The Congress needs to fly less, walk more
The business end of Elections 2012 is round the corner. Very soon it will be 30 days to D-day and by the time you count 40 – the number of seats, two weeks will pass with candidate declarations, nominations and withdrawal of nominations.
Die hard veteran election watchers will see nothing amiss in the approach to these elections by the Congress and the BJP. Both are behaving true to form. The BJP has a plan, it has one leader (which may be a disadvantage sometimes) Manohar Parrikar and most importantly, it is doing what a party should be doing before elections, meet people. It’s called jansampark. The minor issue of ticket distribution has been left to party institutions which deal with these things.
The Congress is doing high command sampark-contacting the high command. Almost the entire GPCC is in midair, either flying Goa-Delhi or flying back Delhi-Goa. It preparations too haven’t hit the ground, since it is still grappling with the basics – an alliance with NCP and the MGP, tickets to defectors from the BJP, the “youthful” mess in Fatorda, which may lead to a hand over of a good seat to the BJP. For the record, it has a manifesto committee which has handed over the party manifesto to the GPCC president Subhash Shirodkar, who doesn’t enjoy any confidence with the AICC. There is no word on when the manifesto will be approved and published. Shirodkar has more worrying things on his mind than the irrelevant party manifesto. He has been strongly pulled up for inducting the illegal mining tainted Jitendra Deshprabhu into the party without the necessary approval from the AICC. Though Deshprabhu’s entry was recommended by MP Francisco Sardinha, it was still pending approval , when Shirodkar gave Deshprabhu a warm welcoming bear hug. He hugged too soon.
But that is the way the Congress functions. A manifesto is but just a paper. And the Congress, is a master of the slog overs where it can cover lost ground on the superfast luxury SUV’s of all its leaders. It has become the power of attorney holder to the most important treasure of Indian politics-jugaad. It basically means the ability to manage. While the important thing to do is “Just do it”, the Congress just “deals” it.
However, the poll winds are smelling of discontent. In the villages of Goa, there’s a different body language. For the first time in a few years, the Congress will face accountability questions. This isn’t just an anti-incumbency nip in the air. It’s a colder reality. The poor are asking why they had to pay for jobs which they never got or worse still why did every government department look like a shopping mall where services were sold, not just delivered.
People in the villagers are also asking why the Regional Plan, meant to be an exercise of peoples participation has been jettisoned by a lobby of builders. These are questions being asked from Pernem to Canacona and the answers aren’t forthcoming. The prospect of the loss of one’s identity and then its land may become the focus point of discontent which the Congress has still not come to terms with.
Interestingly the agitation against illegal mining also overlaps the agitation against the Regional Plan. The mining mess is compounded that the mining affected and the mining dependent feel equally betrayed and cheated by the government.
So is the Congress losing friends. Well it certainly isn’t getting any. Its biggest challenge will be to retain its influence in pockets where its local leadership is strong. This has nothing to do with the party and everything to do with the strength of its local leaders. That is its only hope.
The Congress must realise that Election 2012 will be a watershed election and it is going into this election facing unhappy people. Government teachers, malaria workers, parents, job seekers, fishermen, industry and the list goes on. Each of these groups have several issues to deal with and several questions the government hasn’t answered. In a best case scenario, the Congress hopes that they will give them another term to answer their questions. Realistically though, patience is running out.
The Congress seriously needs to get real and move into the villages and towns for reality check. It needs to land and land quick. Its biggest worry is that the people of Goa want better. They know they deserve better and now have chance to demand it.
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PEOPLE’SEDIT
Urinating on Life
Darian Worden
The release of a video showing four US Marines urinating on the corpses of Afghan Taliban fighters shocks people, and for good reason. Such a display of dominance and disregard for the dead prompts questioning what the killing really meant. When a life extinguished forever is devalued in this way, one must ask where the process of devaluation began. US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta quickly condemned the action caught on tape. Yet what shows a more callous disregard for life: What these Marines did or Panetta’s recent re-authorization of calculated drone strikes in Pakistan?
A detailed study by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism finds that between 391 and 780 civilians have been killed by drone strikes since 2004, including 175 children. Drone attacks have increased under US president Barrack Obama’s command, with 259 strikes since he took office. This is not “Obama cleaning up the mess Bush got us in.” This is murder as a pillar of the Obama administration’s policy. Saying that it isn’t important or that it’s okay because these people might harbor militants is saying that the lives of the villagers are not important. If they are dismembered by explosions or crushed in their own homes after a nearby blast, that’s their problem. If they are terrorized by the constant prospect of sudden death from the sky, that’s just fine.
Nationalism and the operation of the state devalue human life. The “others” who aren’t supposed to matter are the ones violence is projected upon. In varying degrees, people attacked by police, immigrants who disappear into detention centers, and people in the way of military power projection are subject to violence the state regards as legitimate.
The desecration of corpses is an expression of disregard for human life that is not easy to hide or spin. Maybe that is why the government is investigating the men in this video, yet threatened to shoot the messenger when WikiLeaks released the Collateral Murder video. The pilots who giggled about shooting into a van being used to evacuate wounded people, showing complete disregard for the children they shot, have not been punished. But the soldier who allegedly leaked the video was put in solitary confinement for 10 months and threatened with execution.
The development of massive and diverse movements against established power is promising for the future of human life, liberty, and dignity. They can call out the crimes of governments and make the political environment less friendly toward oppression. The status quo is killing people.
