Do you Remember.......

Few days back we lost T20 world cup final to Sri lanka, and yuvraj singh was labelled as the villain because of his below par performance in that particular match. All hell broke loose for him and swords were drawn out immediately, social media was painted with spoofs and jokes about this “player of the series in world cup 2011”. Day before, one politician said that Kargil war was won by Muslims and not Hindus, and I am yet to see the anger of my learned and educated friends on facebook or twitter, I am pretty sure that I will see none of it. It’s fine to be a politician and say anything you like about anyone, but it’s a sin to perform poorly in one cricket match. Welcome to the India of 21^st century, which got freedom some 60 years back but still chooses its representatives in parliament based on caste & religion.

We Indians have a very short term and selective memory, remembering stuff which has happened in recent past, as recent as last month and only about certain people. We have easily forgotten the Rajas and Kalmadis, who scooped up billions of our hard earned money, but are more concerned about the non-payment of few thousand rupees as rent by a person who is even entitled to live that flat, theoretically speaking. How easily we forgot the pictures of Uttarakhand which suffered flash floods just because the government was greedy enough to allow illegal and unplanned construction, and do you remember the two fighting politicians, who wanted to take the people rescued by our selfless army-men on their planes back to Hyderabad just to get some publicity and credit. We have forgotten how in last 60 years, our money has been scooped up by the greedy politicians in the name of various schemes and projects which never got materialized. I am sure no one remembers how one leader did a drama of rath yatra some years back, leading to events which saw massive rioting and killings, but the moment someone sits on a dharna or comes out for roadshow, he is termed as draamebaz. Oh, and do you remember, one politician wanted to go and piss in a dam, because the people in that area were facing severe drought conditions, which experts believed were man-made.  Let me try to see how many of you young, liberal, independent and modern women out there remember the various comments made by our “respected” politicians on the way you dress up or behave, and I am sure you must be following the advice given to you by our senior lady politicians, regarding not roaming out in the night and wearing “decent” clothes, women empowerment is a big and important issue, one of the “young” leader used that phrase 120 times in an interview given by him, just to reiterate the importance of the same and its just a coincidence that the “rape capital” of india was being governed (ruled is a better word, if we are talking literally) by a lady from his party only. (As I am writing this one of our politicians is asking “why should a rapist be hanged, boys make mistakes”, so now a rapist can say sorry and move on)

There are a few, which had better memory than others, and they came out opposing the current way of working, the rotten system and challenged the conventions. As expected, they were supported widely, but at the same time ridiculed and mocked at also. When these people formed a government and tried to pass an anti-corruption law, all hell broke loose. The political parties went against them and opposed the bill, leaving the government in minority, result a resignation and suddenly we all started feeling betrayed, as if a best friend of ours has stabbed us in the back. I am not sure why we became so emotional about it suddenly; this feeling of betrayal never crossed our mind in last 60 years, when we were betrayed, stabbed again and again by the same people. We have no shame in calling those people our leaders and representatives, although there might be hundreds of criminal cases pending against them (which as far as I believe will always remain pending). We garlanded the people who have pocketed public money easily and without shame, why we didn't feel betrayed at that time. Why no one put up derogatory messages against these ministers and politicians when their names appeared in CBI charge sheets? Why no one feels betrayed when ministers/MPs/MLAs do not vacate the flats allocated to them even after they have completed their tenure, but we were very quick to count the number of rooms this new CM had in the flat allocated to him, or the rent due on him, immaterial of the fact that the pending electricity bills of our beloved MPs runs in to millions of rupees much higher that the due rent. We were prompt in commenting on the vehicles used by ministers of this Delhi government, forgetting conveniently, multiple instances where MPs and MLAs used Air India planes as their private jets, without paying a single penny. I guess short term memory affected us badly here.

Now an important point is why we behave like this? My idea is that we don’t want to change, we are comfortable with this feudal way of working, with politicians as our lord and masters who are the privileged ones and its our duty to serve them and not other way round. We are fine with the idea that a leader is supposed to be surrounded by security guards and should be visible on a stage hundreds of meters away, because the moment someone comes forward to meet us, we slap him, because the moment a leader becomes accessible and approachable, he is no longer considered  a representative, he becomes one of us and its fine to kick and slap our peers, as we have been doing since last so many years, while others look and get all sorts of enjoyment from it, even proudly posting it on their FB status messages feeling that they have done their bit in spreading the truth. I am amused and surprised to see their dedication and sincerity in highlighting all the slaps/inks/misinformation about this group of people and wonder where this dedication was, when we were being looted and exploited by the current breed of conventional politicians.  I think it’s very simple, no one wants to be the whistle blower against the powerful and mighty “public servants”, but it’s fine to abuse someone who, you know will not use the powerful government machinery against you. No One in this world is without fault, and it’s not necessary that everyone believes and follows one man’s ideas and ideologies, I have met people who openly abuse Gandhiji and his ideas, that’s the beauty of democracy in India, you can abuse anyone as long as he is dead or not powerful enough to settle scores with you.

I think we are used to of the kind of politics which has been part and parcel of our life since last so many years; we don’t want to change it. We just want someone to do it for us, that too quickly and if he is not able to reach upto the high standards we have set for him, we start calling him names, make spoof and joke about him, but in all this we forget one thing, that person is just a symbol of us. It’s us who are being slapped and kicked by the political parties, the moment we ask difficult questions; it’s us who are being called dramebaaz and jokers by these parties to ensure that they keep looting us. Why our anger doesn't come out against these people who have betrayed us since last 60 years? Why don’t we question their expenses and the money spent on the luxuries and unnecessary foreign tours? (I am sure no one remembers, the Karnataka MLAs foreign trip or the star studded festival in UP while people died in muzaffarnagar camps).

One part of me believes, we don’t want to question or change, because as its natural, we all resist change. I am sure Yuvraj will perform well in some other match and may even win it for us, and we will treat him like a hero then, but i think time is running out for us and we need some brain tonic soon to remember a lot of things, which we conveniently forget.