What new revolution in India possible? Nothing new anymore?
No one is speaking about these days!
Aam aadmi, Nrega are the only two new words?
Here are some bold new thoughts and a bit sceptical opinions!
We have almost seemed to have exhausted by doing politics. Call it populist politics or democratic politics. We seem to have run the course. Invoking Gandhi, I mean, Mahatma Gandhi seems passe. It is too difficult a world to negotiate. I mean the Gandhi world. First, it was Hind Swaraj, then it became gram swaraj, later it turned out to be ram rajya and the result is today what you can all see.
Every state had run its course. Of course, in West Bengal and the neighbouring states it is all bloody scenario now with the W.Bengal taking the share of the cake. You had all the pro-farmers, pro-poor programmes and after nearly 30 years of rule, we mean democratic rule, what have you now?
Singur and Lalgarh and you have no answer. You have to retaliate, of course Mamata Banerjee is now a respectable name with a share in power and she must now be explained or justified for the Congress to accommodate her unpredictable future course. An alternative, according the Mamatadi, is what possible. Can she really deliver? It is a million dollar question. Yet, democratic politics at least enables us to move along with her trail of the bloodshed and violence and the destruction of the countryside and impoverisation, with the Tata Motors kicked out. Is this the alternative? No one can honestly have any answer or clue.
The North East is another world. There is so much violence and seratist demands one doesn’t know where the future leads these North Eastern peoples.
A very distressing situation at any time.
Now, move on to UP, Bihar and other bimaru states. What have you?
At least, in the BJP ruled states there seems to be some pattern of a progress and this is a respite in spite of your ideological contradictions.
As for the UP under Mayawati, it is all so complicated. You invoke Babasaheb and Kanshi Ram and what you have the lowest HDI in the state.
The idea of progress is very queer in this casteism-driven agenda.
In Bihar, it looks bright but the future seems not all that clear. Mulayam Singh Yadav and Lalu Prasad Yadav give hope but not much light. They are as driven by dynastic politics any other! What do you, Socialists of the Lohia and JP type got different to offer?
In down South, oh, it is all, mayhem in TN and outside in the neighbouring states there are so many contradictions also. How to explain Kerala? Karnataka and Andhra seem better alternatives. There are still the old style gentlemen politicians and there is hope that society had not been so degenerated.
Now, the point is what future for agriculture and rural development. There is no basic ideology of rural development. The urbanisation, the migration of people to uran areas and the populist politics have completely destroyed old values, the hierarchies and the land holding pattern is changing, new pressures for empty lands and SEZs and what have you have put the farmers in difficult situations.
Only a bold and a courageous and visionary leader can think afresh.
Now, what has you is a patch up arrangement. As for agriculture it is as difficult as for the villages to survive with some long term hope of survival. There are unforeseen challenges now in store for the future of rural countryside.
You just look to Europe and you just picture the green rural countryside, be it England, France or Switzerland or Germany.
There is so much greenery and so much quaintness about the rural arcadia.
What have you here?
You have allowed destroying, damage and spoiling the rural environment completely. Panchayat raj was an idea which didn’t grow further. You need a full-time Cabinet minister to think through things. So too a more dynamic urban affairs minister to foresee the changes and plan in advance. Before it is too late.
One really bright light at the end of the tunnel, so to say, is the new streamlined national highways.
Around the same routes you have to plan the future of the rural hinterland development. Clean tech and green tech?
Yes, the time has come for the agri and rural sector to absorb the new techs.
Now, climate change and the greenhouse gases. These two hazards would impact agriculture and agriculture would also directly contribute to the greenhouse gases, say experts.
Global warming, green house gases would hurt cropping patterns and we are warned that agri productivity would go down as much as, say experts, 30 per cent drop for wheat and 15 per cent for rice. And prices of food, wheat, rice, maize and soyabean, say experts again, would rise as much as 121 per cent to 194 per cent by 2050.
So, you have to have a policy or a future long-term plan for farming in India. If the farming families are to make a smooth move and a safelanding so to say, then you have to make farmers lives more tolerable.
Now, we are witness to so much farmers distress and we are witness to farmers suicides. Rural Development is not taking place from within the communities and from within a self-sustaining set-up of democratic practices.
My plea is: please let democratic practices prevail in all walks of life.
Let we practice what we preach!
Please reach out to the people, dont sit tight in Delhi, as leaders who are not elected by the people and you are not accountable either!
There are so many white elephants you are sustaining. I saw the other day an advertisement from the National Institute of Rural Development. What ad it was? Inviting applicants training in rural development. What an irony? A cruel joke? Who can teach rural development, after 62 years of Independence? I think it was Gunnar Myrdal who said in a welfare state once you create institutions they have a natural power to sustain themselves! Even after their utility is gone. There are so many such white elephants. Please wind up and adopt some austerity in sustaining in falsehoods!
Let traditional farmers feel they are the real sons of the soil.
Let us not talk numbers, nor rates of growth.
Let us talk of happiness and fulfillment of the people.
As Sarkozy wants when he called the economists to give a new definition of happiness and wellbeing.
Be sensitive, be humble and be accountable. Be receptive.
You don’t even acknowledge the letters from the public. Yet, you seem to be living in all comforts of the office.
The use of Air Force Planes and the luxury of office are illusions. Because of the power you enjoy the glow of publicity.
History is a cruel judge.
Let our farmers smile and I want to see them smile, come what may. Let our villagers life a fulfilling lie, come what may! Jai Hind!