VOX POPULI
by
S Kamat
as
Aam Admi
Issue: 262 Date: 24.12.2018
Contents:
1. The New Caste System or Pecking Order
2. The Adelaide Test & Strategising Further
3. Changing History
A MERRY XMAS TO ONE & ALL AND SEASON'S GREETINGS. MAY THIS FESTIVE SEASON BRING YOU ALL GOOD CHEER, JOY & HAPPINESS.
The New Caste System or Pecking Order
Our society is completely skewed and oriented towards providing services and facilities to only the rich and powerful. Take farmer loans write-offs where they made to run from pillar to post. This even after the banner headlines in newspapers about farm loan waivers. But industrialists who are also Bank debtors in that sense get away with murder by taking loans for thousands of crores, then defaulting on these and thereafter fleeing the country.
Take rape cases where infants and minor girls upto 14 years are the primary age segment targeted since they are the most vulnerable, happen with machine-like frequency and increasing bestiality but nothing is done for that but for the rich and well connected in the #meToo movement a government committee is quickly established to provide justice to them. Industry associations are launching awareness programs of sexual harassment at the workplace in trying to make women safer while pursuing their professional dreams. There is no problem in doing this but should we not do a little bit to prevent rape in our society like psychological counselling starting at the school and college level. Even sentence given by courts like the death by hanging for the perpetrators of the Nirbhaya rape case have still not been implemented even after 6 years of the crime. This kind of delay dilutes the deterrent impact on rapists. Thus little do these people who are supposedly our efficient administrators and 'socially conscious' ministers (and women at that) realise that for a rape victim the life is scarred from the day of the incident and the earlier it happens the torture and torment is more long drawn out. Society is also not sympathetic to rape victims and they tend to be ostracised. Thus one would say that rape is a multifaceted problem that requires prevention and also when it happens the provision of succour to the rape victims.
Then take our legal system, it remains tilted in favour of the wealthy and the powerful since it is their cases that are heard expeditiously because they can pay the large fees and hire advocates earning fat fees whose cases are heard in the courts faster than that of the common man who has to grind through the courts for decades sometimes to get justice.
We keep talking that we need to eliminate the caste system but unfortunately parallel to it we have created an overlay to it of entitlement by the order of wealth and power. Whether it is the old caste system or the new pecking order both corner facilities and resources to the exclusion of those who are weak, poor and the deprived.
Take rape cases where infants and minor girls upto 14 years are the primary age segment targeted since they are the most vulnerable, happen with machine-like frequency and increasing bestiality but nothing is done for that but for the rich and well connected in the #meToo movement a government committee is quickly established to provide justice to them. Industry associations are launching awareness programs of sexual harassment at the workplace in trying to make women safer while pursuing their professional dreams. There is no problem in doing this but should we not do a little bit to prevent rape in our society like psychological counselling starting at the school and college level. Even sentence given by courts like the death by hanging for the perpetrators of the Nirbhaya rape case have still not been implemented even after 6 years of the crime. This kind of delay dilutes the deterrent impact on rapists. Thus little do these people who are supposedly our efficient administrators and 'socially conscious' ministers (and women at that) realise that for a rape victim the life is scarred from the day of the incident and the earlier it happens the torture and torment is more long drawn out. Society is also not sympathetic to rape victims and they tend to be ostracised. Thus one would say that rape is a multifaceted problem that requires prevention and also when it happens the provision of succour to the rape victims.
Then take our legal system, it remains tilted in favour of the wealthy and the powerful since it is their cases that are heard expeditiously because they can pay the large fees and hire advocates earning fat fees whose cases are heard in the courts faster than that of the common man who has to grind through the courts for decades sometimes to get justice.
We keep talking that we need to eliminate the caste system but unfortunately parallel to it we have created an overlay to it of entitlement by the order of wealth and power. Whether it is the old caste system or the new pecking order both corner facilities and resources to the exclusion of those who are weak, poor and the deprived.
The Adelaide Test & Strategising Further
The Adelaide Test has again brought to the fore the problems that Virat Kohli and the touring team management has with deciding on an eleven. Riding on the mistakes made in South Africa and in England, Kohli needs to understand that he cannot go the 'whole hog' way on a 'horses for courses' principle. Seeing the grass on the Adelaide pitch he opted for the 4 pacers combination which was nothing wrong but he should have taken insurance by adding a front line spinner in Jadeja when Ashwin was out with injury. In hindsight taking Hanuma who was essentially a passenger in the team, though he got a couple of wickets and a few runs, Jadeja has far better credentials for that job. Right now we should have the automatic principle that Ashwin or Jadeja have to be in the Test team and if it is a turner both should play. Again losing the Adelaide Test highlights the fact that we start any series or competition with a lot of hype that we are the winners but more often than not we come out with a whimper particularly in away series. In contrast the Aussies without Steve Smith and David Warner are putting up a close fight against the No. 1 Test ranked side in the world. That is what is called fighting the odds and coming out trumps. Another thing that Kohli needs to instil in the team is the approach to the game and the positive and responsible attitude that is to be shown while wearing the India cap. You will find that in an innings with runs to chase to win a match like at Adelaide, once Pujara and Kohli is out the team throws in the towel and gets out for paltry totals. This has been the pattern in the past also highlighted when Tendulkar was at the height of his prowess or even earlier when some of the front ranked had got out. The remaining players hardly play for team prestige and get out for irresponsible shots. At Adelaide the way Ishant, Yadav and Bumrah batted in a cavalier manner at the tail during the second innings it would have put any player in a club cricket match to shame. What they should have done is make life difficult for the Aussies, stick around so that they feel the resistance and can savour the win. This is what the tail of any self-respecting team does since they know they are playing for their country and also recognising that they rarely get a chance to bat, they try to do their best in the given circumstances. These are important issues that Kohli and Shastri, whose performance as a coach has come to be questioned, need to mull over before the Melbourne Boxing Day Test. As for Kohli's aggressive behaviour on the field that has come to be talked about on both sides of the seas, there is essentially nothing wrong with it since he brings rare passion to the game. And as for the Aussies they have given us quite a lot of nuisance in the past and it is time that they got some of their medicine back.
Changing History
The saffron brigade led by the BJP & the RSS are desperately trying to deface and/or erase the history of India ever since coming to power in 2014. The attempt has been to try and negate the contributions of our earlier leaders like Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi and others. There seems to be some kind of anathema of the present leadership with the most vocal being the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi leading the charge so to speak which example is being followed by the lesser minions in trying to denigrate the Nehru clan. Constructive criticism is acceptable but the comments that are being expressed are with the intention to slight a person like in the instance of trying to say that though Jawaharlal Nehru is associated with wearing a rose, he had never visited a garden or was unfamiliar with the plight of agriculturists and farmers and his
love for children was over-stated. There is no credible basis of the veracity of these comments coming from the mouth of a Prime Minister but on the contrary Nehru is known around the world for his trademark Nehru jacket with an Indian rose in the lapel. Also for children Chacha Nehru was the embodiment of their love and affection until his death. So the first statement is blatantly unfair while to give credence to a counter argument the building-up of a Nehru image as being fond of children could have been a method that was adopted to round off his public persona. The author is not a fan of the Gandhi clan and neither is a member of the Congress party and this is written since in civilised society it is necessary to follow some decorum and norms which in the present day has been thrown to the winds. It is a saving grace that the saffron brigade have not yet picked on Mahatma Gandhi maybe because of his origins in Gujarat. Since another great son of India, Vallabhai Patel, who is also from Gujarat, and really not forgotten by us has been given a huge statue which anyone will find it difficult to beat in terms of its height. Though Yogi Adityanath has promised a taller statue of Lord Rama in Ayodhya which one would say as logical since by all reason the gods surely stand taller than human beings. Here again it seems we are following the precept of the Olympics - taller, stronger and faster. Tall we know as outlined above, faster maybe is the Bullet Train being built to run between Mumbai and Ahmedabad with Japanese know-how. Stronger is uncertain or is it the person with the 56" chest since deflated, maybe after the results of the recent Assembly elections in the Hindi heartland! Anyway these are wasteful and unnecessary exhibitions of limited minds trying to awe still more limited minds across the country which exercise has been somewhat lately negated. Coming back to the history bit, granted that we have been viewing our own history through the eyes of Western historians and then since 1947 through Left-leaning Indian historians which of the first we had no choice since the chroniclers of our own history in the courts of our kings tended to be partial to their masters and most of the records by these people tended to be lavish in praise for the good deeds and tended to hide the negatives. Thus one had to sift a lot of hyperbole to get to the facts. Even with the Western historians rarely did any right thinking India take everything at face value and filtered out the colonial influences. Thus no history is right and as they say we can come a little closer to the truth since we are dealing with the past. The saffron brigade is not only going after the Nehru/Gandhi family but also in many other areas to try and bring out their interpretation of who was ignored, who was slighted and who was lesser emphasised. But these attempts suffer from two problems. The first is that if you want to rewrite history you should have a legitimate empowerment and one term of governance is just not enough. If in the middle of the second term you start this exercise on a more factual basis then it will be credible enough to be accepted by the people at large. The second aspect is that our younger generation today knows little of our history which maybe is an advantage for such new versions of it to be attempted since one can say you are writing on a fresh page but then there is likely to be confusion leaving our young more rootless than they were earlier. As for the other people in our society these attempts will jar on their sanity since the balance of one's mind is based on the recognition of familiar and trusted frameworks and any change in our history of dramatic proportions will disturb this balance, leaving them confused that will progressively evolve into rootlessness. These are dangerous trends that will bring the country tottering on the edge of anarchy leading to random and unpredictable events that will assume unmanageable proportions. To trivialise the issue we will end up like another Pakistan, taking this example because it is closer home and the narrative is familiar to most Indians, where terrorism is a creed and sectarian violence the thread that sews day to day life. Ending on a note of levity, the attempts by the present dispensation to change our history are like that of a child who upon not liking a drawing tries to erase it but finds that is made out with indelible ink or with permanent markers as in present day common parlance. The trends are dangerous and the attempt to muzzle our institutions and organisations continues even in the field of history with the dubious objective of trying to get a common and pliant opinion platform by postponing indefinitely the Indian Historical Congress that was to be held in the Savitribai Phule University at Pune over 28-31 December 2018 for specious reasons. The first being that the university fears a law and order problem that was conveyed to the Indian Historical Society sometime last month and then in the last ten days the university cited financial problems when some 1000 delegates expected for the Congress had paid up Rs. 2000 each which the university had already received. The Indian Historical Society is naturally upset what with being a professional body falling prey to administrative machinations like being held hostage to law and order excuses and funding lacunae. So it’s goodbye history and welcoming a flexible record of present times.
love for children was over-stated. There is no credible basis of the veracity of these comments coming from the mouth of a Prime Minister but on the contrary Nehru is known around the world for his trademark Nehru jacket with an Indian rose in the lapel. Also for children Chacha Nehru was the embodiment of their love and affection until his death. So the first statement is blatantly unfair while to give credence to a counter argument the building-up of a Nehru image as being fond of children could have been a method that was adopted to round off his public persona. The author is not a fan of the Gandhi clan and neither is a member of the Congress party and this is written since in civilised society it is necessary to follow some decorum and norms which in the present day has been thrown to the winds. It is a saving grace that the saffron brigade have not yet picked on Mahatma Gandhi maybe because of his origins in Gujarat. Since another great son of India, Vallabhai Patel, who is also from Gujarat, and really not forgotten by us has been given a huge statue which anyone will find it difficult to beat in terms of its height. Though Yogi Adityanath has promised a taller statue of Lord Rama in Ayodhya which one would say as logical since by all reason the gods surely stand taller than human beings. Here again it seems we are following the precept of the Olympics - taller, stronger and faster. Tall we know as outlined above, faster maybe is the Bullet Train being built to run between Mumbai and Ahmedabad with Japanese know-how. Stronger is uncertain or is it the person with the 56" chest since deflated, maybe after the results of the recent Assembly elections in the Hindi heartland! Anyway these are wasteful and unnecessary exhibitions of limited minds trying to awe still more limited minds across the country which exercise has been somewhat lately negated. Coming back to the history bit, granted that we have been viewing our own history through the eyes of Western historians and then since 1947 through Left-leaning Indian historians which of the first we had no choice since the chroniclers of our own history in the courts of our kings tended to be partial to their masters and most of the records by these people tended to be lavish in praise for the good deeds and tended to hide the negatives. Thus one had to sift a lot of hyperbole to get to the facts. Even with the Western historians rarely did any right thinking India take everything at face value and filtered out the colonial influences. Thus no history is right and as they say we can come a little closer to the truth since we are dealing with the past. The saffron brigade is not only going after the Nehru/Gandhi family but also in many other areas to try and bring out their interpretation of who was ignored, who was slighted and who was lesser emphasised. But these attempts suffer from two problems. The first is that if you want to rewrite history you should have a legitimate empowerment and one term of governance is just not enough. If in the middle of the second term you start this exercise on a more factual basis then it will be credible enough to be accepted by the people at large. The second aspect is that our younger generation today knows little of our history which maybe is an advantage for such new versions of it to be attempted since one can say you are writing on a fresh page but then there is likely to be confusion leaving our young more rootless than they were earlier. As for the other people in our society these attempts will jar on their sanity since the balance of one's mind is based on the recognition of familiar and trusted frameworks and any change in our history of dramatic proportions will disturb this balance, leaving them confused that will progressively evolve into rootlessness. These are dangerous trends that will bring the country tottering on the edge of anarchy leading to random and unpredictable events that will assume unmanageable proportions. To trivialise the issue we will end up like another Pakistan, taking this example because it is closer home and the narrative is familiar to most Indians, where terrorism is a creed and sectarian violence the thread that sews day to day life. Ending on a note of levity, the attempts by the present dispensation to change our history are like that of a child who upon not liking a drawing tries to erase it but finds that is made out with indelible ink or with permanent markers as in present day common parlance. The trends are dangerous and the attempt to muzzle our institutions and organisations continues even in the field of history with the dubious objective of trying to get a common and pliant opinion platform by postponing indefinitely the Indian Historical Congress that was to be held in the Savitribai Phule University at Pune over 28-31 December 2018 for specious reasons. The first being that the university fears a law and order problem that was conveyed to the Indian Historical Society sometime last month and then in the last ten days the university cited financial problems when some 1000 delegates expected for the Congress had paid up Rs. 2000 each which the university had already received. The Indian Historical Society is naturally upset what with being a professional body falling prey to administrative machinations like being held hostage to law and order excuses and funding lacunae. So it’s goodbye history and welcoming a flexible record of present times.
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