Indifferent politicians

That there are many issues which agitate the minds of people is beyond dispute. But the minds of elected representatives in state and central governments appear to be agitated on election issues or matters related to them, rather than the major issues which affect the daily lives of the people.

If newspaper headlines are an indication of what interests readers and those who make the news which is in headlines, it would appear that the AgustaWestland chopper scam being discussed a few weeks ago mattered more to the nation than anything else. Yes, indeed “the nation wants to know” who are the big fish in this humongous scam instead of focusing on senior Indian Air Force officers who could not be more than small fry, if at all they are involved in actual graft.

The political parties involved, namely the Congress and the BJP, have been shadow-boxing for decades over scams of one kind or another, never going beyond some unspoken point of investigation and prosecution. All accusations inside and outside Parliament are routinely countered by what the accusing party did when it was in power. Commissions of Inquiry are appointed and take years to bring out voluminous reports, which never reach the glare of public scrutiny.

Activist citizens who use the RTI Act to get information are sidelined or simply denied information, and several RTI activists have been harassed by governments and some even killed.

It is apt to quote former chief information commissioner Shailesh Gandhi who wrote: “There is a very disturbing news reports (sic) about the entire political spectrum agreeing that RTI Act is misused and some constrictions should be developed to muzzle it. This is indeed a sad state of affairs. Samajwadi Party’s member of Parliament (MP) Naresh Agarwal has levelled a charge that the Indian Parliament passed the RTI Act under US pressure!”

He went on: “Praful Patel of Nationalist Congress Party made a remark, which was still worse. He had objections to the poor – paanwaala and chaiwaala – seeking information under RTI...” The truth of politicians across parties protecting each other and of political shadow-boxing with the unspoken connivance of all political parties is difficult to prove, though it is apparent to all but the politically myopic or blind.

But surely the “nation (also) wants to know” what is being done to address and solve the extreme distress in India's rural sidelines, where large scale migration is happening due to the worst drought in decades. Lean and dehydrated farmers, agitated by their inability to repay a few thousands of rupees taken on loan are committing suicide in their hundreds.

In this worst drought in decades, left with no choice, millions are migrating from their villages to towns and cities, leaving behind their old and infirm relatives. Women are reduced to selling th-emselves and sometimes even their children for small sums of money for food. And while such personal tragedies play out every single day within the massive national tragedy of drought-poverty-migration, these very people’s elected representatives coolly grant themselves up to 100% rise in their own salaries. And an IPL match on television in air-conditioned homes provides what people want to see and hear, saving them the decibels of even what “the nation wants to know.”

This brings to mind P Sainath’s poignant documentary film “Nero’s Guests”. In the context of the decades-long history of farmers' suicides, Sainath brings out how the well-to-do are oblivious or indifferent to the sufferings of the unwashed millions, and how their indifference results in their silence and complicity to all the violence and injustices heaped upon the poor.

High Court and Pepsi
Tears were shed on national television by a person at the top of his profession because government neglected his profession. However, as reported from Palakkad (Kerala), people’s tears are unseen and their throats dry when the High Court limits soft drink major Pepsico to “only six lakh litres [of ground water pumped out] per day”.

Thus, Pepsico makes huge profits, even as thirsty people run behind tanker lorries for a 10-litre pitcher of water. In 2007, the Kanjikode Panchayat had cancelled the licence of the Pepsico bottling unit as it was using huge quantities of potable water, but the court had annulled the panchayat order. What price tears?

The on-going drought-famine is engulfing over 300 million migrating Indians. They are thirsting for drinking water, just like their animals, not excluding cows, dying in their hundreds. What matter could be more urgent for our law makers than the on-going drought?

In the final analysis, there is no real difference between the NDA-1, UPA-1 and UPA-2 governments and the present NDA-2 government, inasmuch as their approach to people's problems is concerned. Former minister Arun Shourie, perhaps in a moment of pique, uttered the truth that “NDA equals Congress scaled up plus cow.”

“Enough is enough,” is what one gentleman said about the shadow-boxing between the Congress and the BJP on issues like the AgustaWestland scam, demanding that the guilty should be punished. But “enough is enough” is also being said in the streets and there is large-font multi-lingual writing on the wall, indicating that people are more ready to listen to the people-friendly likes of Kanhaiya Kumar than to the corporate-friendly likes of leading politicians across the country.

Unless all political parties pay full attention to the present crisis and make urgent joint efforts to help the thirsty and starving hundreds of millions, they and all of India's modern-day Nero's guests will inevitably pay heavily for their self-interested acts of omission and commission. Saying sorry later will not help, because the deadly bullet of people-neglect will be out of the gun barrel of economic-growth-at-any-cost.
(The writer, a retired Major General, is with People's Union for Civil Liberties)