The new and expected in UP and elsewhere

A very big political exercise just came to a grand finale last week and I don't think i've written about it anywhere. Either that or I am so out of touch with my political ranting self that I now forget all the political talk I blog about.

So Akhilesh Yadav is the newest Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh. As with any new leader of a democratic government, there are hopes and concerns and best wishes galore, and lots of friendly advise from many commentators in the media.

Samajwadi Party, though, is notorious for the company it keeps, and the people it gives tickets to, including some very notorious gangsters who are roaming free because well, our laws can't reach them. One of them, Raghuraj Pratap Singh, is in the news more because he's just been made a Cabinet minister.

There was a very interesting article in a newspaper a few days ago that again ran a favorite media exercise of listing the number of MLA's in UP's newest legislative assembly with a criminal background. Some of the stalwarts in the list have over a dozen cases of murder pinned on them! And yet our strong democracy and weak laws ensure that people vote for them and they get to lead them. Here is my question, actually, I may find the answer as soon as I finish typing this, is that do the people really vote for such criminals, or is it the classic old case of booth capturing. But considering that there are dozens of such politicians who have looted and murdered and pillaged and gotten away with it so that means there must be plenty of booth capturing going on in the country! That, to the naked eye, seems ridiculous.

Its been over three weeks since I stopped writing this blog post and left it in the middle somewhere, so some of the news will be certainly outdated, and I really do not feel I have the time and energy to update any information or add any latest developments to this post, so I want to take this opportunity to rant a little about what I think, something which I feel I haven't done so in so long!

So coming back to the reason why we have criminals being voted into power, I have already crossed out the possibility that there is a large scale booth capturing going on in the country. Sure, the EVM's have been shown to be prone to tampering, but surely even a party as dishonest as Sonia Gandhi's Congress party will not be able to pull it off at a national scale. So it brings me to the point that in India, we will never get rid of our feudal mindset. We always need somebody to hover over us their grace and benevolence, and I am not talking about God. While there is a big difference in the lifestyle and habits of the urban folk and their fellow citizens in the hinterland, the difference exists in the mind as well. To be fair to the rural folk, I certainly believe they have a lot more spine than the urban folk, because in the urban landscape, the majority always seems afraid to stand up. That is why the agitation by Anna Hazare and others was so keenly followed, and so many commentators concluded that the sleepy self-centered Indian middle class was finally standing up. Of course, I am getting ahead of myself. This country is simmering at all levels, be it political, economic, regional, religious, everybody seems to have a gripe. I am just amazed at the level of discontent that is prevalent in this country.

Perhaps then should I be understanding to the fact that in such a situation when the society is simply unable, or unwilling, to come together to fight against injustice and take care of its women, children and the needy, any common person's best bet is to put his/her head down and just work to protect themselves, and totally ignore everything else that is going on around them? I think I should, because even I do it so many times.

Coming to Uttar Pradesh - its politicians love to take it for a ride all the time. Akhilesh Yadav has emerged as the new messiah but perhaps his biggest obstacle will be his heritage, and the system he inherits. We all know the oft-repeated cliche, that the system is unbeatable. We, as a society, have been simply unable to wield this unwieldy system to work for us. Whether its healthcare, education, housing, and every citizen not related to the Government is scared to engage the government in any form or way.

We would rather pay our way out of a traffic ticket, we would rather pay a middle man to take care of our duties and paperwork on our home, we would rather pay a tout to buy us our driving license, all in all, we are simply becoming more and more unwilling to stand in line and follow procedure. Now I do not know if it is because now as a society, we are thoroughly convinced that the only way to get by in the system is to grease the path, or because we simply refuse to engage the system anymore.

So coming back to the sorry state of UP, only time will tell what happens in the state, but as a thumb rule, I do believe that we as a society are currently incapable of moving towards being a more liberal, understanding and law abiding society, and as somebody said, a politician is but a mirror of the society. When we cry about how corrupt a Sharad Pawar is or a Praful Patel is, we very conveniently fail to cringe at the vast number of population that swears by them and votes for them. A bad politician is very easy to single and point out, but the bad society they emanate from is very conveniently made the big elephant in the room that nobody acknowledges.