Mumbaikars loose - MNS wins

Maharashtra poll results along with the poll results in the other two states of Arunachal Pradesh and Haryana has come as a bad news for the BJP. And the saffron colour continues to lose its shine.

It must have been a happy day at work for people at 10 Janpath as the hard work finally paid off in Maharashtra. With the party gaining an absolute majority, it will hope that it will be able to live up to the expectations of a common Indian living in Maharashtra.

But the disheartening news was about a goon party gaining more strength.

Maharashtra Navnirman Sena won in 13 seats in the state including 7 seats in Mumbai.

And there can be two ways of looking into the performance.

The first one has more to do with Not reading much into the party’s win. As the seat where it won was not on the basis of the party tag but because of a careful thinking that went into while selecting the candidates. The candidates who won were not imported from outside. Most of them were active in their constituency for years and were earlier a part of Shiv Sena.

So to say that the brand MNS worked would be wrong.

The second way of looking at this is that whether Mumbai has accepted and given its nod to the hooliganism way of politics that was carried out by MNS? And this question needs to carefully understood in the backdrop of the violence that MNS cadre carried out recently.

Infact none of the media post election talk show focussed on this aspect of MNS. Not much time back, this was the same party who held the whole state to ransom and ransacked the city and attacked anyone whom they thought was from north India.

Mumbai sure has a short memory.

Perhaps the Mumbaikars forgot that when 26/11 happened none of the MNS goons or Mr.Thackrey came forward to help. And those who died while tackling the situation where from all parts of the country, it was not a 'Me Mumbaikar' campaign at that time. And it was not just Mumbai who was glued into to the TV for news but the whole India

And it was not just Mumbai who felt frustrated for being so helpless and it was not just Mumbai who cried whenever a still body of an innocent “Indian” came out.

Try to remember; it was hardly 11 months back.

Anyone who saw Raj speaking before the media will agree that he has reached a new realm. The same old arrogance and lust for power was back in his eyes and in his voice as he dared people to perform Chaath Puja.

I thought that the MNS will be routed from the state but now realize that I was wrong. Might has again proved right.

Why do we point fingers at the illiterate class when they elect criminals to power? Don’t we say that the poor class doesn’t have the “intellectual” capability to decide between right and wrong?

What happened to the not so "intellectually backward strata" of Mumbai? Those who voted MNS to power how are they going to justify it?

Is violence the answer to the problem of people coming to a state in India in search for work? MNS had posed this question and many of you nodded in assent.

There were people who were lambasting Karan Johar for succumbing to MNS decree. Now we see why didn’t he resist.

We are moving backward in time. Democracy graduates from a violent natured system to a system that runs on a careful exercising of the power to vote.

This time it was MNS. Who knows by the next election time we might have NINS ( North Indian Navnirman sena). All justifying their violence on one reason or the other.

We pose some questions that can be answered only by ourselves.

http://desicritics.org/2009/10/22/125144.php#commentFrm

A not so difficult choice

The issue of Marathi-manus that has been revived by Raj Thackrey has brought back the memories the early Shiv Sena days, when Bal Thackrey successfully used the same sociological-demographic theory to gain a foothold in the political bazaar of Maharashtra.

Although the BJP alongwith the other national parties did criticize the MNS for the recent violence that it carried out against the North Indians yet it chose to keep mum over the involvement of its ally the Shiv Sena.

Bal Thackrey in the party’s mouth piece was in no mood of being modest as he lauded the way his party workers taught the Biharis a lesson that they will never forget.

With the emergence of MNS, the spotlight that Bal Thackeray was once accustomed too has now shifted to his former protégée Raj Thackrey.

This has prompted Shiv Sena to try out new things or more appropriately they have now been forced to narrow down their focus which earlier was ‘anti-Islam’ to a more local issue of empowering the Marathi- manus.The dwindling power of Shiv Sena is not something that can be hidden. It never had a pan India following. The self appointed protector of Hinduism from god knows what, has now seen its ‘best’ days.

BJP is a national party with a set of agenda that it follows which is arrived upon after keeping the whole country in mind. But the same cannot be said about Shiv Sena. It has ambitions and methods that will rarely be appreciated out side Maharashtra. Even in Hindi speaking belt of Central and North India, Shiv Sena does not have any following.

It will be very difficult for the Sena to remould its political objectives now because that would amount to asking the party to shed its core issue. So it will be a long while until the Shiv Sena decides to abandon its policy of keeping Maharathra for Marathi.

An alliance with Shiv Sena may go wrong for the BJP if the opposition ‘politicize’ this issue properly. It will be a million dollar question that how will the BJP justify the protest against MNS on the one hand and the cake-talk with the Shiv sena on the other. Surprisingly none of the political parties have put this seemingly ‘uncomfortable’ question before the BJP.

On the face of it, the coming general elections are tilted in favour of the BJP. Call it anti-incumbency, call it inflation or call it the effects of terrorism. As of now the road for Congress is far steeper than it is for BJP.

The general elections are just round the corner. The recent violence by the MNS and the Shiv Sena has posed serious questions for the BJP to ponder upon. The think tank of BJP will now have to work out the pros and cons of allying with the Shiv Sena.

It will be in for a rude surprise if it thinks that its association with Shiv sena will go un-noticed If it continues to walk with them for reasons varied, it will surely lose out not only in the north-eastern states but in the others parts of India as well.

http://desicritics.org/2008/10/28/004122.php

The death of an Indian

There was nothing extra-ordinary about Pawan Mahto, a resident of Bara- Khurd village in Nalanda district of Bihar.

The son of a poor farmer, Pawan was one of the hundreds of students from Bihar who were appearing for a railway recruitment exam in Maharashtra on Sunday.

He had hoped to pull himself and his family out of the vicious poverty cycle by getting into the railways. But his hopes were shattered and he died a tragic death after being beaten by the MNS activist for appearing in the recruitment exam.

He failed himself and his family. Or Perhaps he did not. May be he did his bit by seeing to it that at least his dead body brings in some financial help. As the news of his death came in , the Bihar Chief Minister announced a compensation of Rs.150,000 to Pawan's family. Maybe the compensation amount will weigh down the emotions of his old father and his wife.

The theory of Marathimanoos being preached by the goon turned politician called Raj Thackrey, just became more stronger. That too, at the expense of death of a youth who was poor,unemployed and someone who did not have big aspirations.

The death of a poor man will hardly make a news for more than a day or two. In this country hundreds die a non-deserving death. Pawan was just one of them.


Maybe thousands of words about Pawans death will appear on blogs, edit pages and newsite but still they will fall short of bringing out the true extent of what has occurred.

Pawans family do not access the internet. And even if they could, they would have surely searched in the vain hope of finding a better reason explaining their son's death.

The truth remains that he died because he was a North-East Indian. Also true is that he was a human being who must have felt pain when he died. Which of the two must have been more painful, the physical pain or the pain of being a north Indian, we will never know.

Congress losing ground

The more I see the double standards and the weak governance that is being practiced by the present Congress led government at the Center the more dismayed I feel at the levels to which the leaders fall for political gains.

After its ally, the DMK issued threat to the Manmohan Singh led UPA of pulling out of the alliance to express its concern with the Tamil issue in Srilanka, the Indian PM interfered in Srilanka’s internal issue and asked his counterpart to adopt a more humane way while dealing with a terrorist organization.

In another words, Manmohan Singh asked Rajapakse to show a bit more compassion while fighting the LTTE.

Political compulsion has forced the Gandhi family to conveniently forget that it was LTTE which was responsible for the death of hundreds of Indian peace keeping force and it was LTTE which made sure that Rajiv Gandhi paid with his life for sending IPKF to Srilanka.

Today in Maharashtra, a group of so called political activist led by a Bombay Scottish studied hoodlum, embarked on their mission to yet again project themselves as protector of ‘Marathimanus’, as a result of which north-eastern unemployed youths were brutally assaulted for appearing in railway recruitment board exams that were held in different part of the state

The same home minister, Shivraj Patil, who was earlier on forefront threatening the BJP government in Orissa and Karnataka with imposition of president rule for their failure to stop violence against the minority Christians has now chose to keep silence on the activity of MNS.

No ‘direct’ or even a ‘veiled’ threat or instructions was issued by the home minister to the Maharashtra CM to stop the repeated mockery of law and order.

Congress spokespersons appear on talk shows and say that the state government always takes necessary action against the MNS goons and its just that their party does not believe in announcing everything before the media.

Fifteen days later, the same violence is repeated, and again the same standard reply is forwarded by the party.

Perhaps they have forgotten the age old aphorism - "Not only must Justice be done; it must also be seen to be done."

What MNS in doing is not politics, not even by the farthest stretch of imagination. It can be called vandalism, a show of mob-strength. As of now MNS is not a political entity, but with the encouragement that it is receiving from the obvious political quarters it will soon turn into one, as did Shiv Sena.

This is not the first such incident and yet none of the senior leaders of the Congress have come in fore and called for taking action against Raj Thackery who is right now successfully enjoying the fruits of might is right.

It’s Vilas Rao Deshmukh who heads the Congress government in Maharashtra, and still the 10 Janpath people have not done anything concrete to stop the repeated assaults on the poor weak people apart from the regular titbit formality of arresting petty MNS workers and releasing them later.

Perhaps one of the reasons for this can be attributed to the fact that the Congress is virtually defunct in Bihar and despite its best claims; it is still miles away from making a serious impact in the neighboring Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand. This might well be the reason for its decision to go slow on MNS in Maharashtra as taking stricter actions may alienate its Marathi vote bank. But it should not forget that ignoring MNSs antics will harm both the country and the Congress itself in the long run. History has more than enough examples to prove this point

Whatever good work that was achieved by the RTI and the NREGA now stands negated by the politically motivated steps that Congress has been treading these days.

When a strong political will was the need of the hour the country witnessed show of weakness.

Be it the nuclear deal or be it the current Srilankan issue, Congress has always gone for an embarrassing political compromise rather than face the public mandate. And I guess that this fear is not dumb founded. More and more voters are now witnessing everything that happens around them due to the ever penetrating media. Now Media is not merely a news giver but has donned the role of an opinion maker.

General elections are inevitable; it will happen, and someone will lose, others will not. Forecasting has never been my forte, but then you don’t need to be an astrologer to see the obvious.

Just for a Thought

Recently over 13000 infants in China fell ill after they consumed toxic milk. The repercussions?

1. The country’s highest ranked Quality controller chief resigned.
2. The Communist party chief of the region where the main office of the rogue company is located was removed from his post.
3. The country Premier asked for forgiveness from the affected parents.

Just for a thought can we expect the same thing to happen in India? Not the milk contamination; that happens everyday but the fixing of accountability, both legal and moral?

Judiciary is one of the four pillars of the Indian democracy. Until recently we thought that higher judiciary was free from ills that are somewhat rampant in the lower judiciary. Though people who dwell “in the power of corridor” will say that even the higher judiciary is fallible.

But then came Justice Soumitra Sen. Mr.Sen, who is accused of misappropriating 32 lakhs of rupees when he was still a practicing lawyer decided to ‘defend’ himself in the parliament against the impeachment proceeding that was recommended by Chief Justice of India. He will now become only the second high court judge in post-independence India who will face impeachment.

Accountability… moral-ethical- legal? You decide.

With elections looming large, political parties have decided to come to party. So should then be the news of the Centre asking some of the states to maintain law and order failing which president rule under article 355 would be imposed, seen in the same light?

This was after the activists of Bajrang dal allegedly carried out violent activities against the minority section.

I, by no mean intend to alleviate or justify what was done in Orissa, Karnataka or Madhya Pradesh. Violence of any kind on any ground against any religion, caste or creed should not be tolerated.

But just for a thought was Article 355 not applicable to Maharashtra. What about the region-based-violence that was carried out by the MNS goons? Doesn’t that warranted a firm stricture from the Congress on the same lines as was done in the recent case?

No it didn’t. Reason? The victims in Maharashtra were not from any minority religion. Secondly ,in case of Maharashtra the state was being ruled by Congress, unlike in the recent case where BJP was in picture.

Political opportunism-compulsion- hypocrisy? You decide.