Are We to Blame..??

                       Are We to Blame..??           

Youth of this country is perpetually hounded on a vast array of issues ranging from impudence and insolence to unsociability to lack of maturity and the list is endless.Individuals who don’t even know the meaning of ‘facing’ the world are expected to be the epitome of a Perfect Adult!So today I raise the fundamental question “Are we to blame?”

Are we to be blamed for being inept in managing our expenses when right since childhood,all it took was a mere request to our dad to fulfill all our needs. Are we to be blamed for being ignorant of how the country is governed when politics has always been projected as a Devil’s House not worth entering.And with practically no say in the electoral process till the age of 18,why would would anyone even care about what goes on! Are we to be blamed for being sneered at in academic circles when our intellectual prowess is limited to bookish knowledge as our education system,right from primary level,gives absolutely no importance to practical skill development. Are we to  be blamed for not being sports aficionados when parents expect their children only to be doctors and engineers and constantly censure them with ludicrous proverbs like-

  “Kheloge kudoge hoge kharab,padhoge likhoge banoge nawab.”

Are we to  be blamed for being uncomfortable at social gatherings and family functions when most of us are brought up in nuclear families with little or no interaction with the relatives we meet at such gatherings.Obviously we are unaware of the protocols and end up being reticent thus projecting the image of being reclusive if not arrogant. Are we to be blamed for being rude and argumentative when parents themselves fight before the young impressionable minds of their wards.A child imbibes the values-both good and bad from its parents.Hence extra care on the part of parents coupled with dealing such issues with utmost care,calm and compassion is the only way even if there is one.

We need to understand that children are made to live in a bubble with all their needs catered to and with little to no experience of facing the harsh realities of this big bad world.Only when they are involved in the daily household struggles,when they have tasted chocolate pie with calibrated doses of a bitter medicine,when they have witnessed the hardships outside the comfortable cocoons their parents build for them will they be able to grow up into citizens of substance ready to face the world head on.!!

THE SAFFRON WAVE

                              
 Indian politics has been synonymous with the Congress with it being the numero uno party for most part of its 67 year history.Apart from sporadic bursts by flimsy,fragile parties it never faced stiff competition until in 1999 when the  Bharatiya Janta Party led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee formed a Coalition Government,the National Democratic Alliance(NDA) at the Centre.But the watershed moment in Indian Politics was the 2014 Lok Sabha elections when a resurgent BJP secured an unprecedented single party majority thus ending the coalition era and forming the most stable government in 30 years.

 It all began with the 2013 Assembly Elections where the BJP romped to victory in four out of the five states.It had such a debilitating effect on the Congress that many of its stalwarts were ostensibly reluctant to even contest the LS elections fearing thumping defeats.
 So what was it that lead to such a resounding victory for the BJP.Was it the Modi wave?Was it anti-incumbency?Was it disillusionment with the ruling Congress regime?Was it the meteoric rise of the hitherto dormant middle class?or was it the awakening of the ignorant youth?I’ll say it was an explosive brew of all.The anger against the incumbent regime was ingeniously fermented and leveraged by Modi.A carefully orchestrated campaign of a quantum never seen in Indian politics,funded by Corporate and Media Houses and executed perfectly to the T translated into what some argue was a “bandwagon effect”.The pro-development rhetoric coupled with daintily couched communalism not only encapsulated the youth but also enabled the BJP to hold on to its erstwhile strongholds.The spate of corruption under the UPA-2 and the economic slowdown with GDP falling to levels of less than 5% were glorified and presented as the sole reason for the seemingly endless woes of the polity.Modi was successful in effectively selling a dream even when his detractors tried to highlight the flaws in his specious ‘GUJARAT MODEL’ obviously to no avail.Even the gambit of inoculating fear in the minds of the minorities by endlessly referring to the 2002 gujarat pogrom couldn’t impede the Modi juggernaut.People willy-nilly started believing that this “messiah” is  the panacea for all their ailments.

 The BJP manifesto,though not very different from that of the Congress,raises hopes as it talks about effective implementation of the policies,something perceived as the the biggest undoing of its predecessor.It talks about cutting the Red Tape,doing away with laborious procedures,transparency in its dealings ,faster clearances,breaking the glass ceiling;some prominent reasons for the pathetic state of affairs in the country.On the back of these promises and Modi’s business savvy image,FII’s have pumped in $25.8 million dollars in 2014 causing the Sensex to soar to unprecedented levels of 25,000+ and strengthening of the rupee to a 13 month high of 58.8 versus the dollar.Though some fear this makes the economy more vulnerable,there is no disputing the fact that the trudging Indian economy is on a recourse.

 Right from the swearing in ceremony,which was widely praised for invitations to all the Saarc leaders, to the cabinet formation,leaner and more effective in keeping with the tagline of “minimum government and maximum governance”,the Modi government seems to be taking all the right steps.The 100 day agenda,priority to agriculture,joining of the rivers,100 modern cities,the cleaning of the Ganga river and its river front project et al highlight the resolve of the man.He even silenced his skeptics first by inviting Nawaz Sharif,the Pakistan PM to his swearing in followed by accepting the proposal to visit the US,with which he has historically had bitter relations over the visa denial issue.And though on the face of it everything seems to be falling into place,yet all is not hunky-dory.Modi’s remarks about the repatriation of Bangladeshi infiltrators(with its contentious definition) makes you wonder whether the all-encompassing façade is a mere farce.Moreover his silence on a plethora of pressing issues like killing of a Muslim boy in Pune,to section 377,to the Ram Mandir issue in Ayodhya leaves even his most ardent supporters confounded.

 All said and done,the abysmal performance by the regional parties(except for the TMC,AIADMK,BJD) and drubbing of the Congress even in its erstwhile bastions like Maharashtra in the LS polls has made it very lucid that politics of polarization and appeasement is antiquated and will no longer satiate the demands of the polity.If the LS polls are anything to go by,the 2015 Assembly elections will result in the BJP being the ruling party in 90% of the major states of India.Whether that augurs well for Indian democracy remains to be seen.As for now one can safely say “Acche din aate lag rahe hain!!”.