The odd feeling of change and status quo co-existing is not wholly misplaced. The more things appear to have altered the more they seem to remain the same after some period or even in instant incisive scrutiny. But, deja vu, the ‘been there, seen it’ syndrome, is not always a construct of the mind but often also a physical reality. Similarly, flux and flow are not necessarily optical deceptions, but facts frequently.
India is now supposedly in the throes of change. NDA’s return is status quo in a way, but Modi & Co’s election is on the basis that behind the familiar nomenclature lurks a vastly different dispensation. One that will deliver sooner or later, ideally sooner than later. ‘Change’ is a dangerous political animal and politicians world over who have unleashed it have often suffered. Gorbachev became a victim of his own pet ‘Glasnost’ while the latest agent of change, Obama, fizzled quite fast. Team Modi however have one big advantage. The last ten years of UPA have given them a generous gestation and people’s tolerance is still tied high up on that terrible totem.
The opening signs are impressive. Ministry making which had been a sickening nightmare of shameless negotiations for the last two decades was a simple, straight and no-nonsense affair. The PM is personally leading the cleaning up of the entrenched and rusted bureaucratic apparatus, from the bottom, literally from the floor carpet up. Smelly toilets, haywire wires and shabby desks are now parallel ministerial priorities along with border issues, river disputes, inflation and agriculture.
Strangely, the optimist and pessimist alike, the detractor and devoted alike are on the same page: Hope and eagerness for some relief from paralysis. All have suffered from the economic slowdown and absence of governance and even the slightest improvement in one’s business prospects or the chance of a better livelihood in the short run is welcome; even if he/she be a staunch, secular Leftist. With Modi moving the national mood and mind to the future and growth, the past is a fast receding hazy mirage on the rearview mirror.
But life is not just about personal prosperity and change, right? The past has its way of catching up and status quo asserts itself in its own morbid style. Last year, between June 10 and 15, I was in Manali along with family and a few adventurous wards under my watch. The menacing Beas keeps you parallel company on those meandering hilly roads and taking photographs at hot spots is a natural temptation. I am now filled with dread as the Himachal tragedy of last week sinks home. The Beas even in normal times has its rocky waters in leaping mode, ready to lap up and gobble into its depths those close to the banks or indulging in rappelling, river crossing or rafting. Safety standards are abysmal in this teeming tourist haven. Opening up a dam upstream unannounced is akin to handing out to the killer Beas a carte blanche of watery graves.
The Himachal tragedy that took away 25 budding lives is a Himalayan blot on India and particularly its tourism industry. Of course, there is the larger reinstatement of an Indian truth: As for value of life, it is status quo ever: Nil. India’s tourist destinations are safety nightmares as are all its crowded places. We top in road accidents and train mishaps on the global scale. Our holy places are where heaven meets hell, civic horrors that belie the reverence directed to those deities. A single day rain is enough to throw most urban centres into utter chaos while natural disasters can wreck any part of India at will. And the whole of last week, rapes all over India zoomed and turned more perverse.
It looks ‘status quo’ is fighting with vengeance from its well known fortes. ‘Change’ has to first demolish these fortresses if it has to remain useful and lasting. Ditto to Modi, who personifies this change now.
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