Are all those who do not subscribe to a certain ideology anti national or infidels? The country is being ruled by hard core BJP RSS right wing party openly flaunting Hindutva! Although denied, there is generally a Muslim/Minority bias. We are a Democracy with a splendid Constitution which for 74 years has kept our nation united in its vast diversity described by foreigners as a miracle nation. From the horrors of partition, we have conquered many obstacles and are today a nuclear and space exploring nation competing with the best in the world. The government’s denial of truth propaganda machine is so busy in its race to glorification and celebration of its imagined stardom that there is little time to alleviate the internal common man’s problems and fix the raging fires devastating them. Under the halo of national cause and higher ambition everything is justified and promoted with the badge of saffron entitlement and honour. Today let us admit our nation has been deeply polarised with caste, religion and other biases, absence of social trust, profound inequality with democracy in jeopardy. The majorities ruling party has grabbed power, brainwashed, dismantled and misused institutions and is trying to control every aspect of our lives “sincerely exercised for the good of its victims”.
We have a booming stock market, crony capitalism and alarming GDP to debt ratio which ignores vital health indicators. The latest Global Hunger Index finds us at 101 out of 110 countries! Overlooked ground realities, the poor now also much of the middle class driven to poverty with rising fuel prices, the house budget index, the malnutrition index, the migrant labour and job scenario index do not reflect the government’s healthy economy index! Every citizen’s safety and happy well being has to become the government’s No. 1 priority. Our government bristles with indignation at any criticism. A Thomas Reuters Survey in 2018 showed India as “the most dangerous country for women”. Local newspapers headline “Nirbhaya after Nirbhaya” denoted how heinous crimes have been rising steadily over the years! The recent NCRB (National Crime Records Bureau) Report should in fact shock the government into urgent reforms especially in the police force. The autocratic rulers are bulldozing fundamental changes like the Farm laws without proper discussion in Parliament. The resulting farmer’s massive agitation leading to so much avoidable violence, Bharat Bandh calls, rasta roko and so on, braving rain, family hardship, many deaths, for over a year have resiliently survived the government’s might thrown against them. Eventually the Supreme Court froze the 3 contentious laws, the agitation allowed to continue and government was then willing to modify the laws substantially, but not scrap and pass new laws in lieu which could have safely been done with government big majority in Parliament. Such continuing conflict, government also being the biggest litigant in courts, harsh action against its own citizens is certainly not good for democracy. Climate change, global warming devastation does not deter government’s accelerated unsustainable/ unwanted development activities.
The Hathras incident where a victim girl was hurriedly buried by police in the dead of night without her parent’s consent or presence and the Lakhimpur Kheri incident where the son of the State Home Minister in government vehicle allegedly brazenly ran over peaceful farmers returning from an agitation, leading to retaliatory lynching, the different standards of police action increasingly exposes dangerous trends. The intolerance and few moral brigades with State patronage prevent adults from choosing whom they wish to associate with or worship and force artists bow to prejudice! Of many such bullying incidents this one is typical. A dozen members of the Bajrang Dal reportedly entered a book shop in Ahmadabad, picked up a copy of the Kamasutra and set it on fire. Next time they warned they would burn the shop if it kept such filthy books.
To quote C S Lewis, “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive! It would be better to live under robber barons than under moral omnipotent busy bodies. The robber barons cruelty may at some point be satiated, but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their conscience”.
Democracy has been reduced to ruling party’s dictates. In short dangerous authoritarianism and majoritarianism keeps spreading due to the strategic silence of the PM. We have the AAP, TMC, Congress, BJP, GFP, MGP among others all jostling to capture power in Goa. The big guns of all parties are rushing down to Goa with freebies and promises taking a cue from the ruling party propaganda, using the Internet, social media and every means of propaganda to divert people’s attention from real issues and take maximum advantage of people’s short memories! This is done by simply denying the truth repeatedly and diverting attention from existing sufferings and woes. We will hear oratory and world shaking events like hundred crore vaccinations free due to PM’s largesse, double engine growth, grandiose development projects, etc. The trillion rupee question is “Will people forget, trust and enslaves themselves or strengthen democracy before the next elections?”
(The author is a retired naval officer, freelance writer resident in Porvorim)
