Society & Sex Crime

Every time country's conscience wakes up on rape, we hear the same cry ... hang the rapist, govt is not doing enough etc etc. Yes, executive, judiciary and legislature can do a lot in here. We can have better fool proof laws, better Police system where victims do not need to run pillar to post to lodge a FIR and a judicial system where cases get decided sooner.
But this narrative leaves out a big part. Role of the society. Now in here, I do not mean only parents, school, neighbours but also things like advertising, cinema etc. With rapid urbanization in last 70 years, a huge population moved from villages to cities. The social fabric which was there in village and which used to take care of sexual aspects of folks is no longer there in city. So, you have got rootless lot of people residing in cities whose sexual aspect is no one's concern.
We have a new society in cities where boys & girls, men & women have to learn to interact & live with each other. So, where do we turn to for guidance. The village system is not there. Parents seldom teach their kids how to approach and make friends with opposite sex. Whereas in western world, kids learn interactions thru dating, no such ways are there in India. This is a big gap which unfortunately gets filled by friends and entertainment industry. Thus "sat-sangati" plays a big role. But there enters the elephant in the room ie entertainment industry. TV/Cinema can play a big role in molding the society. Their social message reaches more people than any sermons of any god-man. And similarly their destructive aspect is also worrisome.
Here I will pick Telegu cinema as the latest incident happened in Hyderabad. If you watch a Telegu movie, you will get to understand that its okay to tease & stalk a girl and sometimes even get physical. By doing so, you can woo the girl. So, what does boys learn from that. The social interaction aspect of opposite sex gets completely twisted. To top it, is the item song where the women is commoditised. The things which should have been left to Las Vegas or some corner of a city are out in the open for everyone. So, to a gullible mind, these are affirmations that everything is fine if you stalk/tease a girl. And to a twisted mind, its path to crime against women.
Now one may say that if Cinema/TV has to be blamed, why are we not seeing more of these incidents. My answer to that will be the goodness of the upbringing which India parents impart which tends to nullify these bad influences.
So, what's my prescription here.... Come down hard on Bollywood, Kollywood, Tollywood or whatever wood they call themselves. They cannot show Hero misbehaving with girls. If at all, they have to show, they need to put a disclaimer at the bottom of the screen saying that none of the actors in this movie promote stalking or bad behaviour with women. Similar thing on item songs which objectifies women. They need to carry a 18+ tag. And at the same time, society has to start thinking how they can teach boys/girls to interact with their opposite sex.
And top it all, we need to see a person as for what he or she is  .... a mother, a father, a gentleman, a lady, a doctor, a workman ... whatever... instead of some body part. Lets all grow up and insist on our entertainment industry to grow up as well.

State Elections 2013

BJP has just won 3 states and are hand-shaking distance from Power in Delhi. Full marks to Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Raman Singh in carrying their state for third consequitive time. Also all the praises to Rajmata in able to wrest power from Congress. Before I dive into Delhi, let me provide my analysis of the BJP wining MP, Rajasthan and Chattisgargh.

In both MP and Chattisgarh, BJP retained power. In both states, they did mix populist measures along with hard policy decisions. So, when BJP opposes these populist measures at center, they better remember that the same policies are wining them these states. In Chattisgargh, BJP had to face a little music in failing to stand upto Naxalities strongly… mainly in Baster area. Thus even with popularity of Raman Singh, the vote percentage between Congress and BJP was almost same. The challenge before these two CMs is how to take development programs forward and yet keep voters on BJP’s side for next 6 months.

In Rajasthan, Congress lost due to corruption. Ashok Gehlot is a good man.. but what can he do when his party-men are corrupt. Moreover there are talks of tickets being given to some candidates due to their lineage rather than popularity. Congress tried hard in last 6 months to capture voter attention by launching various populist schemes. However it was too late and voter saw through their game plan. In all, Rajmata was able to point these holes to voters and promised a clean & development oriented government. Modi was a considerable factor as the state BJP played up the good goverance as demonstrated by Modi in Gujrat.

Now the results in Capital. First, upper middle class and middle middle class folks exercised their rights in a big way this time. And AAP was able to capture their idealist imagination of corruption free society. And as Delhi is not a state which really has to care about industrial growth etc, the populist slogans of AAP had more effect. Moreover, people of Delhi have moved to AAP as they want to recognize Anna’s effort in bringing out Jan Lokpal. They are also angry about Rape incidents in Delhi and did not find other parties to be serious about these issues. Now the challenge before AAP is whether they will join BJP in government or sit in opposition. If they sit in opposition, any other government will be lame duck government which will not be able to deliver anything. So, AAP runs a risk of being seen as a spoiler rather than an effective party. Though one might feel that Congress is decimated in the state, I do beg to differ. Except corruption, team B (AAP) is no different from team A (Congress). Thus as people start to forget about CWG etc, Congress will inch back into Delhi.

In all the election results are good. Now it’s a waiting game to see what more there in Congress’s arsenal to be unleashed before the national elections 2014.

What should 2014 elections be about

What the next election should be about? Will it be about dynasty or will it be about M? Will it be about BJP being secular or JDU being communal? I hope not. Instead what should we discuss?

I will like the election to be about economy. In 2004-5, folks worldwide were so confident of India’s growth story that they remarked that even a drunk pilot cannot crash the plane. What happened after that. We did not get a drunk pilot, instead we got a spineless pilot who was working on orders of a malevolent team aka NAC whose prime job was to take India into dark ages. And they almost succeeded.

I will like the election to be about ease of doing business. Starting from 1991, license raj started disappearing. And due to the same, slowly things started to be happen without chai-paani. Those who think that current state is too much, should go back to 1970s and 80s. At that time, you cannot even do anything without the support of “Haath”. You needed to grease every palm and even after that you could not have a viable business if you are honestly paying taxes. So crony capitalism started to grow. But common man was unaware, he was told that government needs to reign in on these monster businessmen. Thus when instead of framing good banking rules, Banks were nationalized, people cheered without realizing the damage it was doing to the economy. We added “Socialist” to the preamble and screwed our country’s future. I want this election to be over throwing this term into history’s dustbin.

I will like the election to be about Poverty and malnutrition. I will like parties to show the voters their blue-print of poverty eradication and how they are going to fund it. Its easy to say that we will bring Food Security Bill or increase contribution to NREGA. I will like to see how those will be funded. We would be glossing over the matter if we allow parties to talk about the programs only. Let them come up concrete plan on the same.

I want this election to be over smaller government. I want my government to focus on matters of national security and social security. And let its citizens be free to pursue what they want to do. I want a government which will interfere less and also strive to reduce its size. Get rid of ministries which does not make sense. For example coal ministry. Government needs formulate a coal policy and let private players in. Why do we need a ministry in there. A quick look at their website suggests that it’s another Permit agency which feeds bunch of babus & ministers.

I want this election to be about empowering people. Its about individual freedom and local decision making. Sitting at Delhi, we cannot expect good decisions for people in Mizoram. Mizos need to have the decision making power on what’s good for their state. And while doing so, Panchayats, State governments etc need to ensure that individual freedom is not trampled upon.

I want this election to be about corruption. We have tolerated 2G, CWG, Bellary, Recruitment scams for too long. Its time to elect folks who are "relatively" clean and will also promote cleanliness in the government. Its only clean politicians who can clean the massive corrupt bureaucracy by promoting lokpal and ending license raj.

Unfortunately there is too much talk about secularism, Modi, Rahul etc in the media. As we have seen with previous elections that these do not matter. What matters is which party can convince the voters on providing for them. My wish is that voters will also start to look at the long run rather than a kilogram of rice.

While remembering Savita, spare a thought for our millions of other sisters

Last few days, the newspapers and the internet is buzzing with how archaic & barbaric the abortion laws in Ireland is. The middle-class Indian is aghast at how one of their own can die due like this. How can Irish have the audacity to follow their own laws. TV commentators are demanding that Indian government step in and demand justice from Ireland. Not going into this circus, I hope that Ireland should be able to modernize this law which their own citizens also are demanding.

I turned back my attention to some facts and figures which are missing from this whole discussion. And that's maternal healthcare in Ireland & India. Though my exposure is telling me that situation is abysmal in India, I wanted to get some hard data to provide to my readers. Searching the web, I came across an unlikely source  … CIA. According their website, India has 200 maternal deaths per 100,000 Live births. Now hold your breath, Ireland has only 6 deaths.. Yes, you read it right. Its six maternal deaths per 100,000 live births. Hmm, these imperialist folks, they must be fudging the data. So, I went to WHO website. It took some minutes to download. And that also had same data. Next, I started for some reports from Health organization, and its startling. Check these links

http://www.unicef.org/india/health.html

http://zeenews.india.com/exclusive/a-maternal-death-every-10-mins-in-india-un_5613.html
So, there you are. India is 33 times worse than Ireland in terms of maternal deaths. For each Savita in Ireland, we have 33 Sitas, Gitas and Shazias in India. I did not see any commentator making noise about them. Oops sorry they do not matter.. as they are not "middle class" but some "poor folks" who are dragging our GDP down.

There is a saying in Hindi, when you point a finger at someone, four fingers point back at you. So, if Ireland needs to just change their law, we need to do much more. We need to build infrastructure, we need educate doctors and nurses, we need to reach every nook and corner of our country. Rome was not build in a day, but if we do not realize that we have a problem, we will never even work towards it.

So, my English-educated middle class friends, do hold a candle-light vigil for Savita but also spare a thought for our not-so fortunate sisters who are dying during birthing as they do not have access to even basic facilities. I think they deserve atleast that from you .. at last they are your compatriots.

Lessons from America

Recently concluded election in US holds an important lesson to opposition parties in India. Obama was able to sail thru in both electoral votes as well as popular votes by pulling together a rainbow coalition ranging from women rights group, immigrant lobbies, African-americans, Socialists and middle class voters. He was always careful to appeal to middle class in every speech. He let his party & supporters appeal to fringe elements but did not associate directly with them. MoveOn & OWS are perfect examples of the same. In the eyes of voters, that put him towards the centre of the political spectrum. He steered clear of controversies and spoke of pulling American economy back on track. He attacked the top 1% rich americans. He know perfectly well that they will not be able defend themselves.

Taking this point into indian context, we begin to see why indian voters still go for Congress even though they are mired in corruption. Congress puts aam admi in every forum. Through NREGA, they have rural poor in their pockets. Their appeal ranges from fiscal conservatives to social liberals. They level baseless allegations against opposition to keep them at back foot.

If you look at principal opposition coalition NDA, you will begin to see why they are destined to sit in opposition benches if they do not change their way. Lets take corruption issue. It took BJP months to take care of Reddy Brothers and Yeddy. Now this Gadkari controversy is raging on. They should have asked folks to stand down till allegations are proved/disproved. But not doing that, they lost the moral high ground to UPA/Congress. On various policies, do we know where does NDA stands. What is the alternative they have. Nope, we don't because NDA does not have any policy. It has become a coalition of cry-babies.

So, what is the lesson here. If NDA has to win, it has to put together policies which they will put into action if elected. I dare suggest that they should propose to convert NREGA into either a skill building program or a infrastructure development program. They need to keep repeating aam admi and poor people in every speech and program. Also, they need to retire few expired politicians like Advani who have outlived their utility and now a days only add to nuisance value. NDA need to realize the muslims are as much Indian as they are. It needs to come up with clear policy on upliftment of backward Muslims. They need to break the party-caste associations. Mayawati's victory in 2007 is a perfect example that it can be done. NDA has to have something for each target segment.

Some experts had suggested that NDA come up with a shadow cabinet. In my view, this would show voters that they mean good for the country rather pure politicking.

Oh yes. Its high time that NDA sponsers a media outlet to get their point across. The way CNN-IBN conducted itself in vote for cash scam is disgusting. Practically all commentators both in print media and in electronic media bow to the family. They might do some posturing but ultimately they fall in line. The need of the hour is to have an independent media.

In the end, we need to understand that dance of democracy involves all the people and you need to show value to them to earn their trust and vote. Had lecturing or ideology been the criteria, scientific socialism would have been ruling the world.

Un-civil Society

In recent times, I have started seeing newspapers and electronic media use the term civil society. And it got me thinking what else is there in India. We do not have a military society. So, only other society might be un-civil society. It got me thinking who are a part of un-civil society. Here are some options
1. Is it the folks who are criminals? If yes, then those folks are mostly in prison. The population outside is mostly civil.
2. Is it the illiterate folks who sell their votes? If yes, then they are thousand times better than civil society babus who sell their soul for a few rupees and other civil society members who are ready to bribe anyone on the drop of a hat.
3. Is it the non-corrupt folks? Then only people who will be in there .. will be farmers. They cannot bribe god to get rains and there is no substitute for hard labour.

In my view, this civil society is another term for middle class. And this is a blatant attempt by middle class to garner extra constitutional power. The middle class is threatened with erosion of elitism since the time India became a Republic. This decline of elitism caused some of these middle class folks to yearn for Raj days. Some of these guys even liked the Emergency of 1975-77.

And just as I oppose any extra constitutional method like Naxalism etc, I feel its my constitutional duty to oppose civil society. I am happy being a proletariat.

Sania and Shoaib

Sania marrying Shoaib should not be anybody’s business. They are two adult individuals who have all the right in the world to choose their own path. However a look at the environment around them brings up lots of questions.
Sania is considered a role model for lots of girls growing up in India. As India moves towards gender equality in real sense, the role models will play a huge role. The girls need to be assured that “Yes, they can”. For every Vijayendra, Yuvraj, Dhoni, we need to have a Sania, Saina, Shikha. In a country obsessed with boy child, these are the heroines who make parents believe that even their girl child can do something.
So, I am not particularly thrilled that Sania is marrying a Pakistani and settling in Dubai. Pakistan is a sworn enemy of India and does everything possible to harm us. And Dubai, an arab emirate is not a place wherein women rights are respected.
So Sania, you have broken hearts of many a parents like me who want to quote you as a role model. Anyway, the last word is that its your life. Go ahead and screw it.