A Tale of Two Queens

Before the British took India for themselves, the country much larger than what it is today, was governed by various Rajas and Ranis of different states. The British had decided to allow most of these Rajas and Ranis to continue, and in exchange they extracted huge taxes from them. The British have left us long ago, but we are still ruled by various Rajas and Ranis of different states. Raja Lalu, Raja Paswan, Raja Pawar, Raja Mulayam, Raja Basu, Raja Biju, Rani Mayawati, Rani Jayalalitha, Raja Abdullah, Raja Badal are some of the good names of present day Raja-Rani. These Raja-Ranis are so shrewd that they have altogether mended the British theory and have instead started demanding taxes from the Emperor of Delhi. As the new government is about to crop up, most Rajas have been forked out by either of the likely emperors because of their low clouts. But two of our quintessential Queens remain the target as the game of capture is narrowing down, when they still manage to evade, themselves.

Ms. J. Jayalalitha and Sushri Mayawati, are two such versatile queens of Indian politics who are considered as embarrassing and irksome politicians to deal with. Though they have come from different background, yet they have many similarities while doing business. Jayalalitha was a popular Tamil filmstar when she had joined politics. She has seen all the richness from her childhood. While Mayawati was a primary teacher in most ordinary school before she joined politics and her parents remained very poor villagers.

Beside this, they have many commonness which put them in a category. Both of them significantly became the torchbearers of the parties after their mentors left for heavenly abode. They remained unmarried and are relatively young and attractive. They love richness, be it acquiring immovable properties, displaying extravagant jewellery and clothing or keeping imported cars. It is rarely seen that these two women visit the poor, filthy and destitute countryside except when of course this requires political mileage. They are despot and rule by virtue of powers that be with them. Both of them were seen manhandling their opponents ruthlessly. Once, DMK supremo Karunanidhi was dragged from his house by Jayalalitha's henchmen while Mayawati and his men were fighting physically with Mulayam's men inside the Vidhan Sabha of Uttar Pradesh. Both the leaders had been accused of dismissing the Vajpayee government due to their whims and weirdness in the past. They are untrustworthy and recalcitrant by nature when it matters to power-sharing.

Our country has remained very unfortunate since ages when it matters powers and rules. The history witnesses that we remained cowards when Afghans, Mongols and Central Asian invaders struck India. The misfortune still remains with us. We still have to depend on the whims of these power hungry, resilient, untrustworthy queens in order to surpass 272. As long as this number remains, we would be haunted by these insane queens, as we as a nation are timid by nature. Long live our Queens.

Fake Democracy

The general election in India is over and every one is looking for the results to come out. Without wasting time, the electronic media have begun to show the exit poll just after the final poll is concluded. All channels have their own predictions and permutations. As no exit poll has shown any clear cut mandate in the formation of a government at the Centre, no political party seems to find itself in a comfortable situation. Here begins the real polity of rearranging groups in order to make oneself as the front runner.

Before the poll was to begin, every political party was busy opposing at least one party in the election. For them, that rival party had not only been its foe but also it remained an untouchable for them. In UP, the Samajwadi cannot walk along with BSP, TMC in West Bengal detests CPI(M), Shiv Sena and NCP in Maharashtra, DMK and AIADMK in Tamil Nadu are all having bitter relations. As for national parties, BJP and the Congress are poles apart to work together, while the Left parties have declared that they would not support a Congress led government at the Centre. The major issue during this election of all political parties remained identical, which was to oppose the rival parties in a disparaging manner.

The scenario coming out of the exit poll indicates that no one party or a combination can form the government. This means that either of the parties have to adjust its priniciples and support the other in the formation of the government. Before the votes were cast, these parties have categorically mentioned umpteen number of times about their principled stand, but after the results are coming in they are in no way considering what parleys they had have with their real masters, the voters. They are simply looking at the interest of themselves. Is this not a 'hypocracy' of democracy?

Again, some parties have taken the votes of certain minority or compact blocks by vowing that they would not go hand in glove with certain party in the future. But the moment the voters have cast their die, these parties have switched their loyalties from their voters. Before the government is formed, the nuances of degradation of politics have begun. The people of India are deceived once again as the parties clamour together, without the thought of their dignity or future repercussions, to make another government of cards.

This time around, all the Indian nationals were approached by all forms of platform to cast their votes irrespective of preoccupations. But in return, what have they obtained by following it, democracy or fake democracy?

Is it White Worshipping or What?

A recent report by former cricketer Ajay Jadeja revealed that the foreign supporting staff members were heard speaking racist remarks on the Indian players, and nothing seems fine in Kolkata Knight Riders' team. A day later the team coach John Buchanan has rubbished the comments.

Just a month before the IPL-2 to begin, Buchanan preached the theory of multiple captaincy in his team KKR only to oust the incumbent captain Saurav Ganguly who could not digest the theory. With it, a brawl began between the captain and the coach. But looking at the public opinion in favour of Ganguly, the owner of KKR, the megastar Shah Rukh Khan played down the incident by suggesting that the issue would be decided before the tournament began. He virtually did what nobody had expected from him by acceding to what the Australian Coach had demanded. Sourav was stripped off from captaincy the moment the venue of IPL was shifted from India to South Africa.

Brendon McCullum was made the captain and Buchanan became the all powerful tyrant master. Shah Rukh held on to the front row to see no ill-will take place amongst the players. The team went on losing match after match. Before the tournament reached its half way mark, Shah Rukh left South Africa in a huff, by sending message to his team, that he would return only when KKR would start giving winning results. By this time, the team was in disarray. It was not in a position to challenge other teams. KKR stands at the bottom of the tally from the beginning, and remained the first team who have lost the semi-final berth. Alas, the wish of Shah Rukh coming back to SA remained unfulfilled.

It is said that being the owner of KKR, Shah Rukh has lost a big chunk of money as his team has been the worst loser. It is also said that he is looking for a buyer of his sick-team, and engaged himself in doing a number of commercials and stage show in order to substitute his recent losses. However, he has not uttered a single word against the die-hard Australian Coach, leave alone taking any action against him. On the contrary, it took him much less time to humiliate the former Indian Captain Ganguly and retort back sharply against Gavaskar who disapproved the theory of multiple-captaincy. We are independent of White rulers for more than sixty years, but still most of us cow down when we face the White skin. The incessant brawls taking place in KKR show that Shah Rukh is no different and it can be said with conviction that he has fallen to the White Worshipping.

Left is Best at Sucking Cream

To understand the polity of left parties of India, one needs to go back few decades of history when the left parties had umpteen numbers of versatile leaders. It was a period of enlarging the parties amongst the people of India, and who we had as leaders in those days? There were Jyoti Basu, EMS Namboodripad, Harkishen Singh Surjeet, Pramod Dasgupta, Bhupesh Gupta, Indrajit Gupta, E.K. Nayanar etc. and they were all young, intellectuals and had all the wisdom of great leaders. In 1969, during the legislative polls taking place in West Bengal, no party could manage to garner absolute majority of its own. Looking at the fractured mandate, an United Front was established to form a government in order to keep Congress away from it. Ajoy Mukherjee, the leader of Bangla Congress-a faction of National Congress, having a strength of hardly forty MLAs, became the Chief Minister and Jyoti Basu of CPM succeded to become the Dy. Chief Minister, having the portfolio of Home, in the new Cabinet. This government could not even last twelve months due to the internal bickering and blame-game amongst the allies of the newly formed Front. On one occasion, Jyoti Basu being the Home Minister, led a rally at Shaheed Minar, the heart of Calcutta, was engaged in criticising the competence of his leader, the Chief Minister, and spitting venom at him. The docile Chief Minister was so scared of his deputy, that he could not hide his fear of being arrested sooner. The government had to die an unnatural death, after that incident.

This story has similarity with the one that happened in July, 2008 when the current Left Parties had withdrawn its support from the UPA government. The Left parties withdrew its support a clear nine months before the general election. The relations between the Congress and the left through out the period of four years and three months were of less sweet and more sour. It is not difficult to recollect that since the formation of the UPA government, the left parties had created at least ten moments, if not more, when they directly or indirectly warned the government to mend itself or they could use veto. Poor Manmohan Singh had to bow down or the omnipotent Sonia had to show her teeth to the crafty leaders of left parties in desisting from doing any wrong act. Sonia persisted by reminding that their unreasonable demands could bring their common foe, the BJP, closer to the power. Every time the left leaders left from the porch of 10, Janpath, they maneuvered to come back with new issues, like moneylenders. If Manmohan had been blamed for certain failure, a lot must be due to the over-indulgence of the left parties or wasting time in pacifying the left leaders.

Was the nuclear deal so important for left parties as policy matter that they decided to dump the Congress? Surely not. After the completion of two years of UPA rule, the left were devoting its thought of getting out of bonhomie with the Congress. The reason was that they felt they were losing their vote bank in their bastion, West Bengal and Kerala where the Congress is the main opposition party. Supporting the Congress to rule at the Centre became a thorn in its flesh. The State Committees of both the States of the Left kept murmuring about the ground realities. The people sought explanation, how one party opposing another in the State can sleep in one bed at the Centre? This had made the party higher- ups sit up and take notice. During that period, the Left bosses were busy with having a luxurious life at the cost of tax payer's money. Any one can ask Sitaram Yechuri, how many foreign trips he had made while supporting the government from outside?

The Indo-US nuclear deal came as a heaven sent opportunity for the left parties, and the cunning leaders pounced on to grab the issue by its neck. The Congress didn't take it very seriously, but they were fortunate to save their government with the help of Samajwadi Party. The Left now knows that they would not be able to garner same number of seats, as they have in the present Lok Sabha. Immediately after the announcement of the poll, they moved around all the regional parties to create a front that could form a government at the Centre. Surprisingly, even CPM boss Prakash Karat nodded when asked whether he would accept the post of PM, if situation so arises. Their manifasto for this coming election seems to be “beg, borrow or steal, so that we can suck the cream”.