Wednesday, December 10, 2008

A country deserves its politicians and movies

Once years ago in a discussion with my father about how bad the movies in India are, he'd given me some wisdom on it. He'd said " A judge of a country's character is the movies they produce". At that time, I was not in complete agreement with this thought, in fact, I was almost inclined to disagreeing with him. I thought, how come a country like India with its educated folk and rich culture and heritage have movies with people dancing to music and running around trees (sorry Russell Peters)? The answer lay in the demographic of the people watching these movies. Urban educated folk in India continue to believe that they are the superior breed in the world. They often are completely disillusioned in that way because they never bother to step out of the comfort zone of their homes and their cities. Some Indians, often in foreign countries like the USA, tend to keep relishing the fact that they often do well and how their accounting skills and basics are so much better than the general population. This is a myth. Fact is that statistics don't lie. India still reels under the dark cloud of poverty and abysmal levels of illiteracy. If any of the people had ever bothered to step outside of their homes they would know that barely 50 miles from any developed city in any direction, the levels of intelligence, education and infrastructure are so poorly crumbling that they would rest their cases. Unfortunately, most of these urban people are perpetually exposed to the best of the best that can survive in the demanding environment of the city. And hence, they have this illusion of superior existence.

The same applies to movies. It is these folk that toil hard under adverse conditions to make ends meet that fill up cinema houses. They don't want to watch movies on serious social issues that engage their mind. They demand the song and dance sequences and the ridiculousness of mindless flicks to entertain them for three hours. Yes, three hours. That's how long Bollywood movies are. That in itself is a display of who the target audience is. A set of population that want value for money in the time spent at the theater and the apparent 'energizing' (a.la. Star trek) of their minds into a space of surreality. The problem with this reality was that the population that didn't want to watch this form of entertainment was forced to watch it. The funny thing was that when we'd come out of sheer disappointment after watching one of these movies, when the general population was interview in an exit-theater poll, they often responded in the positive and stated how they'd loved the movie. That whole thing baffled me until I realized the truth.

In much the same way, we also deserve the politicians. They are a direct reflection of the society and its social stature. So, any call to kill the politicians is not very valid or useful unless the society itself is subject to change. One has to remember that the politicians haven't dropped from the sky. We have been part of this process of their election. We have turned a blind eye when it comes to voting for them. Granted that the choices given to us have been between horse sh** and cow sh**, but, we have never bothered to challenge the system. This common unexplained sociological behavior is exhibited by many a populations irrespective of their culture and level of education. For instance, the US re-elected GW Bush despite seeing his spectacular record for the first four years. And it takes the scale of an uprising to challenge the incumbent just as Barack Obama did. Since we are vastly outnumbered in the general population (as per my first post 'Why democracy has failed us' ) the onus is on us to take the initiative and start this battle to make our system better.

Tuesday, December 09, 2008

Three weeks on: Back to square one

Three weeks have gone by since the Mumbai attacks and we are nearly back to where we started. My younger son flashes his plastic AK-56 gun shooting down terrorists hiding in my bathroom while my older one chases their silver skoda in his radio controlled formula one Ferrari. Things have changed so much and yet so little. Restaurants are still unable to pick up demand. A Sahara Star buffet, usually full any day of the week, had two customers last week, Dnyanada and I. I couldn't help but derive some dry humor from this situation as I told the waiter as he dropped off the bread basket on our table: " So, we had to have a terrorist attack for you to get the bread basket before deserts". All New years events are curtailed or canceled. Eid celebrations are subdued or canceled. Most hotels are posting a sarcastic 'terror special' rate on their lodging facilities to attract customers. Sad as it sounds, it has been the inevitable reality for Mumbai, a city still reeling under the impact of the attacks.

Shamefully enough, the government and the media decided to move on. The media that was drying up with news on the attacks and had a savior in the bye-elections in a few states. Their creative juices started flowing in overdrive as they capitalized on some upset victories & defeats in those elections. The media floated pledges of honor and the cliche 'We will not forget' mantras which have now all dissipated into thin air. The same media that was airing public anger towards politicians have quickly turned around and are legitimizing their elections.

Whats worse is the politicians. With much pomp and valor, Sonia Gandhi with repeated missed swings of her blunt sword rolled the head of the always unnecessarily smiling stupid face deshmoorkh and brought in the savior Ashok Chavan, The minute he landed in Mumbai, the new CM had started speculating which 'Patil, Pawar or Kolte' he had to name in his cabinet. The same old story of caste and community politics unfolded right in front of our eyes. But, that was not the killer. The best part was Sharad Pawar reinstating Chagan Bhujbal as the deputy CM. With his hands still smelling of the stink of the telgi stamp paper scam for which he was disposed, he seems to be the best option that NCP has. The central government is no different. They had to put an intelligent man in the saddle of homeland security. One that comes up and says that he answered the call of duty in accepting his position otherwise he preferred calculators to carbines and guns.

These guys have learnt nothing. If anything, they have realized how weak we are. How we seem to have resigned to the fact that the same old political process would go on and that we would accept it eventually. Somehow, we have to find a way to remind them that of all people we haven't forgotten.

Ive realized that Bombay will probably never be the same again. I took a detour to south mumbai the other day and realized the reality of the attacks. That it wasn't some made for tv show that everyone watched for 60 hours. I realized that the attacks were all very real and those that lost their lives were also very very real.

Never forget

Saturday, December 06, 2008

Failings of a Democratic state: Why Democracy fails us

After the recent Mumbai attacks by terrorists, common people are out on the streets demonstrating and protesting about the apparent failure of the political system and the politicians in general in protecting the masses from such incidents. Almost every demonstrator was angry and frustrated and fed up over the lax attitude of carelessness that the politico's showed towards ordinary citizens. People have also raised anger over the establishment and elected officials and their misgivings and shady deals that have led to an almost non-existent crumbled mechanism of protection & security for the people.

Look deeper into the issue and you can see a common thread in all these protests. A majority of the signboards at these protests were in English. Most of them were typed in probably using power point on some PC and then printed and neatly displayed for everyone to read. A lot of the signboards were angry sarcastic pokes of humor at the politicians themselves. Although a BJP spokesman was chided for remarking that people with lipstick and suits don't represent the nation, that was what we saw at the protests. It was almost all middle to upper middle class people. So, where was the common man? Where is the protest from the common man? Where were the laborers? where were the minimum wage income earners who often pelt stones and burn effigies at such occasions? The answer is that they were missing from the process. There are several people out there in the city that are very very angry, but, could not be part of this process. Unfortunately, it is these people that elect the system in place.

India continues to have a huge number of people that live under the poverty line. These sets of population tend to be the 'blanket & black label' voters in our democracy. Come election time, the local casteist politician either pitches his caste against the opponent or just goes and buys blankets & alcohol for them. This way a majority of votes are just plain bought out. In this electoral class-warfare, the poor class wins as they represent majority of the votes in practically any constituency. Often elections are also rigged by transporting tons of migrants from another part of town or out of state into an area. Naturally, the product of such elections is the government that we see today. The governance is filled up of people who would be remarkable success stories financially since they often come to power and abuse it to their own good. These people are not only unqualified, they are detrimental to the development of our society. Their poor backgrounds devoid of education and qualification ensures that they have a zealous greed to succeed financially and enforce their power on others through their corrupt ways.

How can a democracy like India function when a majority of its politicos come from such backgrounds. How will it progress when their lack of vision cannot take the people anywhere. How? The answer is that they wont. I am of the belief that in any population, the majority of voters are idiots. These determine the fate of the other minority that are continually disillusioned by the thought that since they are the smarter ones, they are in control. Therefore, a democracy in a country like India is a failure in the longer run.

I can state an instance of our dear neighbor, China. Which has had a democratic-dictatorship of sorts. If these attacks had happened in China sponsored by Taiwan, they wouldn't be watching replays on TV. Chinese battleships would have littered the coastline of taiwan and cruise missiles would have been launched attacking them mercilessly. I am not saying that that is the right approach to solving the India-Pakistan issue, but, it has given them decisive leadership that can drive the nation towards an established goal. India is yet to design its goals as they remain shrouded and lost in its incapable, uneducated, corrupt leaders of its wholly illiterate masses.

Democracy fails us another time