Skip to main content

Democracy wins in Delhi


The victory of Mr Arvind Kejriwal and his party in Delhi shows that democracy is not only vibrant in India but also is politically aware and socially responsible.  The people of Delhi rejected Mr Narendra Modi and his kind of politics which benefit only the rich and the powerful or a particular religious community.  A peon in my school told me on the day of the election, “Don’t vote for Modi’s party.”  I asked why.  “It’s the party of people like the Ambanis and the Tatas,” he said.  “Mukesh Ambani bought 4 TV channels after NaMo became the PM.”  He named the channels to me.  He knew that Mr Mukesh Ambani virtually owned 27 TV channels in India.  The Delhi Assembly election shows that Indians are able to see through the colourful masks worn by their leaders.   

Mr Modi’s personalised Republic Day suit which reportedly cost Rs10 lakh and other similarly blatant displays of puerile narcissism must have grated on the nerves of a nation which has thousands of people who die of cold and hunger on the streets every year.  The Modi government did practically nothing to alleviate poverty in the country.  Rather he was keen to promote the interests of rich industrialists.  His bhashans on eradication of corruption began to ring hollow.  Swachh Bharat turned into a mirage after the initial euphoria and drama.

Majoritarianism need not be a good electoral technique when the whole world has gone far beyond such narrow thinking and considerations.  People of all kinds of religious faith and racial backgrounds have learnt to live together in most parts of the world.  It is not only a regressive step but a foolish one too to assert that India belongs to only those who believe in one religion.  True, Mr Modi didn’t make such statements.  But his culpability lies in not restraining his friends and supporters who kept on pushing extremely divisive agendas in the country.  When Christian churches were attacked one after the other in Delhi itself, Mr Modi refused to utter even a word about it.  None of the people belonging to minority communities would have felt secure under Mr Modi’s leadership.

Mr Modi’s development schemes did not reach most people.  His promises on things like bringing back the black money now sound absolutely hollow.  His party’s surreptitious move to erase secularism and socialism from the country’s Constitution did not go down well with many Indians.  The RSS and similar organs associated with the PM and his party corroded the PM’s credentials with their relentless hate speeches.

There were too many moments or occasions when Modi let out the impression that he thought of Indians as gullible fools who could be electrified with the magic of rhetoric. 


Frankly, I had not expected such a resounding victory for Mr Kejriwal though I had declared my support to his party openly.  Frankly, Mr Modi’s defeat (I see it that way) exhilarates me more than Mr Kejriwal’s victory.  It is not so much because my dislike of Modi is irrepressible as because I realise that Indians can’t be hoodwinked with silly sentiments dug up from the tombs of the long dead past. 

Comments

  1. Is this the END of the so called 'Modi wave' and the beginning of the common man's 'AAP wave'?

    All the voters are no more donkeys as they were earlier considered by some...!

    http://popular-opinion.blogspot.in/2015/02/aap-grabs-historic-landslide-victory-in.html

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It does mean a lot in india's political history. BJP's very ideology is under question. People can't be fooled with religion any more.

      Delete
  2. In an earlier post brimming with satire you had not given much of a chance to AAP.Anyway, balance is most essential in life.The win of AAP augers well for Delhi & the country!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I voted for AAP and had declared my choice openly. But I had not expected the present outcome.

      Satire has no balance. Satire is effective use of exaggeratio .

      Delete
  3. Delhi deserves to be a world class city..

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. True. Much has to be done. The people of Delhi will cooperate if the leaders can show the way.

      Delete
    2. True. Much has to be done. The people of Delhi will cooperate if the leaders can show the way.

      Delete
  4. I am happy to see this. I believe this marks the beginning of a positive change throughout our nation.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Politics is always highly unpredictable, Namrata. Yet I too tend to see AK's unusual victory as a sign of meaningful change - from the personality cult of NaMo to the welfare of the real aam aadmi on the streets.

      Delete
  5. I'd thought AAP would win, but no one could have predicted a victory of this magnitude. It is indeed a victory of the people of Delhi, and Democracy.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, Kiran, I too appreciate Delhiites for the way they voted. They revealed much understanding, unusual in Indian politics.

      Delete
  6. Gr8 post Sir! Reasons y BJP lost is their vicious negative campaign against Kejriwal, Bedi joinin party just days before elections(thus making clear her opportunism, insincerity 2wards Delhi voters which they saw through), too mch internal strife within Delhi BJP & then der r conspiracy theories nw that BJP wanted 2 lose & hence didn't unleash all its volunteers 2 wrk as hard...imagine Bedi losing from her own seat!!

    Overall democracy has won. Hope AAP is more responsible this time around. Jai Hind!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. AAP can't afford to be immature any more, Amrita. Otherwise it will be their funeral. I'm pretty sure the party is going to deliver this time. Even the last time in the 49 days in power they delivered more than what BJP has done in 9 months :)

      Delete
  7. Aam Aadmi preferred Rs 100 ka muffler over 10 lakh ka suit...Modi wave vanished in front of Muffler Tsunami...this is the win for Indian Democracy.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, the Delhiites have shown that Indians can't be hoodwinked with glitter and rhetoric.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl

The Loneliest Place

Point Nemo is the loneliest place on earth. It is a point in the Pacific Ocean, about 2,688 kilometres from the nearest land. If you can get a foothold in Point Nemo, what you see all around you will be water and nothing but water, leaving aside the sky above. Water, sky and you. What greater solitude can you ask for? Maybe Henry Miller would be happy there as he could ponder his ‘shame and his despair’ in seclusion. He wanted to do that, according to his Tropic of Cancer , in the vacant sunshine, without companions, without conversation, face to face with himself, with only the music of his heart for company. Maybe Virginia Wolf could be her own real self, sitting by herself “like the solitary sea-bird that opens its wings on the stake.” Lord Byron can find his bliss there. Though it is not the “pathless woods” that he longed for. But the rapture he wanted so much on “the lonely shore” might come by. “There is society, where none intrudes, / By the deep sea, and music in its r

The Little Girl

The Little Girl is a short story by Katherine Mansfield given in the class 9 English course of NCERT. Maggie gave an assignment to her students based on the story and one of her students, Athena Baby Sabu, presented a brilliant job. She converted the story into a delightful comic strip. Mansfield tells the story of Kezia who is the eponymous little girl. Kezia is scared of her father who wields a lot of control on the entire family. She is punished severely for an unwitting mistake which makes her even more scared of her father. Her grandmother is fond of her and is her emotional succour. The grandmother is away from home one day with Kezia's mother who is hospitalised. Kezia gets her usual nightmare and is terrified. There is no one at home to console her except her father from whom she does not expect any consolation. But the father rises to the occasion and lets the little girl sleep beside him that night. She rests her head on her father's chest and can feel his heart

The Ugly Duckling

Source: Acting Company A. A. Milne’s one-act play, The Ugly Duckling , acquired a classical status because of the hearty humour used to present a profound theme. The King and the Queen are worried because their daughter Camilla is too ugly to get a suitor. In spite of all the devious strategies employed by the King and his Chancellor, the princess remained unmarried. Camilla was blessed with a unique beauty by her two godmothers but no one could see any beauty in her physical appearance. She has an exquisitely beautiful character. What use is character? The King asks. The play is an answer to that question. Character plays the most crucial role in our moral science books and traditional rhetoric, religious scriptures and homilies. When it comes to practical life, we look for other things such as wealth, social rank, physical looks, and so on. As the King says in this play, “If a girl is beautiful, it is easy to assume that she has, tucked away inside her, an equally beauti

Travancore Before Independence

Book Review Title: The Ivory Throne Author: Manu S Pillai Publisher: HarperCollins India, 2015 Pages: 694 History can be more fascinating and gripping than literary fiction. It depends on who writes it. The most boring discourses I have read are in history books written by academic historians. So when I come across good history books, I am excited. Manu S Pillai’s history of Travancore in the first half of the 20 th century is an exquisite work of literature insofar as it blends history with incisive portrayal of certain characters that matter. Queen Sethu Lakshmi Bayi who reigned from 1924 to 1931 is the heroine of this book, so to say. She towers above everybody else though her period of reign was brief and she was only a Regent Queen. The king who succeeded her was not her son. Maharaja Chithira Tirunal (r. 1931-1949) was her cousin’s son. Her cousin, Sethu Parvathi Bayi, was quite a character, a stark contrast to the Queen. The two ladies come alive in this history b