The lone battle of a Gandhiwaadi to bring Swacchta at Bapu’s memorial

Last year on 30^th November, Supreme Court gave an order mandating the nation anthem should be played before screening films in theatres. And the person who fought the matter legally is a Bhopal based social activist Shyam Narayan Chouksey.

But winning that battle was not enough to cheer Mr. Chouksey patriotism. Now he is battling up with another issue on which almost every Indian will provide support to Mr. Chouksey, 77, who retired as an engineer with the Central Warehousing Corporation in 2000. This time he has filed a PIL in Delhi Highcourt against the irregularities which has caused Mahatma Gandhi’s memorial ‘Rajghat’ to remain in bad conditions.  

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who himself hails from Mahatma Gandhi’s land of Gujarat is singing songs of Swacch Bharat but his own government has failed to keep the memorial of ‘Father of nation’ in good condition. According to an RTI, over Rs 4 crores are being spent on the maintenance of Rajghat annually, still things are not at place there.

Entering Bapu’s memorial Rajghat makes the petitioner SN Chouksey, angry as all he sees there is cigarette sticks, damaged wooden pieces, broken tiles, cracked taps, plastic wrappers and dirty toilets which in turn become breeding place for mosquitoes. He has also found that the white marble closer to the monument has gone black due to lack of cleaning and the green carpet has got damaged. In his own words “Bapu used to tell that Swacchta cleanliness is more important than Swadhinta (Independence) but his own Samadhi is craving for that. Where is the allocated money going?” He is also not happy with keeping a donation box near to Mahatma’s Samadhi.

In the petition filed through advocates Abhinav Shrivastava and Sameer Jain, Chouksey submitted photos of the various deficiencies that he had come across when he had visited the monument in past few years, when he claims the situation had worsened. 

He sought directions to MoUD to "stringently apply principles of cleanliness and sanitation at the Rajghat Samadhi, failing which the Ministry should be held liable and penalised for the same and to issue strict instructions to the President and Secretary of the Rajghat Samadhi Committee to perform their duties strictly as provided under the Act and Rules and to make the Rajghat Samadhi a world class monument".

The petition has also sought directions to the Rajghat Samadhi Committee "to carry out repair and maintenance work. To ensure proper maintenance and upkeep of the Samadhi a mechanism should be evolved by MoUD so that once the things are set right at the Samadhi similar situation should not develop again in future. For this, the government may form an independent committee of experts such as civil engineer, public health engineer, expert from horticulture department and expert in Gandhian philosophy."

According to him, he has fought for 11 long years to make sure National Anthem being played in movie theatres and he will not stop until the holy place gets its glory back. So far, in total 6 hearings has been happened at Delhi Highcourt over the same matter and he is hopeful that it won’t take too long to reach out to a conclusion, unlike before. Mr. Chouksey used to visit Rajghat thrice a year, he captures pictures there and submit the same in court.

Being a Gandhiwaadi, cleanliness always remain in his priority list and he believes one day India will become clean as Bapu wished for long ago.

Smart Cities and RSS: Two contradictory sides of Narendra Modi

Soon after coming to power, Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a grand announcement of setting up 100 new smart cities in the country. Later, the ministry of urban development has prepared a draft concept note on the smart city scheme. The government had announced a plan to develop 100 smart cities to provide better amenities in urban areas. The 100 smart cities will include all state capitals and union territories. It will also comprise 44 cities in the population range of 1-4 million people, nine satellite cities with a population of 4 million or more, 10 cities that are of religious and tourist importance and 20 cities in the 0.5 to 1 million population range.

India is urbanizing at an unprecedented rate, so much which estimates suggest nearly 600 million of Indians will be living in cities by 2030, up from 290 million as reported in the 2001 census. It is clear that Prime Minister wants to take the living standard for big cities to a new level where 24X7 utility services becomes an essential part of public service delivery mechanism.  High quality infrastructure and technology based governance will be provided to the citizens.

The whole idea looks good for India as it will change the face of country in global market. But there are many other aspects too, which requires lot of brain storming. The very basic requirement to build a new smart city will required land pulling, that will add more fuel to the heat created due to the suggested changes in Land Acquisition Bill by NDA government. Even on ground, farmers are reluctant to give up their plots of land as they know their employment prospects in the new cities are dim, concentrated in low-wage and insecure informal work.

The other and the most interesting facet of smart cities concept is RSS, which is also a serious ‘backstage’ stakeholder in Narendra Modi lead government. It may be an 89 year old organisation, identified as representing a more conservative set of values. But the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) is witnessing steady progress by introducing many technologically advance programs. RSS knows that its growth is inversely proportional to the development of smart cities and there will be no place for RSS’s core Hindu ideology is any of the smart city and that will act as a barrier in its expansion.

It is evident that according to RSS, two different nations India and Bharat resides in our nation and RSS always bats for the very idea of ‘Bharat’. Their view suggest that the very idea of westernization persists deeply in the urban class which they called India.

RSS knows the idea of smart cities is so appealing that it will openly fascinate the rural crowd and will directly impact to their aspirations. It will be wrong to say that RSS is present in urban cities but majorly in terms of ideological connect, it is very strong among rural masses. Even today, ‘Shakha’ plays a vital role in the personality development of many rural and small town children.

On the other hand, smart cities will follow the western pattern of development which will consist of tall buildings, largely English speaking crowd, well decorative public spaces and high class infrastructure. It is obvious to understand that such places have no space for RSS to hold ‘Shakhas’ for engaging masses. A study suggests that in last one year ‘Shakhas’ have grown by 18% across country. No doubt, Modi’s popularity has played a key role in the sudden growth of RSS and enhanced its reachability towards urban youth.

Modi’s smart city plan is, commendably, linked to expanding manufacturing jobs. Newer and better urban infrastructure, in theory, will attract investment and jobs, but the principle of “if you build it, they will come,” in India as well as elsewhere in the world, has produced more white elephants than thriving cities. RSS used the same argument when Rajiv Gandhi was keen on introducing computers based infrastructure in India but now things are different. This time RSS can’t dare to oppose the idea at open platforms because of two very strong reasons. First, this time the ruling party is BJP, which considers RSS its ideological parent. Secondly, in this globalized era, RSS can’t afford the hating of aspiring youth which constitutes 65% of India’s population in total.

From a distance, it appears that RSS going through its golden phase but the truth is, RSS top brass is actually worried about the future of their organization. Modi’s political and ideological background deeply connected with RSS but since 2002, when Modi crown as the CM of Gujarat, their relationship saw many ups and down. During his 12 years long regime, he sidelined RSS, VHP and many other organizations which consider BJP as their political brother. But, you may call it the beauty of Indian politics, the same organization put their all weight and efforts behind Modi during 2014 general elections.    

Things are different now, despite of having differences on many issues, Modi and RSS are incomplete without each other and shaping up the idea of smart cities is need of the hour.  

This article was first published in Janta Ka Reporter.

The curious case of Nitish Kumar

It wouldn't be wrong to say that Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar seems to be one of the most confused politician of recent time. Few months before the May 2014 Lok Sabha elections, Nitish played the biggest gamble of his political life and broke all ties with alliance partner Bharatiya Janata Party opposing the elevation of Narendra Modi as the PM face of NDA. That decision was part of his optimism stemmed from favorable reports he was receiving from ground that by doing so he would get total support from Muslims which in turn pay him rich electoral dividend.

The actual verdict showed that Nitish was way off the mark in his political assessment and ended up with 2 seats in Loksabha elections. A thumping BJP win on the other hand in Bihar, even with a realignment of rivals, will give it positive vibes heading into a series of assembly elections this year and create a strong launchpad for Bihar in 2015.

In 2005, the JDU-BJP combine scripted a new chapter in Bihar’s history by ending Lalu’s 15-year reign and formed government with the agenda of ‘Good Governance’. Nitish’s first reign (2005-10) focused on improving law and order, strengthening institutions weakened by Lalu’s regime, and removing political interference from the State’s bureaucratic machinery. As law and order improved, Muslims became confident that an NDA regime wouldn’t discriminate against them and women felt safer on the streets.

There is no doubt that Nitish Kumar has brought a positive change in Bihar and because of that people had started seeing in a bigger role that too in center. But time has changed now, BJP along with Ramvilas Paswan’s LJP is in power in center while Nitish enjoying power with the support of same Lalu Prasad Yadav for whom he used to say that during the RJD regime, people seldom ventured out in the night hours but under his regime, people were on the streets even after midnight.

Elections are pending in Bihar this year and Nitish Kumar and RJD chief Lalu Prasad are in "undo-the-past" mode. Realizing their opponent would go overboard on reminding people of their past enmity, the bitter have started persuading people that the past would not be repeated. On the first day of 2015, Nitish pledged he would not allow the "Jungle Raj" (lawlessness) to resurface despite taking Lalu in his boat. Today, Lalu urged masses not to be scared of him.

Nitish’s sanguinity is solely based on electoral arithmetic. A combined Janata Parivar is expecting votes from, among others, Yadavs, Kurmis, Mahadalits, Muslims and Most Backward Classes (MBCs). These groups together constitute nearly 60 per cent of the state’s population. Interestingly, last two election cycles (2004 and 2009) have shown that there is 50 per cent probability of assembly elections following the trend of the preceding Lok Sabha elections.

Whatever may be the result, there is no doubt that Lalu Yadav will surely manage to gain something out of it. Also, BJP will retain its upper caste votes and will manage to get some of the vote from other castes because of anti-incumbency and Modi’s charisma among the youth. But the real mystery of this whole show revolves around Nitish Kumar. He may or may not, get enough seats for third consecutive time but one battle he is set to lose is the clash of perception.

There was a time when Nitish was seen as a person of high integrity having clean image. But now his association with Lalu Yadav is raising several questions among the people of Bihar. Even if Nitish manages to win Bihar this time, he will never be able to get back the badge of ‘Susashan Purush’ at the national level. Some of Nitish' supporters seem to feel that Lalu has become bit of a burden on the Bihar CM now. Their alliance is weighing Nitish down heavily and may erode his supporter base. Also, It is understood that Lalu is backing Nitish for an anti-BJP front, not as him as the CM.  The BJP leaders are amused by the alliance of Lalu and Nitish and they can be seen saying very often that “After the alliance with the RJD, the government is providing patronage to criminals”.

Brand Nitish and brand Lalu evoke contrasting responses in Bihar. Even after years of dilution, they retain their appeal across the state. Merger of contrasting brands tend to create confusion. Biharis are still clueless about what will the merged brand stand for. Will it be closer to brand Nitish with a clear focus on development? Or will the brand Lalu that has so far stood for a particular kind of social justice and communal harmony prevail? If the confusion persists, people may find it hard to identify with the merged entity.

Personality Driven Politics: A Contradictory truth of today’s India

On 14^th February 2015, it was a sunny morning in Delhi. Thousands of people flocked to a rally at historical Ramlila Maidan, not because they were asked to, but because they wanted to be a part of the jubilation, the ecstasy of a victory, the celebration of a man who had created history. And the moment in which the man himself arrived, the crowd which was holding its breath for long, roared in approval. The decibel levels reached a feverish pitch with the crowd chanting in unison. Yes, here the man is none other than Arvind Kejriwal, Chief Minister of Delhi.

The whole nation has witnessed the same charisma for Narendra Modi during the 2014 general elections. This throws up an important question. Has the electorate evolved over vote bank politics and has moved towards leader driven politics?

Be it Narendra Modi, Arvind Kejriwal, Nitish Kumar or Jayalalitha, they all possess some sort of magnetism which attracts people towards them. Be it on a national level or state level, all the elections won by any of the parties have one common thing; the party having the more face value won the election. And this is the reason, day by day Congress is downgrading to its lowest since formation because it has failed to build up Rahul Gandhi as leader of the masses.

Even if you could bring your attention towards the slogans chooses by parties during elections; ‘Har Har Modi’, ‘Abki Baar Modi Sarkar’, ‘Paanch Saal Kejriwal’, etc makes convincing that election nowadays fought in-between personalities not parties or ideologies.

It is well understood that people have become more mature with their political understanding and now they want a credible leader. But that credibility should be counted by the way in which leader follows his party’s ideology? What’s happening is completely different, wherever elections have won on a leader’s face value, that leader is dictating and deciding on which ideology the party and government will run.

Many think that Narendra Modi has come like a savior for BJP and is being too lucky for the party but later in time, people will realize its consequences. BJP, largely described as ‘Party with a Difference’ has completely lost all of its ‘Differences’ under Modi’s rule. There remains no democracy inside the party, galaxy of leadership has been sidelined and it will not be premature to say now ‘Modi is BJP & BJP is Modi’. It speaks a lot about a party largely known as a political offshoot of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.

It’s not just about BJP, every other political party works under a ‘Boss’ these days. It would suffice to say that the outcome of all recent elections was largely polarized by the voter’s faith in one man. A political pundit will tell you that Indira Gandhi and her son Rajiv Gandhi had done it in the past. But it was past and India has seen so many colors of politics after that.

However, this might be the beginning of a new era in Indian politics. An era where individual leaders with public backing might be more influential than a group of convincing leaders, where the concentration of leadership in the hands of a select few might be the way forward, where coalitions might not make as much sense as they used to, where the electorate is more volatile and demanding than ever.

With a great mandate comes an even greater level of expectation.