An appeal to my fellow Gujaratis

મારા ગુજરાતી ભાઈઓ અને બેહેનો, આજે ગુજરાત પાસે એક અનેરો અવસર આવ્યો છે. 13 વર્ષ થી જેના માટે આપણે બધા જે સંઘર્શ કરી રહ્યા હતા એ ઘડી આવી ગયી છે. ક્યાર સુધી આપણે સાંભળતા રહી શું કે જેમ ગુજરાત વિચારે છે એમ દેશ નથી વિચારતું? ક્યાં સુધી આપણે  સાંભળીશું કે ગુજરાત સામ્પ્રદાયિક લોકો ને સરકાર માં લાવે છે. આ 30 મી તારીખે જ્યારે મત આપવા જાઓ ત્યારે એ વિચારજો કે વર્ષો થી જે ગુજરાત ની પસંદ છે, જેને અમુક જણ નકારતા તા, એ હવે દેશ ની પસંદ છે. આ 30 મી તમે મત ખાલી નરેન્દ્રભાઈ માટે નથી આપવાના, તમે તમારા માટે આપવાના છો. તમે તમારું ભવિષ્ય સુધારવા, તમારા વિકાસ માટે એક સશક્ત અને સારી સરકાર દિલ્લી માં આવે એમાં તમારે તમારો ફાળો આપવાનો છે. ગુજરાત એ એટલો વિકાસ જોયો છે કે 24 કલાક વીજળી, પાણી ની પહોચ, સારા રસ્તા અને એક સુરક્ષિત વાતાવરણ જ્યાં સૌની સિદ્ધિ થઇ શકે એવું જ મોડેલ ભારત માં આવે એના માટે આપણે 30 મી જઈ અને ભાજપ ને મત આપવાનો છે.

દેશ અત્યારે ભ્રષ્ટાચાર અને મોંઘવારી થી જુજી રહ્યું છે. સાધારણ માનસ ને ગુજારો કરવો ખુબ મુશ્કેલ થયી ગયો છે. આ દુખ ના અને નિરાશાવાદી વાતાવરણ માં નરેન્દ્રભાઈ નું 'governance model' એક આશા નું પ્રતિક લઇ ને આવે છે. 13 વર્ષ ના સુસાશન પછી ગુજરાત માં જે વિકાસ થયો છે એવું સુરાજય  દેશ માં સ્થાપિત થાય તે કરવાની ફરજ આપણે પણ ભજ્જવવાની છે.આજે આપણા દેશ ની સીમા ઓં અસુરક્ષિત છે. જે દેશ ની સામે આજ થી। 5-6 વર્ષ પેહલા વિશ્ચ આશા થી જોતું હતું અત્યારે એનો આર્થિક વિકાસ નથી થઇ રહ્યો, રૂપિયો રોજે ડોલર ના મુકાબલે પડે છે અને દેશ ભાર ના યુવાનો બેરોજગાર થઇ ને ઘેર બેઠા છે. આમાં દેખાય  છે એક આશા નું કીરણ , એક સપનું જે આપને આ દેશ માટે જોયું છે એ પૂરું થયી શકે છે. પણ આ તમારા સાથ વગર શક્ય નથી. દેશ બદલાવ માંગે છે અને એ બદલાવ ની શરૂઆત ગુજરાત થી જ ચાલુ થયી થી December 2012 ના વિષન સભા ચુનાવ પછી થી. એ બદલાવ ને બરકરાર રાખવાનો છે અને નરેન્દ્રભાઈ મોદી માટે મત આપવાનો છે 30 મી એ. એવી આશા થી કે તમે ગુજરાત થી 26 સીટ ભાજપ ને આપશો એ અરજી તમારો જ એક ગુજરાતી ભાઈ ગુજરાત ના થોડા દૂર થી કરે છે. ધન્યવાદ અને જય હિન્દ!

India’s Tryst with Destiny

 Since that historic speech in 1947 on the 15th of August India has come a long way. Right from the honeymoon period of 1950′s, to the turbulent 1960′s, to the angry 1970′s, to the tumultuous 80′s leading in to the aspirational 90′s and early 2000′s, India has been through a series of highs and lows. More than 80% of the 66 years since independence, India has been ruled by one party, the Indian National Congress.

    The Congress has had an interesting history. Established in 1893- it has seen the independence struggle, development of infrastructure and numerous wars. After the extended run at the center, some of its lows came in the 1970′s when it was split by one leader in the 70′s who imposed the emergency after which it went to a one family dynastic rule till the early 90′s. After Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi took over whose reign saw the highs of technological development but saw extreme lows of accusations of being part in Sikh genocide in 1984 as well as the Bofors scam. Riding the wave of unpopularity in the late 80′s it saw the emergence of the first Indian prime minister from the South of Vindhyas, P V Narsmiha Rao. But in the late 90′s it went back being to in a single family rule led by the controversial leader, Sonia Gandhi.

    Meanwhile another party, the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) was rising as an alternative to the Congress nationally. After being through two third front governments in 1996 and 1997, the BJP won the elections in 1998 and 1999 and ran what was a pretty successful government in the center. In 2004 however, the unexpected happened. The BJP which was widely expected to sweep the elections was ousted in a surprise election victory by the Congress. The Congress came back in power after 8 years to form a large alliance called the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) and had the mandate till 2009. In spite of taking some controversial decisions in 2008 it came back in 2009 with 206 seats and a huge mandate owing to spike in the popularity after the prime minister’s stance on the nuclear deal and some smart electoral strategy in the key swing states. It was expected that the Congress had cemented its place at the center and only a huge mistake could have dislodged it from there, since for the first time in the last 20 years the middle class had come back to the Congress. Many in the party had already started dreaming about 2014 and Rahul Gandhi as their Prime minister, hereby appropriating the dynastic succession and had planned their future accordingly. Just as they were smarting on the electoral victory, the House of Cards that had so carefully been built came crumbling down. First it was only a tremor but then a political earthquake shook the nation.

    Ever since the 2G auctions took place in 2008-09 there were always doubts raised by concerned citizens on the way the 2G spectrums were being auctioned off and the murky last minute dealings where the dates had been advanced and mysteriously only certain industrial groups were favored. Initial investigations by journalist J Gopikrishnan found some serious irregularities which were further exposed in the PIL filed in the Supreme Court by Dr. Subramanian Swamy. This led to the arrest of the then minister A Raja and the family members of the DMK which was in alliance with the Congress. In spite of there being sufficient evidence the government stood by the ally and the Prime minister chose to disregard the findings of the Supreme Court. After this a series of scams were came out to the fore which included the Augusta Westland scam, Coal Gate (which happened under the P.m.’s watch as the Coal minister), Commonwealth Games scam and many more. It was widely perceived that this government was the most government in the history of country. But the disenchantment doesn’t end here. From the misgovernance as far as food prices were concerned to mismanagement in defense equipment and various fields the government has scored a blank. The arrogance at responding to these allegations as well as the incompetence in dealings with issues that affect the nation has cost India badly. The reluctance of the Prime minister, the nonchalance of Mrs. Sonia Gandhi and the cluelessness of Rahul Gandhi has put India in a state of despair. From being the toast of the world in 2008, it stands now with a fledgling economy, deplorable defense, corrupt ministry and an establishment that doesn’t give a damn about the situation.

    India is standing at a dangerous precipice today. Its oldest party stands distraught unwilling to change with the times and still sticking to the old world order. The political class stands disengaged as ever and is threatened to be usurped by anarchists having no clue of governance and just banking on one agenda. The deepening divide created by the Congress party based on religion, language and class is coming back to haunt India. An issue such as a creation of a new state was handled so badly by the Congress that they had to black out the proceedings. An issue that had been promised 10 years ago was prolonged keeping everyone on the tenterhooks and exploited in the last leg of the government for cynical political gains. The deterioration of Indian political ethos was complete after the drama in the Lok Sabha of the pepper spray which culminated in the bill being forcefully passed in both the houses. The conduct of the government in various issues ranging from civic, national security, social and developmental issues has been appalling. Stalling industrial projects because of the whims of the leader and pushing legislations which burden the economy further shows that the calculations of the Congress party begin and end with the elections.

    What led to the edifice crumbling so fast? Is it the attitude, the actions (inaction in most cases) or a strong opposition? A mixture of all the three was true till the early part of 2013. Now that the opposition has a strong face the disheveling of the congress has been hastened. The nightmare that started with the 2G scam is finally ending for India. For the first time in Indian history do Indian voters have a chance to completely shut out the party that has cynically exploited the poverty, lack of education and the media discourse that has tilted one way since the independence. The Indian voter has a chance to change his own destiny and make sure that he leaves the country in the right hands. All sorts of games will be played before May 2014 including using government institutions to target certain people, using motivated outlets to rake up issues and also raising the favorite Congress bogey of secularism. The Indian voter can change it all for the good and ensure a better political discourse for the country. The elections have been announced and the campaigning has begun. Will the people approaching the EVM in April/May put in the last nail in the coffin of the Congress remains to be seen? An interesting battle is on the cards about who and what ideology gets to shape the future of India. Will be the old school socialist ideology of the 60′s and a party based on a single family dynastic rule or an ideology that is based on aspiration, performance and delivery. We shall find out soon, the die has been cast!

 (Twitter id : @ask0704)

Originally published at: http://centreright.in/2014/04/indias-tryst-with-destiny/#.U0YCJfldXzU

2014 election will be battle of and for Youngistan

In the summer of 2014, world’s biggest election will take place in India with 814 million people voting to decide the next Prime Minister of world’s biggest democracy. Approximately, 529 million of these voters are below the age of 35. This is the first election in the history of India where the youth outnumbers the elder’s population by a ratio of almost 2:1. Thus, transcending beyond caste, class and religion, the youth is the biggest vote bank that all the political parties are trying to attract. How they have fared so far and what are the issues that the youth of India looks forward to in this election is an intriguing question.

After the economic liberalisation in the early 90’s, the youth, particularly my generation has seen a different India than previous generations. It was an India filled with hope, aspirations and a hunger for progress. Skill development, educational research, science and technological prowess were some of the major areas of growth that the youth of the country was looking forward to; that these would ultimately lead to job creation was the idea. India’s time to materialise this idea and assert itself to the world as a seat of power in South-Asia came after 2003, when the economy started to grow at 8 per cent. But sadly, we squandered the golden opportunity that came knocking at our doorstep and were sidetracked in our race for progress and development in the last decade.

In 2014, the Congress party’s vice-president and potential Prime Ministerial candidate Rahul Gandhi still talks about ‘empowering’ the youth and changing the system. However, for the last decade of his career in the Parliament, when his party had the ruling majority, he kept absolutely mum and not a single suggestion was given about how the youth should be ‘empowered’. The unemployment rate has swollen to almost 9 per cent and rising inflation coupled with lack of jobs has made the youth of the country restless. The 2009 election was touted as a huge change from the conventional politics and it was said that the Congress has been voted back as a result of economic growth and the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA). This act, we were told, would create jobs for the rural youth and ensure rural development. Far from development, this act resulted in wastage of more than 1 lakh crore rupees.

The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA) is a law that was said to guarantee employment in rural areas. It does so by providing at least 100 days of guaranteed wages in a financial year to every household in which adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work. The MNREGA was to provide jobs in sectors that had unemployment issues but was even implemented in places where there was a shortage of manual labor. This ill-conceived and faulty implementation resulted in an average worker refusing work while receiving MNREGA sops for being unemployed. As a result, the cost of labor in various fields such as agriculture shot up and became unsustainable for the owners.

Another issue that the Congress had promised to focus on was ‘skill development’. National Innovation Council was to be set up under Sam Pitroda. Tall claims of creating 15 million jobs every year were made but 5 years down the line, we are still to see the results.

In fact, the guaranteed income under MNREGA has ensured that even the skilled workers have abandoned their source of employment in favor of this largesse from the Government. There is ample evidence to suggest that the two schemes are working against each other. The MNREGA has no standardised policy for work implementation and cash allotment. The completion of work ranges from 8 per cent to 90 per cent. Also, lack of standardisation and excessive corruption is costing the economy heavily. The youth of this country does NOT want this kind of development.

The youth of this country is talented enough to progress without the sops of the Government. All it needs is an issue based policy. The issues of education, research and investments are the ones that need to be handled by the Government. The Government needs to develop high quality educational institutes with good research facilities to reduce the brain drain from India. The students those pass out of colleges need to be given an opportunity to expand their horizon; they need to be made aware of the possibilities that exist in the world. Skill development should be the first priority. Indian youth has an entrepreneurial spirit, has brilliant ideas but the process of starting a company is extremely complicated and riddled with corruption. The Government of India should encourage entrepreneurship by streamlining the process, and make policies that can let these small scale businesses grow. Who knows, we may have the idea for a next multi-national company in our backyard!

The Indian youth is battling with a lot of issues today. They are talented but their talent is not being harnessed. They are entrepreneurial but there are no policies that can help them take their ideas to the world. What has happened in the past decade is exactly the opposite of what should have been. The next Government has to ensure that the energy that the country has, is harnessed to its full potential. This will only happen with growth in various sectors, which will create jobs rather than the doles that the current Government is handing out to the youth. As many States of India have shown, ‘Dolenomics’ is not only bad economics but it is a bad precedent since it makes young people depend on the handouts from the Government. The youth should grow with the help of the Government rather than stumble because of it or merely survive in spite of it. The Government should act like a catalyst rather than an inhibitor.

Original link : http://www.niticentral.com/2014/03/25/2014-election-will-be-battle-of-and-for-youngistan-203463.html 

Thanedar Richard: Keeper of Indian morality

On March 10, 2014, I came across a rather interesting article by one Thane Richard about India crossing the moral line if it elected Narendra Modi as the Prime Minister of the country. I was bemused reading some of the assumptions that he made through the course of this article.

He starts by quoting a lady who expressed a certain point of view and “fears” that the same view will be shared by most people who vote for Modi. This is the most absurd assumption that I’ve seen in the recent past about the Indian voters. Does he mean to say that all the people in Gujarat that voted for Modi share that point of view and are immoral as he suggests. He then compares the debate over Modi’s guilt to the debate between Delhi and Mumbai. The frivolity of this argument lies in the fact that he disregards the SIT report, the lower courts verdict and indicates that he has come with a certain mindset that refuses to change. Will he have the same view on similar cases worldwide? Was the ‘moral line’ crossed when the US citizens voted for Obama in spite of his policy in Syria which resulted in a civil war-like situation that resulted in women and children dying? We are talking about a thrice elected Chief Minister of a State. The argument is reduced to accusations based on a preconceived point of view which is used as an excuse to pass erroneous judgments against Modi.

“It is also said that if Modi walked into a Press conference and confessed to all the crimes that he is guilty off then…” — What are the crimes that the author is talking about? He has never been chargesheeted and there is no prima facie evidence to file an FIR against him. There is not a shred of evidence that can prove his complicity, yet this stick is sought to be used to beat the riot issue.

When people supporting Modi say that they stand for development, it’s not development over riots, it is development in spite of riots. Gujarat has always been a communally sensitive State. The author blatantly ignores the history of riots in the State prior to 2002. Successive Congress Governments had failed to prevent riots in the state. More than 40 riots had taken place before 2002. Since the 1960s, the State has seen a slew of riots but not a single riot after 2002.

In 2002, the Army was called within 24 hours and help sought from the neighbouring states, which were congress rules, was repeatedly denied. This has been reported in the SIT report as well. Since 2002, the State has been calm and has seen prosperity and development of all communities. Growth has been universal throughout the State. The Jyotigram Yojna does not differentiate between religions when it provides electricity to the entire State. The women’s welfare schemes, e-governance models, and SWAGAT, are all examples of good governance where the entire State is taken along. But obviously facts mater zilch when the author has taken a certain position against the person concerned.

Next, the author goes on to compare Modi with Hitler not directly but by alluding to it. Nothing could be worse than that comparison. The author writes about Modi as if he was not anywhere on the national stage for 12 years and that the State of Gujarat was somewhere out of India. I agree that governing India is not exactly similar to governing Gujarat, a lot of challenges will lie ahead and a lot of troubles will be in store. But not once is Modi’s development record mentioned, not once is it mentioned that the all the communities in the State have seen development.

Gujarat is not a perfect State and neither is its development model perfect. But to disregard all the good work that has happened and evaluate the candidate based on perception is not acceptable. The author says that he is not willing to give Modi the learning curve. Modi is the only candidate for the Prime Minister’s post with a proven record. The other options lie between a clueless heir, an anarchist thriving on entertainment and regional leaders who have no vision except ambition. The author is willing to make allowances for all these candidates but his tolerance ends when a proven administrator is named as a candidate.

The process of reconciliation in Gujarat has been underway for some time now. The Chief Minister hasn’t demonstrated a single instance in the last 12 years where he stands for a particular community or against a particular community. In spite of this, vested interests continue to propagate half truths under the garb of ‘ethics’ and ‘morality’. Activists like Teesta Setalvad (whose associates have questioned her and who has court cases against her) along with officers like Sanjiv Bhatt (whose wife, contesting on a Congress ticket, is taken as fighters for truth and justice). When these activists make baseless allegations against Modi.

People who have voted for Narendra Modi have not crossed the moral line. Nor have the ones who will vote for Modi. As a Gujarati, my head hung in shame when those 59 people were burnt alive in Godhra as well as when Gujaratis died in the riots. I still consider them all Gujarati victims of tragedies as Gujaratis unlike the author who chooses to classify them by their respective communities. My faith in my country’s system remained strong when it sentenced the perpetrators of the riots to prison.

No moral line was crossed when these people were sentenced, nor was it crossed when Modi came back after winning a thumping majority. The supporters of Modi go by the mantra of ‘India First’ and will continue to do so because they believe he represents the hopes of 1.2 billion Indians. And if the author of the article believes that these Indians, after respecting the Indian judiciary’s verdict and choosing to come out and vote for Narendra Modi as PM, are crossing a ‘moral line’ then the author is wrong. One cannot disrespect the law of the land and believe in democracy at the same time.

Originally published at : http://www.niticentral.com/2014/03/12/thanedar-richard-keeper-of-indian-morality-199335.html 

A pledge for India

Below is a pledge i wrote for the people of India.. Originally written for the party:

 

The time has come, The motherland beckons,

There hasn't been an uprising such,

That people despite their differences

Have come together for an event such.

The country has been looted by thieves,

And ravaged by plunderers

It is our responsibility now to come together

And be the crusaders.

Let us pledge to make India victorious,

Lift it from sorrows and instill it with hope,

Come together as one

And ensure 'Sabka Vikas' for one another.