and the 10 billion
Zimbabwean Dollar bank note, but suddenly, these horrors do not seem
very far from home to me, with your partymen and coaliation partners so
firmly in their place even after it has long been proved that they are
trying to stitch ornate brocades with kitchen knives.
Or
that of national security, the two most devastating attacks that were
in Mumbai on 7th July 2006 and 26th Nov 2008, in addition to the
hundreds of terrorist incidents in the country which the poor writer
finds too numerous to mention here. Any decent person would be appalled
at the impunity with which terrorists strike and the utter indifference
of the govt which instead tells the citizens to be prepared for more
attacks as everyone cannot be protected is nothing but shamelessness and
utter treason. My true emotions about this cannot be expressed in this
letter as the publication won’t tolerate flowery colourful language. It
is not rocket science to figure out that the protection of the people
against terrorism is nowhere in the government’s agenda. And instead of
talking tough with our friendly neighbor next door, the govt only fights
with dossiers, and you sir, make a sharmnaak (shameful) declaration in
Sharm al Shaikh (Egypt) that India and Pakistan have a common destiny as
both of them are the victims of terrorism. Instead of garnering
international support for India for placing pressure on Pakistan to mend
its way, you have opened the roads for business with them, and it will
only mean that the next batch of Kalashnikovs for the militants will be
paid from our pockets as most of the businesses in Pakistan have a huge
stake of the Pak Army. And what can one say about friendly Bangladeshis
pouring into our borders like cockroaches? They show their friendly
colours by kicking out the locals from our north eastern states , as
they did in one of their colourfully engineered riots this year and your
party remains quiet as they comprise of a significant vote bank. Plus,
since the UPA has come to power, the Naxalite menace has become worse,
and one fourth of the country is under their whims and fancies. And what
does the govt want to do? Nothing. All it is obsessed is Saffron
terror, a concept which is as realistic as the Tooth Fairy. On one hand
when China increased the defense budget by 11%, India increased the age
of its Army Chief by one year.
India
has become a scam haven. 2G scam, Foodgrains scam, ISRO scam, Coal
scam, Defence acquisition scam, Commonwealth games scam, Stamp paper
scam…looks like the entire country is a scam and every person is a
fraud. All people are equal but some people are more equal than the
others. Accountability of any person or authority is nil, the buck never
stops anywhere, finance has become the art of passing money from one
hand to another until it finally disappears.CBI is Congress Bureau of
Investigation. Billions have been looted and stashed overseas, billions
more are invested in real estate, more are stashed in dubious companies
or with the so called godmen. It wont be surprising if it is found out
that a large part of the FDI is actually nothing but the money which
which was looted earlier.
Add
to that the little gems like including caste in the latest census, or
the famous declaration that Muslims have the foremost right on the
resources of the country, the shameless Bharat Nirman ads (when actually
it should be Bharat Neelaam), not observing any anniversary of the
Kargil war of 1999 as the victory was not under your regime, the utter
inaction when Assam was burning earlier this year or turning a blind eye
to the naxal menace all the time and so on.The paid media surely is a
boon at such demanding times.
But
the most important thing I want to ask you is that why cant we hear
your voice or your opinion on anything? Your deathly silence deafens us
all, Singh Sahab. Are you merely a figurehead? Or someone who only has
the work of speaking a few lines in overseas summits? Third rate
regional parties being wooed, given immense power and important posts in
the cabinet just for the sake of saving the coaliation. They hold the
country to ransom, and their demands are catered, in the name of
secularism and “coaliation dharma”. None of the country’s problems are
taken to you for discussion and none of them has you speaking on the
floor of the house. Maybe the spectacle of Manmohan Singh speaking is
like summer on the south pole, brief and fleeting.
This
is a letter writing forum to the PM of India. But even while I write,
I’m full of doubts, as to whether I have addressed it to the right
person, because I’m still not able to ascertain as to who is the Indian
PM or whether the number of PMs runs into a few score or many dozen. And
who do I complain to? I know very well that our government was never
ours to begin with. When someone is a citizen of some country, it means
something. Does being a citizen of India have any meaning? Do I even
have a right to a decent life which can make me feel that my life has
some value, something which is not to be lost in an accident in our
lunar landscaped streets or in an attack by terrorists ( who I know will
never be punished for whatever they do)? Do I have a right to dignity,
instead of being kicked around by the pimps in khakhi , called as police
in a little decent language (who are there to protect the politicians
or whoever buys them, not the people, and who wont have the least moral
obligation of saving the likes of me in case a riot breaks out or if my
house is burgled), the pimps in safari called as bureaucrats in a little
decent language, or any ruffian on the street (one who has the full
freedom of thrashing or killing me but I don’t have the right even to
carry a little knife for protection)? Do I have the right of purity in
anything, because everything from the air I breathe to the food that I
eat to the institutions that I’m governed under are toxins? In India,
the tax we pay to the govt is actually not tax but hafta, extortion
money which we have to pay just so that we are allowed to live for
another miserable year. What next? An additional tax for people who have
more than two square meals a day?
Do
I have a right to have the littlest faith in anything, without worrying
that there might be a fraud in it? Or to have something as hope for
something called as India or whatever is left of it?
Because
what we want is a country, and not an asylum with 1.25 billion inmates
who are given shocks and morphine in the name of development.
Sincerely,
Ankur Jayawant
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