Dear Mr Prime Minister..

Dear Mr Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, 

    A very good morning to you sir. I believe the parliament is still non-functional over  the so-called "coal-gate" scam. So hopefully, you may have a few spare minutes in your busy schedule to at least gloss over my humble letter.  I heard that you recently retorted to opposition's attack in parliament with an Urdu couplet - 

"Hazaaron Jawabon Se Acchi Hai Meri Khamoshi, Na Jaane Kitne Sawaalon Ki Aabru Rakhe"

    This translates to  - My silence is better than a thousand answers, because it is veiling the premise/prestige of myriad questions. 

    I must say, it was an excellent repartee, a gambit to take the attack to the opposition and question the authenticity of their questions without having to answer one. Also, it exhibits your ability to hit back criticism. 

    But unfortunately, I was shocked to hear your words. Let me explain why!! 

    Democracy is established on accountability. Once a ruling party has been given the mandate to govern, it automatically becomes accountable to every citizen of the country. Accountability is the most primal distinction between democracy and autocracy or dictatorship. As a ruling party, it behoves you to listen to every citizen of India and answer every question any citizen of India has through proper channels. There is no way on earth, your refusal to answer questions of representatives of people (no matter how eloquently presented) can be justified in a democracy. It is blasphemy for a disciple of constitution and personally, this for me stands out as the biggest blemish on your term as PM. 

    I do not take sides. I understand opposition's unrelenting attack and exaggerated criticism for their own gains. I understand that clogging the functioning of parliament and asking for your resignation is again constitutionally reprehensible. You have the majority and if they have objection to you being the Prime Minister, they can introduce a no-confidence motion. But having said that, you cannot exonerate yourself from your fundamental responsibility of being accountable for your actions or in-actions. Our whole constitution is built around transparency, right to information and right to question. 

    I see you as a good, God-fearing man, of unparalleled academic acumen and humblest of demeanour. What I want to see is a man with gumption and fire in his belly to make things right. I want to see a Prime Minister who is passionate about his governance and defends himself through good governance KPI's. I do not want you to resign but I expect to see you come out and take the ownership of all of this. 

    Mahatma Gandhi, father of the nation always suggested that it is ultimate bravery to accept your mistake and rectify it. If you think mistake has been done, accept it and rectify it. To be honest, it won't even affect your vote bank. It would impress the cognisant because you would be the first among generations of politicians, to admit their mistake and work towards fixing it. And the in-cognisant shall vote the way they always do - under their local leader's influence based on whatever topic is exploited close to elections  - religion, region or caste. 

    Even after plethora of scams under your governance, commonwealth games, 2G, coalgate to name a few, everyone still believes you are an honest man who is finding it hard to discipline his coalition ministers and other senior party leaders. But history will not remember you as an honest man if you fail to address all this mis-governance. History does not remember what impression you have on people as much as the financial losses that government exchequer has suffered during your prime-ministership.

    I apologies if I disrespected you in any way in this letter. You are the leader of my nation and I submit to you. But at the same time, I have constitutional right to question you and this letter is a reminder of the same. 

Jai Hind
Yours Sincerely, 
Shivank Kaul

Reference: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sdvMzazpSs

Happy Independence Day 65

Happy Independence Day my fellow Indians.. 

It is a day when we celebrate the blood and sweat of freedom fighters, achievements of the past 65 years after independence and also contemplate - where do we head now..

We are 65 years old today. And our democracy is still going through teething process like a baby. We may be the largest democracy, but surely not the most mature one. We still play vote bank politics, we still vote based on caste and religion. As long as the people in power keep exploiting people not in power, democracy might well be called oligarchy for all the difference it makes. 

Democracy was meant to shift the control of governance in hands of people. People who were given power were supposed to be hierarchically below the common people. And the structure forefathers presented was quite justified. All rationale suggests that if people in power are elected by people not in power, then they would be accountable to them.
But we failed them because we forgot those basics. Our decision to vote for a candidate should solely be based on his credentials, his past record of governance and his administration skills. Instead, we kept selling our votes to the powerful under influence of mob mentality, caste-religion bias or short term motives.

The result of that is today for all of us to see. People are sitting on agitations, there are hunger protests so government can listen to people. Sitting on hunger protest is equivalent to blackmailing but has our government become that callous forcing people to resort to such measures?

I think before we start fixing anything, it behoves us to fix our own self. In 1947, we had conquered British, gained our independence from them, but we were still fighting poverty, illiteracy, mismanagement of resources and lack of proper administration. Today, in 2012, we fight poverty, illiteracy, mismanagement of resources, lack of proper administration and corruption on top of that. What happened in these 65 years is that we lost the passion and drive to make our country better. We lost the intention of doing good for India, we got so busy doing good for self. Rich became richer and the economic gap widened. 


Let us fix ourselves first. Let us all at least find that intent of doing good for India in us. Let us put the barriers of languages, regions, states, castes, colours, cultures, religions aside. Let us reignite the passion for India, India as a whole, not a region, not a state, my whole mother India. 

Besides realising our faith in unity of an undivided India, we need educated masses. We need every person in this country educated and literate. Every person needs to be someone who understands his/her fundamental rights and duties and understands public administration and stand up against exploitation. And we need people to go beyond and make others aware against unlawful, corrupt activities that infest under the sheets in dark. We needs such activists to be in every sphere of society - medicine, administration, media, judiciary etc.

But if you cannot be such an activist, the least you can do is understand the importance of the biggest power you have - your vote. We all need to keep ourselves informed, make a rational opinion based on governance alone and then vote. It will be a slow process but the day contesting candidates realise that they cannot cheat their way into power - that day, you and I as common men, we become powerful. That day, we realise the true potential of democracy. That day, all our requests and appeals will not go unanswered. That day, we will have true accountability. That day, we would have gained independence from conservative thinking and fear of hooligans. We would have freedom from exploitation and it would be independence in its purest form..

Lets pledge on this Independence Day that when we gather again to celebrate next Independence Day, we would have done something in this whole one year, that would make us worthy of celebration.
JAI HIND

IPL

I read a comment this morning, while travelling to work, in a news article titled "Mamta Banerjee riding on Knight Riders Victory" that raised my eyebrow . The seemingly insignificant comment was  - "Today is the true poribartan(change) that our chief minister promised a year ago." by Bengal Governor M K Narayanan, said in the backdrop of recent victory of Kolkata club team against rivals Chennai in the finals of IPL 2012.

Politicians have always been exploiting situational changes to their benefit regardless of their contributions, for a long time. This attitude of Bengal Government does not really spring any surprise. Indian politics is quintessentially a parody where famines and droughts are to be blamed on opposition and timely monsoon is direct result of efficient incumbent party.

My objection lies in the extent to which common man is being projected to a dishonest picture painted in rosy colors to leverage upon his emotions. Connections are being forged between his loyalty to a club and his loyalty to a region which in my opinion is grossly inaccurate.

Mamta Banerjee has no significant role to play in Knight Riders Victory; I am sure, someone would have noticed. KKR is not team representing Bengal in true sense. It’s a franchise owned by Shah Rukh Khan, with majority players coming from outside Bengal.

For some reason, this blatant disregard to common known facts seemed too hard to ignore. Here is a chief minister masquerading a franchise's achievement as her own that barely shares its name with Kolkata, parading it as her own laurels in front of 70,000 crowd at Eden Garden without considerations to actuality.

This whole situation just stood in my face while I tried to distract myself by reading titles of the books fellow passengers were reading. But just like a song that gets stuck in your head, I could not shrug this feeling of contempt. I kept wondering if common man has become exceptionally numb to such shenanigans that it no longer bothers him. Her being able to do so appears to be a scathing indictment upon our bourgeoisie mentality alluding that we may have stopped holding our leaders accountable. More so, the Governor hails KKR victory almost as if it were a promise made in manifesto of the ruling party.

Someone should ask the CM, the way she have come out in support of KKR, should she not extend such grace to the teams that are truly of Bengal - for example (not quitting our obsession with cricket) West Bengal's Ranjhi Cricket Team? May be Mohan Began at soccer? May be she could perhaps actually allocate some funds for good coaches and amenities for soccer enthusiast and contribute in building Indian soccer team.

In no way do I intend to downplay KKR's achievement, I am just trying to put things in perspective. I am not sure how many people would read this article, but if you do, ponder for a moment. It’s a club victory, it holds meaning only for Shahrukh and the players involved. It does not unfurl a new dawn upon the horizon. It is good TV, good entertainment but it certainly is not Bengal's victory or country's victory. Associating it with patriotism is like calling excellent TRP ratings of certain TV show as an achievement for the nation.

IPL is nothing more than entertainment, exhibition of all the skill and talent team owners can afford during auctions. It is glorified gambling in which everyone from the elitist - team owners, BCCI to the criminals - bookies are all involved. If at all, the whole IPL is a victory of capitalism, commercialism and cronyism.

- Shivank Kaul

Ref: http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/mamata-banerjee-riding-on-knight-riders-victory-219876