Skip to main content

Whose country is it?


Courtesy: The Indian Express
Thanks to the media, a Dana Majhi or a Salamani Behera makes a brief appearance in the history of the country.  Who are they?  We will ask that question tomorrow.  We will forget them.  Because they don’t belong in history.  It was merely a freak chance that put them there.  Dana Majhi entered by carrying the dead body of his wife on his shoulders for a distance of over 10 km.  With his teenage daughter walking beside suppressing her grief.  The picture would shake the conscience of anyone who has a conscience.  Salamani Behera was an 80 year-old woman whose dead body was broken at the hip in order to fold it into two so that it could be packed and carried on a bamboo pole. 

How much is a human being worth in this country whose Prime Minister is hopping on and off airplanes in order to carry the greatness of his nation far and wide?

History always belonged to the rulers and their minions.  Pick up any history book and we will read about kings, queens, and wars.  History belonged to them.  History now belongs to their contemporary counterparts: Presidents, Prime Ministers and their minions. 
Courtesy: The Indian Express

I wish our Prime Minister could actually materialise at least a fraction of what he promises.  I wish the cess we are paying for Swach Bharat, for example, was made accountable.

I wish the Prime Minister was accountable.  If ten percent of politicians were accountable, Dana Majhi wouldn’t have to carry the body of his wife for kilometres.  If one percent of politicians were accountable, Salamani Behera’s body wouldn’t be broken into half like a twig and packed in a sack...



Labels

Labels:

Comments

  1. RakeshAugust 28, 2016 at 11:27 AM

    I had read this in the news somewhere and went numb for a while. However, reading this post brought out the full import of the tragic situation! I want to curse the people and government for these scenarios, when death isn't accorded its due dignity, just because an individual cannot afford it; but I don't have the heart to do that as well.

    Now comes the funny part... The bereaved will be visited by our honorable politicians and will be given some fund. Media will cover social figures weeping and trying to stem their tears while going through the wretched existence of their huts and lives. Then, everything will be fine and we will focus on the next T20 match... till we are again jolted out of our artificial euphoria by another heinous act...

    We are awesome! :D

    ReplyDelete
  2. Durga Prasad DashAugust 28, 2016 at 4:13 PM

    As you have said we forget these incidents too soon. Another sad part is the people responsible will wake up only after the incident has created some furore.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalAugust 28, 2016 at 6:21 PM

      We will wake up only to go back to sleep, Durga ji.

      Delete
  3. UnknownAugust 28, 2016 at 5:11 PM

    I have disagreement...sorry...for every incident that happens we can't blame the prime minister, the report that i read was that the man took his wife's body without informing the hospital as he wanted do perform the last rights before sunset. Yes the Prime Minister is doing foreign trips but the number of beneficial changes in policies are not seen. Also in the past two years compare the number of scams that surfaced with that of the past governments. The congress has done such a damage that it will take years for any government to make it neutral keep aside seeing progress. Apologies for my honest opinion but in a country of 1.2 billion we cant hold the prime minister for everything. Apologies once again sir.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalAugust 28, 2016 at 6:25 PM

      You are most welcome to disagree, Shweta. There's no need for any apology whatsoever. I respect your right to your view.

      The Congress was absolutely corrupt. That's why the nation booted them out. The nation elected Mr Modi because he had raised its hopes and dreams. Remember his promise of Rs 15 lakh in every Indian's account? In the end we ended up having empty accounts. Remember the umpteen promises he made and continues to make with pomp and style? Nothing happens. Empty rhetoric. That's what I'm questioning. I mentioned one example: the Swach Bharat cess we are all paying. Crores have been collected. What's being done with that money? That's just one example. Mr Modi has made Ambanis and Adanis richer. The poor man has become poorer. That's my point.

      Delete
    2. जितेन्द्र माथुरAugust 29, 2016 at 1:14 PM

      Shweta Ji. Scams do not come out within a short span of a new party's (or coalition's) coming to power. Hence please don't be in a hurry to applaud the present government for absence of scams. They may surface after a few years. The problem is with the mindset of the present premier of India whose line of thinking and action is in favour of the capitalists and not the commonfolk.

      Jitendra Mathur

      Delete
  4. Murthy K v v sAugust 28, 2016 at 9:10 PM

    Why Orissa always came up for wrong reasons..though there is large quantity of minerals in the state..! Social system should be retrospected ..!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalAugust 28, 2016 at 10:33 PM

      A very valid point, Murthy ji. Where does the wealth of the state go?

      Delete
  5. Amit AgarwalAugust 29, 2016 at 12:23 PM

    I agree with what Ms. Shweta Dave has said above. In spite of some shortcomings and pitfalls Modi Government is the cleanest this country has ever had. I, as the head of a family of four, can't always keep the other three members happy, how can we expect Modi ji to do that with 127 crores? I salute his spirit and vision..he knows what he is doing, and he is doing it well!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. जितेन्द्र माथुरAugust 29, 2016 at 1:17 PM

      It's too premature to term the present government as the cleanest the country has ever seen as the dirt takes its own in time in surfacing. The premier certainly knows what he is doing. And he is definitely doing well as far the interests of his party and his benefactors are concerned. He has never shown any serious concern for the plight of the commonfolk (except some lip service rendered when a danger of losing some particular vote bank is in his sight).

      Jitendra Mathur

      Jitendra Mathur

      Delete
    2. Tomichan MatheikalAugust 29, 2016 at 5:53 PM

      I'm ready to wait, Amit ji, to see India becoming what Mr Modi has promised. In the meanwhile, I must point out that corruption is not only about economics. One can corrupt the mindset of people. See the way communal polarisation is taking place after Mr Modi became the PM. It is an alarming trend if you see the way hatred is getting entrenched in people's minds and hearts.

      Delete
  6. जितेन्द्र माथुरAugust 29, 2016 at 1:19 PM

    I feel your pain Sir. And I endorse your viewpoint regarding the Swachchh Bharat Cess (and similar cesses). The accountability expected in this regard is nowhere visible.

    Jitendra Mathur

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalAugust 29, 2016 at 5:54 PM

      Visibility is precisely the point. We get the feeling that all the rhetoric is empty because we don't get to see anything of what's promised.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Country where humour died

Humour died a thousand deaths in India after May 2014. The reason – let me put it as someone put it on X.  The stand-up comedian Kunal Kamra called a politician some names like ‘traitor’ which made his audience laugh because they misunderstood it as a joke. Kunal Kamra has to explain the joke now in a court of justice. I hope his judge won’t be caught with crores of rupees of black money in his store room . India itself is the biggest joke now. Our courts of justice are huge jokes. Our universities are. Our temples, our textbooks, even our markets. Let alone our Parliament. I’m studying the Ramayana these days in detail because I’ve joined an A-to-Z blog challenge and my theme is Ramayana, as I wrote already in an earlier post . In order to understand the culture behind Ramayana, I even took the trouble to brush up my little knowledge of Sanskrit by attending a brief course. For proof, here’s part of a lesson in my handwriting.  The last day taught me some subhashit...
10 comments
Read more

Lucifer and some reflections

Let me start with a disclaimer: this is not a review of the Malayalam movie, Lucifer . These are some thoughts that came to my mind as I watched the movie today. However, just to give an idea about the movie: it’s a good entertainer with an engaging plot, Bollywood style settings, superman type violence in which the hero decimates the villains with pomp and show, and a spicy dance that is neatly tucked into the terribly orgasmic climax of the plot. The theme is highly relevant and that is what engaged me more. The role of certain mafia gangs in political governance is a theme that deserves to be examined in a good movie. In the movie, the mafia-politician nexus is busted and, like in our great myths, virtue triumphs over vice. Such a triumph is an artistic requirement. Real life, however, follows the principle of entropy: chaos flourishes with vengeance. Lucifer is the real winner in real life. The title of the movie as well as a final dialogue from the eponymous hero sugg...
4 comments
Read more

Abdullah’s Religion

O Abdulla Renowned Malayalam movie actor Mohanlal recently offered special prayers for Mammootty, another equally renowned actor of Kerala. The ritual was performed at Sabarimala temple, one of the supreme Hindu pilgrimage centres in Kerala. No one in Kerala found anything wrong in Mohanlal, a Hindu, praying for Mammootty, a Muslim, to a Hindu deity. Malayalis were concerned about Mammootty’s wellbeing and were relieved to know that the actor wasn’t suffering from anything as serious as it appeared. Except O Abdulla. Who is this Abdulla? I had never heard of him until he created an unsavoury controversy about a Hindu praying for a Muslim. This man’s Facebook profile describes him as: “Former Professor Islahiaya, Media Critic, Ex-Interpreter of Indian Ambassador, Founder Member MADHYAMAM.” He has 108K followers on FB. As I was reading Malayalam weekly this morning, I came to know that this Abdulla is a former member of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind Kerala , a fundamentalist organisation. ...
10 comments
Read more

Violence and Leaders

The latest issue of India Today magazine studies what it calls India’s Gross Domestic Behaviour (GDB). India is all poised to be an economic superpower. But what about its civic sense? Very poor, that’s what the study has found. Can GDP numbers and infrastructure projects alone determine a country’s development? Obviously, no. Will India be a really ‘developed’ country by 2030 although it may be $7-trillion economy by then? Again, no is the answer. India’s civic behaviour leaves a lot, lot to be desired. Ironically, the brand ambassador state of the country, Uttar Pradesh, is the worst on most parameters: civic behaviour, public safety, gender attitudes, and discrimination of various types. And UP is governed by a monk!  India Today Is there any correlation between the behaviour of a people and the values and principles displayed by their leaders? This is the question that arose in my mind as I read the India Today story. I put the question to ChatGPT. “Yes,” pat came the ...
10 comments
Read more

The Ramayana Chronicles: 26 Stories, Endless Wisdom

I’m participating in the A2Z challenge of Blogchatter this year too. I have been regular with this every April for the last few years. It’s been sheer fun for me as well as a tremendous learning experience. I wrote mostly on books and literature in the past. This year, I wish to dwell on India’s great epic Ramayana for various reasons the prominent of which is the new palatial residence in Ayodhya that our Prime Minister has benignly constructed for a supposedly homeless god. “Our Ram Lalla will no longer reside in a tent,” intoned Modi with his characteristic histrionics. This new residence for Lord Rama has become the largest pilgrimage centre in India, drawing about 100,000 devotees every day. Not even the Taj Mahal, a world wonder, gets so many footfalls. Ayodhya is not what it ever was. Earlier it was a humble temple town that belonged to all. Several temples belonging to different castes made all devotees feel at home. There was a sense of belonging, and a sense of simplici...
34 comments
Read more