Narendra Modi’s icon is (Narendra-turned) Swami Vivekananda and not without reason. It was Swamiji who invoked this ancient land’s glories and spoke about the power of an individual and what he or she can achieve if only the person strengthens the will and remains steadfast in action. He aroused and awakened a nation steeped in political and mental slavery, thus laying the foundations of the freedom movement.
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Tiring. A simple but apt term that describes the over sixty-day grind, that leaves an entire nation panting for breath. All the thrills of a throbbing democratic exercise that involved a billion people were present in great abundance throughout, but at the end of it all, the overwhelming thought is: Thank God, it’s over!
The week started with the tragic news of the death of a Chennai Major, Mukund Varadarajan, up in distant Kashmir fighting Hizbul Mujahideen militants. The weekend is abuzz with the twin bomb blasts deep down in Chennai at Central station that took the life of 24-year-old Swati, an unsuspecting passenger en route to meet her parents in AP. In between, on Tuesday there was the providential arrest in the city of, Sakir Hussein, an ISI agent from Sri Lanka, by Central agencies, and interrogations appear to have opened up/confirmed many threats about Jihadi activity. If reports are to be believed, and they should be, TN and Chennai, are very much inside the jihadi terror arc.
The lukewarm to poor voter turnout in the key metros of India is perhaps the unkindest cut on democracy. You can have our voice but not necessarily our vote, seems to be the urbanites’ answer to the national call of duty. The most noisy crowd on national issues feels nary a compulsion to follow up indignation and ideas with action.
There is probably a good reason why the Election Commission chose Thursday 24 April instead of Friday the 25th for polling in TN. As a tradition barring occasional deviations new movies get released on Fridays nationally, but the EC probably wanted to be extra cautious in this Tinsel Nadu.
It is quite frustrating for a self-styled political ‘calumnist’ to be pushed into a forced sabbatical, particularly during poll time when professional, patriotic and personal calls of duties beckon. The mental pain is much the more when it is your arms, the deliverer of wisecracks and wisdom via the keyboard, that are the target of fate. Indeed, whoever used the metaphor ‘hands are tied’ to describe helplessness was not exactly being metaphorical but quite literal!
The forthcoming Parli polls took on the shades of a US style Presidential poll in popular thinking the moment Modi emerged as the BJP’s PM candidate. The party itself, despite a wide cadre and leader base, long-standing traditions of collective leadership and strong idelogical moorings, did not hesitate to pin its whole fate on that one chosen man.
81.5 crores, or 815 million. What’s the big deal? Indeed, for those jaded by scam numbers like Rs 1.76 lakh crores of spectrum, incalculable lakhs of crores of coal to the latest Rs 850 crore Rolls Royce kickback, the figure mentioned in line 1 would seem like small change. But we are for a change talking about people. And of course, about the momentous, massive change that those people can usher in.
Political bird-watching as a pastime is always such fun. Typically, poll times always trigger the migratory instincts of politicos and the current season is no exception. This week particularly displayed a marked escalation of activity across many party aviaries. The political air is suddenly thick with heavy, haywire traffic.