Skip to main content

Have the achhe din arrived?


 Of the last 25 years in India, 13 years belonged to the Bharatiya Janata Party. Vajpayee and Modi were the Prime Ministers. Modi still continues in power. Still the party keeps blaming others - some of whom died five centuries ago - for the country's woes. Like Nietzsche's gods, we will die laughing if this party continues to govern us like this. [When somebody like Yogi Adityanath comes to Kerala and expresses his anguish over women's safety in the state, the joke is a real killer.]

Modi has been in power for seven years now. He ascended the throne in Indraprastha with a lot of promises most of which would have made Modi himself laugh to his death if he had the ability to laugh. At least, as Shashi Tharoor said, Modi won't vote for himself if he listens to his own speeches made in the 2014 campaigns. 

Modi promised us achhe din [happy days] and gave us the worst days ever. 

Within months of coming to power in 2014, Modi sought to sell India's land to the corporate sector through the Land Acquisition Bill. The bill was met with a lot of opposition especially from the Bhumi Adhikar Andolan which still maintains that Modi is selling India to the corporate sector in the name of yet another hollow slogan, development. 

Demonetisation was arguably the biggest blunder committed in the name of happy days. Every one of its proclaimed goals (which changed from time to time) remained an illusive mirage. Black money did not cease to exist. On the contrary, it became easier for people to hoard 2000-rupee notes. Digital transactions did not become universal. The exercise engendered massive loss of jobs and businesses. Nothing, absolutely nothing, good came of it. 

The Economic Survey 2016-2017 released by the Chief Economic Adviser to Modi government stated that demonetisation was "an aggregate demand shock, an aggregate supply shock, an uncertainty shock and a liquidity shock". India's unemployment rate shot up to a five-year high in the year that followed demonetisation. The All India Manufacturers Organisation (AIMO) estimated that industries and traders incurred 60% job losses and 47% revenue loss because of demonetisation. The plain truth that the country is still suffering from the fallout of that futile exercise has been swept under the florid carpet of government propaganda. 

The impulsive implementation of GST was another blow to the country's development. It led to a gargantuan chaos especially among the small traders who had to rely heavily on experts for keeping their hitherto simple accounts. Many small traders gave up their businesses altogether. Moreover, the exercise affected the federal structure of our political and economic system. Shashi Tharoor wrote in his book, The Paradoxical Prime Minister, that the botched implementation of GST was the second greatest body blow to Indian economy after demonetisation. 

Jammu-Kashmir became absolutely alienated from India because of Modi's actions there. He cut up the state into two and made one part an enemy of the country by treating it as such. A whole people and their democratically elected leaders were held as prisoners actually or virtually. An entire state that was once described by many as a paradise on earth has become worse than a hell, thanks to Modi's policies which are founded on hatred of a particular community. 

The Citizenship Amendment Act was conspicuously discriminatory against Modi's bête noire. It proclaimed in no uncertain terms that Modi intended to make India a Hindu Rashtra in which other religious communities were not welcome. It offered citizenship to "non-Muslims" from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh. 

"Non-Muslim" was just a mockery. All Non-Hindus in the cow-belt are being attacked for all sorts of invented reasons. The recent attack on two nuns on a train is just another of a million unsavoury assaults on the erstwhile inclusiveness of this nation. 

The farmer's agitation may celebrate its anniversary and yet not find any solution. The excruciating ridiculousness of the entire things is how a government claims to be doing good for the people while the very beneficiaries say an emphatic No to the "good". Who decides what is good for the people: the people or the government? And does the government mean Just Modi and Shah? Even BJP MLAs in various states are unhappy with the farmers' issue and the way it is being handled by Modi-Shah. Whose government is this?

India is on sale. Most public sector industries and institutions are being sold to the corporate sector by Modi saying that running industries is not the government's job. One is left wondering what the government's job now is. Is it purchase of MLAs in states and toppling of elected governments? Even the well-run LIC is going to be sold! Those who have had experience with both LIC and private insurance companies know that the latter are a bunch of purse-snatchers. Why is India being sold to thieves?

Petrol and diesel prices have kept mocking Indians for long now. So has the price of the cooking gas. So have the prices of a lot of things. People are getting used to misery having endured it for half a decade now. People get used to anything. Modi knows that. Moreover, he knows that he has achieved some sort of a divine status among millions of blind bhakts. So he will keep hoodwinking an entire nation of a billion and a quarter of people. 

There are many other things that we can go on discussing like the impulsive implementation of lockdown, misuse of the media, mendacious propaganda, the recent changes proposed to bank interest rates (revoked due to elections but will be implemented after the elections), and the rewriting of history. 

Now it's up to us to decide whether these are happy days. 

PS. Written for Indispire Edition 369: Finally the ache din seem to have arrived, especially with the bank interest rates of 1 April. #AcheDin



Comments

  1. Did Yogi really shed tears for the women folk of Kerala citing acche din of UP ? Truly amazing. or may be not given it is election time...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Whenever Yogi gets an opportunity he cocks a snook at Kerala. Is it ignorance or malice? I vote for the latter.

      Delete
  2. Modi-Shah Inc are catastrophic for India. Those laughing at pappu don't realise that he will be having the last laugh

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We are living the catastrophe. Those who fail to understand it now will regret sooner than later.

      Delete
  3. The fact that Yogi had the gall to say that Kerala had to learn from UP in terms of public health care - unbelievable!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm sure he's not so out of touch with reality. It's the usual BJP policy of making truth out of a lie through repetition.

      Delete
  4. I have no desire for Acche Din. I will make do with Normal din, as anything will be an improvement to the terrible days we have been facing!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. But do we have a choice? Like the agitating farmers, we are being fed with achhe din!

      Delete
  5. They have come to power built on the Jumla foundation and now the only truth is the blind faith of the bhakts will keep the rotten edifice from falling.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Prelude to AtoZ

  From Garden of 5 Senses, Delhi [file pic] Hindsight gives an unearthly charm and order to the past. There can be pain too. A lot of things could have been different, much better, if only we possessed the wisdom of our old age back in those days. As a writer put it, Oedipus, Hamlet, Lear and a lot of those guys must have thought, “I wish I had known this some time ago.” Life is a series of errors with intermittent achievements. The only usefulness of the errors may be the lessons they teach us. Probably, that is their purpose too. We are created to err so that we learn, I dare to put it that way. I turn 64 in a month’s time. It’s not inappropriate to look back at some of the people whom life brought into my life so that I would learn certain lessons. No, I don’t mean to say that life has any such purpose or design or anything. Life is absurd. People come into your life as haphazardly as vehicles ply on your road or birds poop on your head. Some of these people change the chemist

Why I won’t vote

From Deshabhimani , Malayalam weekly Exactly a month from today is the Parliamentary election in my state of Kerala. This time, I’m not going to vote. Bernard Shaw defined democracy , with his characteristic cynicism, as “ a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve .” We elect our government in a democracy. And the government invariably sucks our blood – whichever the party is. The BJP and the Congress are like Tweedledum and Tweedledee though the former makes all sorts of other claims day in and day out. BJP = Congress + the holy cow. The holy cow has turned out to be quite a vampire and that makes a difference, no doubt. In our Prime Minister’s algebra, it is: (a+b) 2 which should be equal to a 2 and b 2 . There is an extra 2ab which is the holy cow. In George Orwell’s Animal Farm , the animals revolt against the human master and set up their own nationalist republic. Soon politics develops in the republic and some pigs become leaders. The porcine

How Arvind Kejriwal can save himself

Narendra Modi and Amit Shah have a clear vision. Eliminate all opposition. Decimate them or absorb them. My previous post [link below] showed a few people decimated by them. Today let’s look at the others: those who are saved by joining the Bharatiya Janata Party [BJP]. 1. Himanta Biswa Sarma  This guy was in Congress and faced serious charges related to the multi-crore Saradha chit fund scam. He also faced corruption charges related to drinking water supply in Guwahati. His house was raided by the Central Bureau of Investigation [CBI]. Then he switched over to BJP and all his crimes just vanished. It’s as simple as taking a dip in the Ganga and all your sins are forgiven. Today he is the chief minister of Assam. Nothing is heard of all the charges that were levelled against him. 2. Amarinder Singh  This former Captain in the Indian Army was a Congressman until Modi’s Enforcement Directorate [ED] started raiding him, his son and his son-in-law. He put an end to all those raid

The Good Old World

Book Review Title: Dukhi Dadiba and irony of fate Author: Dadi Edulji Taraporewala Translators: Aban Mukherji and Tulsi Vatsal Publisher: Ratna Books, Delhi, 2023 Pages: 314 If you want to return to the good old days of the late 19 th century, this is an ideal novel for you. This was published originally in Gujarati in 1913. It appeared as a serial before that from 1898 onwards in a periodical. The conflict between good and evil is the dominant motif though there is romance, betrayal, disappointment, regret, and pretty much of traditional morality. Reading this novel is quite like watching an old Bollywood movie, 1960s style. Ardeshir Bahadurshah, a wealthy Parsi aristocrat in Surat, dies having obligated his son Jehangir to find out his long-lost brother Rustom. Rustom was Bahadurshah’s son in his first marriage. The mother died when the boy was too small and the nurse who looked after the child vanished with it one day. Ratanmai, Bahadurshah’s present wife, takes her

Kejriwal’s Arrest in Modi’s Kurukshetra

For some mysterious reason, Arvind Kejriwal’s arrest reminded me of Haren Pandya. Maybe, because Pandya’s 21 st death anniversary is approaching (26 March). Have you forgotten Haren Pandya? He was the Home Minister of Gujarat before Narendra Modi assumed dictatorial powers in that state. Modi chose to teach humility to Pandya by making him the Minister of State for revenue. Pandya chose not to learn humility from Modi and resigned from that post in Aug 2002. Remember Gujarat of 2002? You should. A fire engulfed a train on 27 Feb 2002 killing 58 Hindu pilgrims who were returning from Ayodhya where they had gone to discover their god, not very unlike Christopher Columbus undertaking a voyage to discover India and messing it all up. What caused the fire in the train? Lord Ram knows probably. The upshot was that there was a riot in Gujarat by Hindus against Muslims. Haren Pandya is one of the BJP leaders who gave statements in many places indicting Modi for the riots. He asser