Lets Honour The 'Kartavya'

“The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world’s problems” M.K. Gandhi

A wonderful thought by one of the most thought provoking leaders of the century…

As we celebrate the 60^th Republic day of our country will full gusto, I do not intend to ponder  over  the hits and misses of my countrymen (& women), I do not want to go ga ga about the glorious past or not express my utter dismay over the current scenario !

All I want to do is to celebrate….celebrate the ‘people’ and their work, which has been commendable. It gives me a hope that we will continue to be a Republic Country as long as we have the potential leaders among us who serve selflessly and who will lead the society out of the din!

In this post I write about ‘Kartavya’…the alternative school in my University and ‘Kartavya’…The duty!

While many groups desperately try to garner attention of the students’ in the University , this particular lot of students remain ever dutiful! No hush - hush about their genuine endeavours. Niranjan, Sharat Chandra and other students from the Special Centre for Integrated Studies(SCIS) University of Hyderabad have been manoeuvring an alternative school for the children of the migrant labours since 2007.

T he story goes like this…In 1999, students of Indian School of Mining University (ISMU) Dhandbad, started teaching five students in the premises of a temple.  Over the years, the number has reached to 700 students in numerous centres in different states of the country. Niranjan, an ex ISMU student, determined to carry forward the legacy, joined hands with some of the spirited friends in the University of Hyderabad to help out the dispossessed children of the campus.

In 2007, this group of enthusiasts built a small shed behind the integrated hostel, with the help of few labourers. This place was once the seat of learning for about 120 students. There was a dedicated lot of volunteers and the teacher to student ratio was also encouraging one. There was one teacher for every 25 students.

Now the school is in a dilapidated condition .The building is no more in use and the present school has been shifted to a place next to the SCIS building. This school consists of two rooms   and two permanent teachers. The volunteers take classes in the evening for two hours and the present strength of student is 35 students. The decline in the number of students has been mainly because of the frequent migration of their parents due to the change in the work site. The Kartavya volunteers make sure that even if the children move to new place, they must continue with their education. They try to place them in the alternative schools in the new habitat.

 Meanwhile the good news is that Kartavya has also been recognised as the alternative school.

In the first year of its functioning Kartavya had its moment of glory when four of its students cracked the entrance and got admission in the various residential schools of Andhra Pradesh, Next year the number rose to nine.

But the students settling in the residential schools do not stop their engagement with the Kartavya people. The volunteers make sure that they keep monitoring the progress of the child by remaining in touch with the teachers, school authorities and parents.

The funding for this endeavour comes through voluntary donations and the resources pooled from selling socks of old newspapers and selling paper bags and other goodies crafted by the students in the school.

Kartavya is not just a humble initiative to impart education to the deprived kids, there is more to it. There is a constant effort towards involving the parents too. The volunteers have a vision wherein they want to work with the people in the slums and try to improve their lives by providing means of livelihood.

Kartavya suggests, the work done is the ‘Duty’. The volunteers make no claims of doing extraordinary service… it is an inner calling…for the greater good! 

Marxist and not The Leader!

“A communists fights for the people till his last breath…and then he continues to fight…by donating his body for medical research Com Basu has inspired millions.”

One of the facebook status message of comrade (pun intended) Ishan Anand drew my attention. Ishan , like millions(may be I am overestimating!) of the comrades of the country was trying to pay a humble tribute to ‘The Leader’ Com.Jyoti Basu

Jyoty Basu, whom we had almost forgotten … until last week when media and the national leaders started worrying about his health, and the news channels were flooded with the news of who’s who of Delhi visiting the nonagenarian leader , we were suddenly reminded of him! Joyi Basu died at the age of 95 and the nation? was mourning his death.

No questions can be raised on the “commitment” of Jyoti Basu towards the tenets of Marxism, probably it is not a hyperbole to say that his deaths heralds the end of Indian Marxism!  I repeat Marxism again!

But I wonder if Marxism is the magic wand that would heal the all the problems of the commons… Definitely not, infact No ‘isms’ can claim such powers. Then why do leaders fail to negotiate with their ideology?

I do not feel as sad as the other comrades feel on the demise of Jyoti Basu but I am more agonised by the demise of Bengal. The state which was at its intellectual zenith in the pre independence era, was almost brought to ruins during the rule of so called towering communist leader of the country!

In the 23 years of Jyoti Basu’s rule….youth fled from Bengal.

Employment eluded its able human resources.

Industrialists packed their bags and the per capita income of the people reduced considerably The worst dilemma of the populace was that it had to keep re-electing the party as it had no other viable choice!

To quote Suhel seth “ The only thing that didn’t move away from Bengal during those twenty three  years was CPI(M) i.e. Communist Party of India Marwaris) . Suhel Seth makes an apt sarcastic remark as the Marxists (barring few honourable exceptions) in Bengal continued amassing wealth when the rest of the Bengal was languishing in poverty, thus christening them Marwaris.

In 1980s when Basu’s government took the decision to remove English language from the primary school curriculum, it denied access to the ‘language of opportunity’ to a generation of Bengalis. While one side he took steps to strengthen the trade unions throughout the state, on the other side he comfortably neglected the poor performing PSUs.

Basu did commendable work in the area of land reforms, enforcing Panchayati Raj institutions and empowering the poor peasants in the rural Bengal. He made agriculture a viable economic activity, but despite of all this I fail to comprehend why there are pockets in Bengal that remained untouched by “Development”. There has been a constant neglect of the tribal areas… no wonder the people are retaliating in places like Lalghar.  

 In short Jyoti Basu failed the most promising land of the country, especially when the whole of Bengal was at his feet for two decades.

As a person he has been described as one of the finest gentlemen or “Bhadralok”, but on political front when it came to “performance” Basu erred miserably! The Bhadraloks are not supposed to run the governments; they are the ones who run intellectual discourses. Jyoti Basu was a true Marxist ideologue, but was never ‘The Leader’ of the masses.

 To conclude I would like to quote a Kolkata basi who expressed his view on the communist rule of Bengal when he was asked his opinion by a news channel, he quipped “The Communists do not believe in hell or heaven either.... hence they created the present day West Bengal”

Understanding Telangana … The People's perspective

Vox populi Vox dei , A Latin phrase that is pompously used to hail People in Democracies means … the voice of people is the voice of the God!

But the voice of God has remained unheard in this region…. Since last five decades.

Historically Telangana had to bear the burnt of the most exploitative kind of feudalism during the era of Nizam and Razakar rule until 1948. This was the time when people movement like the Mulki movement and the Gonds of Adilabad district had waged agitation against the oppressive rule. The state of the local populace irrespective of their religion or caste was deplorable.

Meanwhile the rest of present Andhra Pradesh was under the erstwhile Madras Presidency, they were certainly better off when compared with that to the Telangana populace as they had the opportunity of English education and access to employment under the colonial rule.

To put it in a nutshell the people of this southern region lived in two different worlds! Each having its own different political economic state… the only thing that was common between the two worlds was its language ‘Telugu’…. It was presumed to be common … but it wasn’t!

In the post independent India the states were carved on the basis of linguistic criteria and Telangana, coastal Andhra and Rayalseema fell under this category, hence forming the present Andhra Pradesh.

It is interesting to note that the leaders such as Nehru were sceptical of the merger of Telangana with the Andhra… the termed the union as the marriage of a dominant husband with a submissive wife…. Needless to say that the submissive wife was Telangana!

It was certainly a marriage of (in) convenience!! Telangana’s identity remained enmeshed in the whims of the politicians and bureaucrats who thought that they knew the best.

Since the amalgamation in 1956, the condition of the people in this region has deteriorated consistently; they have been lagging behind in all the fields of public life.

Socially the discrimination is pathetic, the reason being the lower class and the local dialect of Telugu speaking people (Telugu has a tinge of Urdu in Telangana) this is seen as mass culture and considered low. Even in the Telugu movies, the villain mouths obscenities in Telangana dialect. Hence the language and culture of the Telangana people has always been debased by the Andhraites.

The Telangana territory has two of the main rivers Krishna and Godavari flowing through its mainland land but only 12% of its land is irrigated and the maximum number of farmer suicides has occurred in this region. As the water resources of this land continues to bring bounty to the farm lands of Rayelseema and coastal Andhra, the native farm lands remains parched and thirsty. The water shortage is so acute that the farmers are forced to exploit the ground water resources through pumps and bore wells … the tragic tale is that the ground water resource is not of much help as the water level have drastically dropped in the recent times. Thu nearly 70% of the pumps and bore wells have become dysfunctional.

The telangana movement is not a new stir, nor is it being manned ONLY by the politicians of the state. It is in a true sense a people’s movement as people irrespective of the class and caste from the Telangana region have unitedly rekindled the movement!

The question is not only about separating a piece of land! The movement is about reinstating the self respect, identity and dignity of the people! It is about hope… a hope that when the natives get to participate in the democratic process and they govern their land, the resources will be harnessed for betterment the people. It is a grassroot movement by the people Telangana who want to take control over the resources and determine their fate! ( A luxury which has never been endowed upon them since centuries!)

Its high time for the saga of perennial suppression, humiliation and neglect to end… it can only end when the state recognises the voice of God…. The voice of people…the voice of Telangana!

All izz well until it is drama!

Any hit formula is destined to be replicated umpteen number of times until its magic fades away. There are numerous examples ... be it Himesh copying his own nasal twang and making it more torturous with every new composition or Ekta kapoor crafting soaps using the same saas bahu plus K formula in every Balaji production. The same phenomenon is recurring in the AP Politics where the politicians are fasting unto death?? ( sorry no one has died!) and trying to influence the decision of the centre to reconstruct or deconstruct the state boundary!

So one can expect the opera show to continue for few more days!The happiest lot is the great Indian media ... it is very rare (except for the elections) that all the jokers of Indian politics perform for the media wallas at the same time. KCR (Alas!! even his name starts with K!! ) Mayawati , Ajit singh and all other supporting actors ie MLAs of Andhra Pradesh ( to be more exact ...coastal Andhra, Rayelseema as the supporting actors are very particular about the location of their constituencies!)have been trying hard to fit in the frame!

The next beneficiary could have been the poor Indian masses! All over weight politicians going for the fasting could have contained the food crisis to some extent…But as every one knows well that the concept of ‘trickle down’ is completely dysfunctional in our country! May be media can investigate “who ate KCRs food for the nine days when he was fasting for the Telangana??” and run a prime time show! That’s what media does…who is interested in the in-depth coverage of the issues as long as the trivia is running (successfully?) on the channels!

The din will surface in a few days. The so called agitated MPs and MLAs will be contained by the party high commands, Some random tea parties and chintan baithaks will be organised! Dozens of review committee and commissions will be formed at all possible levels. Media will stop playing the story and shift its kind attention towards celebrities as the new year is approaching... again we will get to see the most interesting programs on news channels like

“What is the new year resolution of Rakhi Sawant ?"

What about Telangana… a suitable consent will be manufactured which will suit the (vested) interest of KCR, junior YSR, CBN and all the other ABCs of Andhra .

That’s it…. All izz well until it is drama!

Who's Interest ??

Many of us must have experienced this.... sitting in front of the big screen in a movie theatre, watching a story unfolding itself, we get lost into the lives of the characters forgetting our existence... and we shed tears on their miseries!! The engagements with the emotions continue until the movie is over and then we suddenly realise... it was just a story. I am doubly sure when it comes to telgus, they experience this phenomena more than any one in the country as they are the mad movie lovers!

Exactly the same thing is happening in Andhra Pradesh…and the cine star of the Telangana movie is KCR. People are empathising with him now…only to realise in the future that...all was drama!

I do not have a problem with the popular demand of carving out a separate Telangana, but my concern is the present leadership of this movement. The most opportunistic, morally corrupt and deceitful leader of the Andhra politics has stirred (restirred) this movement. If one looks at the timing of his hunger strike, one learns that...

• TRS had performed badly in the Lok Sabha, State Assembly as the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Commission elections...some gimmick was required to pump adrenalin into the party nerves, hence this hunger strike.
• The hunger strike commences at a time when the state government is still trying to cope up with the loss of its patriarch YSR, hence this is the best time to destabilise the government! (That is another story that that the spineless Andhra government is so incompetent to take decisions in the state matters that is awaiting a nod from madam!)
• Its interesting to note that TRS was born of the ideologue of Telangana, but all this years KCR had been paying lip service to the cause, when he sensed that rhetoric wont be of much use now, he slipped to action
• Given the current state of his party, KSR knows that it would be difficult for him to be able to rule the whole AP, hence carving out a separate chunk would ensure a safe political heaven in the near future

Telangana region has been wailing under the ages of suppression deserves a empathetic leader and certainly not a Power Sucker!

(P.S -This post was written just an hour before the home minister announced that the centre government would ensure that the resoulution for a separate Telangana region is tabled in the assembly, Nevert the less I will be penning down my views on the upcoming Telangana in the next post)

Maharastra Nastam Sena!

Apparently the pride of the marathi manoos seems only to be in swearing names in Marathi! This chunk of population is least bothered about the real issues that have been hogging the state. Maharashtra has seen the worst cases of farmer suicides, it witnessed the bloodiest act of terrorism but nothing was worth to catch the attention of the Raj Thackeray’s gang. They are a bunch of literary scholars who are obsessed with the vernacular language of the state. It is better to place them in the linguistics department (if there is one) rather than giving space to them in the precincts of the assembly.

The act of manhandling the Samajwadi party MLA Abu Azmi was indeed disgusting and atrocious in nature. An assembly member is allowed to take oath in any Indian language. But MNS seems to be making dictates that suit its whims and caprices.

Maharastra Navnirman Sena …I really can’t imagine what kind of Navnirman these people are thinking of! Rather the party should be immediately christened as Maharashtra Nastam Sena!

Call for more Chaprasis

I personally feel that there is one political party sans any ideology! it runs by the diktats of a family which has been manning (currently womanning) it since past 60 yrs. One needs to swear by family names if one wants to make it big in the Indian National Congress. It is quite a cliche that the party that leads out loudest cries of being 'Democratic' in reality is actually an ruthlessly 'Autocratic' party.

The incidents that supports my above theory is...

The first one is the gifting of the party ticket to Rajendra Shekhawat, to contest from the constituency of Amravati in the forthcoming Maharashtra assembly elections. The able?? Candidate accidentally happens to be the son of the President of the country(though I feel that her becoming the president of India was itself an accident). hence yuvraj shekhawat was given preference over Sunil Deshmukh, who had been a MLA from the Amravati seat twice but.... Alas he is not remotest relative, leave alone son of any congress big shot! thus the drama of the youth drive where more youth is being brought into the fold of congress seems a nonsensical to me. the drive is not to bring in more youth leaders but to certainly add to more chaprasis to the High Command office.

I think it is important to note that only if you are a spineless sychophant speci you can be a true Congressian. it was indeed infuriating to see the reports in media of how there was a flood of congress men in the homes of Dalits in Uttar Pradesh, on the day of Gandhi Jayanti. all were toeing the line of Rahul Baba, who had performed a similar spectacle few days back when he was touring the hinterlands of the poor state.

All I can say is ...... this is the heights of sycophancy and I wonder how low will the congressi netas stoop to scale the heights?