Skip to main content

I don’t trust my government



I uninstalled from my phone the UMANG app which “allows you to access Indian Government services online through web and mobile (phone)”.  It was installed because I received a message that hereafter all notifications regarding my EPF would be sent only via this app.  But when I saw that the app was demanding too much from me, like access to my contact list, to the picture gallery in my phone, to my email contact list, to the files on my phone and so on, I put my foot down and said No.  I don’t trust my government so much, I’m sorry.

Source: Here
There are quite a few other apps that I use which also demand a few permissions which I have given.  But I’m willing to trust those service providers – willy-nilly, though – more than my government.  For example, I trust my bank whose app also demands quite a few peeps into my private affairs.  I trust Google which actually peeps too much.  Why don’t I trust my government?

My government has never given me satisfactory service at any time in my life.  It has only taken as much as it could whenever it could in various disguises.  It continues to suck my blood and I know the process will end only when my body is taken to the grave.  No, not even then.  One of my dearest ones will be sucked in the name of my death certificate even after I bid the final adieu to the government. 

Now Punjab National Bank has been asked to pay the “entire ₹11,360 crore to counterparty banks in the alleged fraud involving jeweller Nirav Modi.”  Where will PNB get the money from?  They will obviously charge it from their hapless customers in the name of various service charges as State Bank of India did.  By penalising accounts without minimum balance alone, SBI earned ₹1771 crore during April-Nov 2017, a sum that surpassed their net profit of ₹1,582 crore.  Those who could not save even the minimum balance, the underprivileged people of India, were penalised in order to pay for the offences of the richest defaulters in the country like Nirav Modi.  Now, PNB will ape SBI and the impecunious Indians will atone for Modi's sins.

Let us recall the fact that Nirav Modi was one of the Indian businessmen who accompanied Prime Minister Modi to the World Economic Forum in Davos recently.  Reports are also coming out about the Chhota Modi’s (as Congress named him instantly) associations with the Ambanis and Adanis who are the virtual rulers of the country today and whose huge debts to SBI were also indirectly put on the poor of the nation. 

How does such a government expect me to trust it and its apps which seek too many accesses into my private affairs?

If the government had fulfilled a fraction of its electoral and post-election promises, if the country’s best orator’s words carried a modicum of sincerity, I would have been tempted to retain my trust in the government.  Now when the best orator appears on the TV I hear myself chuckling; I hear others snickering.  The snickers give me hope, hope that stretches to the general elections in 2019.

Until then I shall go without the messages from the EPF department.







Comments

  1. जितेन्द्र माथुरFebruary 16, 2018 at 7:29 AM

    I empathize with you. Billions of Indians like you (and me) are feeling the same way. May God be his judge because the voters do not seem to intend to be so.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalFebruary 16, 2018 at 7:34 AM

      Thank you for joining me here, Jitender ji. I'm sure the voters will recognise the reality as against the promised utopia and do the needful in 2019.

      Delete
  2. pushpendra dwivediFebruary 16, 2018 at 4:21 PM

    me to

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Yesterday

With students of Carmel Margaret, are you grieving / Over Goldengrove unleaving…? It was one of my first days in the eleventh class of Carmel Public School in Kerala, the last school of my teaching career. One girl, whose name was not Margaret, was in the class looking extremely melancholy. I had noticed her for a few days. I didn’t know how to put the matter over to her. I had already told the students that a smiling face was a rule in the English class. Since Margaret didn’t comply, I chose to drag Hopkins in. I replaced the name of Margaret with the girl’s actual name, however, when I quoted the lines. Margaret is a little girl in the Hopkins poem. Looking at autumn’s falling leaves, Margaret is saddened by the fact of life’s inevitable degeneration. The leaves have to turn yellow and eventually fall. And decay. The poet tells her that she has no choice but accept certain inevitabilities of life. Sorrow is our legacy, Margaret , I said to Margaret’s alter ego in my class. Let
30 comments
Read more

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
37 comments
Read more

William and the autumn of life

William and I were together only for one year, but our friendship has grown stronger year after year. The duration of that friendship is going to hit half a century. In the meanwhile both he and I changed many places. William was in Kerala when I was in Shillong. He was in Ireland when I was in Delhi. Now I am in Kerala where William is planning to migrate back. We were both novices of a religious congregation for one year at Kotagiri in Tamil Nadu. He was older than me by a few years and far more mature too. But we shared a cordial rapport which kept us in touch though we went in unexpected directions later. William’s conversations had the same pattern back then and now too. I’d call it Socratic. He questions a lot of things that you say with the intention of getting to the depth of the matter. The last conversation I had with him was when I decided to stop teaching. I mention this as an example of my conversations with William. “You are a good teacher. Why do you want to stop
15 comments
Read more

X the variable

X is the most versatile and hence a very precious entity in mathematics. Whenever there is an unknown quantity whose value has to be discovered, the mathematician begins with: Let the unknown quantity be x . This A2Z series presented a few personalities who played certain prominent roles in my life. They are not the only ones who touched my life, however. There are so many others, especially relatives, who left indelible marks on my psyche in many ways. I chose not to bring relatives into this series. Dealing with relatives is one of the most difficult jobs for me. I have failed in that task time and again. Miserably sometimes. When I think of relatives, O V Vijayan’s parable leaps to my mind. Father and little son are on a walk. “Be careful lest you fall,” father warns the boy. “What will happen if I fall?” The boy asks. The father’s answer is: “Relatives will laugh.” One of the harsh truths I have noticed as a teacher is that it is nearly impossible to teach your relatives – nephews
15 comments
Read more

Victor the angel

When Victor visited us in Delhi Victor and I were undergraduate classmates at St Albert’s College, Kochi. I was a student for priesthood then and Victor was just another of the many ordinary lay students. We were majoring in mathematics with physics and statistics as our optionals. Today Victor is a theologian with a doctorate in biblical studies and is a member of the Pontifical Biblical Commission in the Vatican. And I have given up religion for all practical purposes. Victor and I travelled in opposing directions after our graduation. But we have remained friends notwithstanding our religious differences. Victor had very friendly relationships with some of the teachers in college and it became very helpful for me towards the end of my three-year study there when I had quit the pursuit of priesthood. The final exams approached and I needed a convenient accommodation near college. An inexpensive and quiet place was what I wanted during the period of the university exams. “What a
10 comments
Read more