Tuesday, April 28, 2015

India does not deserve my vote



After Wednesday's 'incident' of a farmer committing suicide at the AAP rally, and the blame game that began, it's become clearer now more than ever that value of life in India matters little to none. It's worth gets reduced even further when put in the hands of the politicians.

Every four years, I enter a polling booth to cast my vote and pick one of the parties to lead my state/country. This choice is made entirely on the basis of my expectations of them and how much their public view points tally with mine. So basically I cast my vote in hope of seeing my life improve. To see the standard of living improve, education, services, and probably above everything - the society.

But what is the point of voting and expecting improvement in one's life when there is no life to speak of?

Now that man may have been a farmer or may not have been a farmer (as has been claimed) but the whole episode just reeks of complete disregard for human life. But what cannot be ignored is that a person lost his life for whatever reason - political or not.

We've become used to hearing old time stalwarts in BJP and Congress say utmost insensitive crap in the name of getting a few votes. Examples from this episode starting with Congress' Rahul Gandhi:

It is a very sad time. I just want to tell the farmers and labourers not to worry. We will help them… I had earlier said that the farmers are being punished by the Modi government. I had said that they only help industrialists. This is causing tremendous pain to the farmers of the country. This is sad. But we will do whatever we can for the farmers. We are going to fight the land ordinance.

And BJP wasn't too far away either with BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra quick to call a press conference after the farmer's death:

The whole thing was recorded by the media, but no leader from AAP got down from the stage. The speeches continued.

But when Delhites voted AAP in, in hope of seeing Arvind Kejriwal and his group become more sensitive to the people and be 'different', they became all the same. They, too, started to play the blame game and deflect from taking responsibility while someone died not more than 100 metres from the stage. Kejriwal said this immediately afterwards:

What upsets me most is that we kept asking the police to act, but they did nothing. We know that the Delhi Police is not in our control. But you must have some humanity. You must at least be under God’s control. The first thing I and Manish Sisodia will do is to go to the hospital.

 Another AAP member Ashutosh went one better with this sarcastic jibe during a TV 'debate':

This was Arvind Kejriwal's mistake. He should have got down from the stage. He made a mistake. Next time I will tell Kejriwal to get down and climb the tree and save people.


To make matters worse, or waters dirtier, there are multiple images and videos of the person on the tree and even pictures snapped when he fell to his death. The media plays holier than thou attitude but in being mere bystanders and not doing anything to aid that man, they're equally guilty for his death.

Sunday, April 12, 2015

Quoteism - 2

Keeping with the previous Quoteism, here is another.
Scepticism and pessimism, and not optimism, keeps one close to realism.

But what about equality?

AIt is around 1.30 PM in Delhi. The heat is at its peak and it is not even May yet. People have been waiting at the bus stop for quite a wh...