Tarnish needs the Varnish - The Silver Jubilee of ‘Jungle Raj’

Reddish Brown Rustings are visible at the Janta Parivaar Hustings as the same old Iron chain of Secularism have tied them together throughout these 25 years of ‘Jungle Raj’ at which Sir Rudyard Kipling would have written a sequel to his famous Jungle Book had he been alive. This time the characters replaced by members of the species of Homo sapiens belonging to the subspecies specific to the region known as the nucleus of the mighty Magadh Empire of Ancient India. The Flag of Anti-communalism is faded now and the whole plank seems to be jaded. This October the elections in Bihar will be celebrated alongside the main festivals of Dussehra, Diwali and Chhath Puja. The zeal and fervour will touch a new high when cultural and democratic festivals converge in a multiphase election, the result of which is slated to set the tone for upcoming elections in other states in India.

Time now for a new Flag that symbolizes Hope for a glorious Bihar like it was during the utopic days of the mighty Magadh Empire and the prosperity like the famous rivers of Bihar descending from the Himalayas bring with them, deposit the alluvium and irrigate the “Land of milk and honey”. I have no hesitation in nailing my colours to the mast as all of them are nothing but fifty shades of Saffron.

The major spinoff will be a paradigm shift in the way Bihar is perceived as her image has taken a beating in the last two and a half decades. It is now time to shift gears and vroom onto the road of development at full throttle in order to match up to the performance of other states. Bihar lies at an interesting location where it provides a highway for Nepal to the coast, a passage through the Chicken Corridor to Assam, Sikkim and Bhutan and the gateway to North-East for the regions of the west.

It is in the interest of other parts of India that development occupies the cockpit of state government and is stably ensconced in Bihar Politics which has long been mired by caste-based equations in which their members vote en bloc to a particular party which usually panders to that community, as a consequence of which in certain sections of the society vote is a matter of rote learning which doesn’t require any serious contemplation and the association of caste as a stimulus and party as a psychological response to it has given way to a kind of conditioning that is difficult to unlearn.

I just wish development should be a non-discriminatory tide that will even raise the nondescript boats of certain communities hitherto underserved after which it is for them to decide whether to keep sailing or not.

The constituents of the rainbow coalition (read Parivaar) have never lost an opportunity to help each other in times of crisis while jostling for power and elbowing each other out just to keep up with the joneses in achieving new feats of mal-governance. The tug-of-war they were indulging in all these years was phony and was only meant to deceive the voters. Now that all of them have come together under the banner of “Holy alliance of secular political forces” led by the The Pied Piper (of Hamelin) giving a clarion call for wiping out the communal forces who must be fairly paid for getting rid of all the political rats as a result of tying up with his former bete noire which has increased the chances of his defeat. Let us reward him this time by giving a tag of “former” before his name which secures a tax payer funded fortune though in monthly doses before he misleads the naïve and gullible voters through the charm of his “son of the soil” tunes that waxes lyrical about the dreams of special status for Bihar, powerful enough to be a lullaby for the uninitiated.

The winds of change are in the offing as development alone can varnish the tarnished sterling silver image of Bihar, this can happen only if Honourable Voters honour their commitment to build a glorious state and participate in this festival of democracy with great enthusiasm in the coming festive season. 

Article on current mood of the nation polls

Solute, Solvent and the Solution: Modi-Sol

Narendra Modi is seen today as a Charismatic leader and a ray of hope for the billion plus denizens of the country cutting across all the classes, uniting all the shades of grasses and is jubilation for the masses.

Let me add some vivacity to this write-up as the chemistry between the mood of the nation polls and the people themselves was never so romantic. Needless to say, he is the cynosure of all the eyes that now see a silver lining in his silhouette.

Today almost every opinion poll suggests that the current Chief Minister of Gujarat is the most popular choice for the Premier of India. Well the reasons are obvious and well-known. Development model of Gujarat has taken the centre stage in any forum that forays into the issues that confront our nation. Like a knife through butter, the examples of good governance and development in Gujarat keep reverberating in these discussions.

Narendra Modi’s personality traits make up for an ideal solute that can dissolve totally in the solvent (read Indian elections) and create a solution that will be a panacea for our country. I have given this solution the name ‘Modi-sol’ which I feel will act as both anti-pyretic as well as analgesic to calm the anger and soothe the agony respectively of Indian citizens. 

The principal contribution of Narendra Modi is the attitude change he has brought about in the Indian Psyche hitting all the 3 major components of Psychology that I call the ABC expanded as Affective, Behavioural and Cognitive areas. I will briefly explain what attitude change in all the 3 components has resulted into. The affective according to me is that the people especially the newly enfranchised have started taking more interest in our national and cultural heritage thereby developing a deeper sense of patriotism. The behavioural according to me is that today the digerati and the twitterati who propagate all ideas, emotions and thoughts bringing about changes in voting behaviour and miscellaneous opinions. The cognitive is that the citizens are now taking keen interest in thinking on issues of development, good governance and law. It is not that these things weren’t there before; only that these attitudes were overshadowed by the clouds of cynicism. ‘That’s the way the cookie used to crumble’. Not anymore. The winds of change are now sailing the yacht of Indian democracy. So maybe the disappearance of the clouds of cynicism has revealed what constitute the ‘attitude change’ in the preceding lines.

There is a definite class of leaders for whom the hustings are a bought-out show of strength to fool ‘the hoi-polloi’ and their only motive is to harvest votes by smearing mud on any opposition in public and afterwards exuding shrieks of fiendish laughter at the multitudes when sitting with their egotist coterie in private that smacks of schadenfreude on their part.

Mr. Narendra Modi belongs to the different species of leaders who are naturally hostile to the type aforementioned. His policy of “appeasement to none, development for all” has endeared the citizens. The undisguised admiration from the masses is nothing but a natural response to the candour in his stellar oratorical pieces. The plenitude of this quality along with a constellation of benevolent traits makes him a cult figure. The huge groundswell of support for Mr. Narendra Modi for the Prime Minister of India has started coming from all quarters now.

Meeting this level of expectation may seem to be an onerous task but for Mr. Modi it is a long cherished work in his vision of nation building. There’s more than one way to skin a cat and I am sure that with his eclectic approach and dogged pertinacity he can fulfil the expectations of Honourable Indians whom the corrupt leaders refused to honour and kept terming them ‘the hoi-polloi’.

                                Ved Srinivas  

Solute, Solvent and the Solution: Modi-Sol

Narendra Modi is seen today as a Charismatic leader and a ray of hope for the billion plus denizens of the country cutting across all the classes, uniting all the shades of grasses and is jubilation for the masses.

Let me add some vivacity to this write-up as the chemistry between the mood of the nation polls and the people themselves was never so romantic. Needless to say, he is the cynosure of all the eyes that now see a silver lining in his silhouette.

Today almost every opinion poll suggests that the current Chief Minister of Gujarat is the most popular choice for the Premier of India. Well the reasons are obvious and well-known. Development model of Gujarat has taken the centre stage in any forum that forays into the issues that confront our nation. Like a knife through butter, the examples of good governance and development in Gujarat keep reverberating in these discussions.

Narendra Modi’s personality traits make up for an ideal solute that can dissolve totally in the solvent (read Indian elections) and create a solution that will be a panacea for our country. I have given this solution the name ‘Modi-sol’ which I feel will act as both anti-pyretic as well as analgesic to calm the anger and soothe the agony respectively of Indian citizens. 

The principal contribution of Narendra Modi is the attitude change he has brought about in the Indian Psyche hitting all the 3 major components of Psychology that I call the ABC expanded as Affective, Behavioural and Cognitive areas. I will briefly explain what attitude change in all the 3 components has resulted into. The affective according to me is that the people especially the newly enfranchised have started taking more interest in our national and cultural heritage thereby developing a deeper sense of patriotism. The behavioural according to me is that today the digerati and the twitterati who propagate all ideas, emotions and thoughts bringing about changes in voting behaviour and miscellaneous opinions. The cognitive is that the citizens are now taking keen interest in thinking on issues of development, good governance and law. It is not that these things weren’t there before; only that these attitudes were overshadowed by the clouds of cynicism. ‘That’s the way the cookie used to crumble’. Not anymore. The winds of change are now sailing the yacht of Indian democracy. So maybe the disappearance of the clouds of cynicism has revealed what constitute the ‘attitude change’ in the preceding lines.

There is a definite class of leaders for whom the hustings are a bought-out show of strength to fool ‘the hoi-polloi’ and their only motive is to harvest votes by smearing mud on any opposition in public and afterwards exuding shrieks of fiendish laughter at the multitudes when sitting with their egotist coterie in private that smacks of schadenfreude on their part.

Mr. Narendra Modi belongs to the different species of leaders who are naturally hostile to the type aforementioned. His policy of “appeasement to none, development for all” has endeared the citizens. The undisguised admiration from the masses is nothing but a natural response to the candour in his stellar oratorical pieces. The plenitude of this quality along with a constellation of benevolent traits makes him a cult figure. The huge groundswell of support for Mr. Narendra Modi for the Prime Minister of India has started coming from all quarters now.

Meeting this level of expectation may seem to be an onerous task but for Mr. Modi it is a long cherished work in his vision of nation building. There’s more than one way to skin a cat and I am sure that with his eclectic approach and dogged pertinacity he can fulfil the expectations of Honourable Indians whom the corrupt leaders refused to honour and kept terming them ‘the hoi-polloi’.

                                Ved Srinivas