Political Hypocrisies and Double Speaks

The inspiration for this post was an article from rediff.com by Mr.Ram Madhav. I was thinking that this is just one instance of hypocrisy in the world of politics. But I always believed that our great country of the past is in such state of distress now because we've been constantly ruled by one group of people called HYPOCRITES till now. One more thing, if you think this post is going to talk about hypocrisies in political arena and its effect on nation building, then its totally wrong. My job is to list down events, words from the recent past to present, so sit down, relax and just enjoy it. Before I give the listing, let me tell you one thing, I did a lot of searching based on recent events over the internet and in the process had got the information from a lot of websites, private blogs etc. So my thanks to all those source web sites. OK now, here is the list:

1. I will start with the all famous 123 nuclear-agreement and the doublespeaks and hypocrisies involved in it. The source of information is the link I've provided above. This time our all famous left parties are the source of these words.
   Now - Left says, "India-US deal is against our national interest, since it impends our sovereignity of conducting nuclear tests." (Well, left seems to be genuine and they definitely want India to do a nuclear test whenever it wants, and hence protect our national interest. Fair enough...)
   Then - The time was when BJP led government conducted the all famous Pokhran nuclear test in May, 1998. (Man the nuclear-test-loving left should have been super happy. But wait, where they?). Left parties organized a "Convention against Nuclear Weapons" in New Delhi on June 9, 1998. (What? I thought the left love sovereign nuclear-testing. I am confused.)
2. The next instance is from the land of contradictions - Tamil Nadu. The issue here is government trying to take over cable TV operators(also called MSO - Multi System Operator).
   Then - May 2002, Jayalalitha led AIADMK government tries to push through an act, which tries to take control of the MSO (read Sun Network's Sumangali Cable Vision, which controlled 70% of cable TV subscribers in the state). DMK cries foul, claims its against democratic values. (Man, DMK is correct. Why is the government trying to take control of the MSOs. This happens only during a army coup or an emergency. Hail DMK)
   Now - August 2007, Karunanidhi led DMK government plans to establish a MSO in the state and also push an act to organize this sector. Read it in a different way - Take control of Sun Network's Sumangali Cable vision, which controls more than 70% of cable TV subscribers in the state. (What? Man, I hailed DMK on May, 2002. What's happening? Oh dear, I just realized, they are hypocrites)
3. From Tamil Nadu, now we travel to the God's own country - Kerala. This is a ideal case of hypocritic government.
   Then - Kerala government led by LDF (Left Democratic Front) bans Coca-cola citing presence of pesticides and hence public health as a reason. The words as said by Vaikom Viswan, convenor LDF, "We cannot make our people drink poison and pesticide just because we want industries here. This is not the policy of LDF". (I completely agree with the LDF. If I was the Chief Minister and I found pesticides in colas, I would ban them right away. Way to go LDF)
   Then - Around the same time when the Coca-cola was banned, statistics showed that Kerala was the biggest consumer of alcohol and Kerala government's biggest income earner was through the sale of government approved alcoholic drinks. The income - approximately 2000 crores. (Did some one tell them that alcoholic drinks are not categorized as health drinks any where in the world?).
4. We still stay in Kerala. Of course, its the god's own country and no humans want to leave that place. Check out this one, this probably is the best of all in this list.
   Then - Coca-cola is accused of depleting the ground water resources in its Plachimada plant by over utilising the ground water resources. Again Kerala's saviour LDF(with CPM as the majority share holder) leads the agitation from the front. (Way to go LDF. I am all for saving ground water and our mother earth)
   Now - CPM, our friendly communist party is the owner of a Water theme park somewhere in in the hilly regions of North Kerala. (Water theme park? Was the water red that inspired a left theme park? CPH is a more suitable name. No prizes for guessing what H stands for...)
5. We come back again to Tamil Nadu. This time the theme is dynasty politics. We have no other option but stay with DMK, as AIADMK cannot have any dynasty politics.
   Some time back - when Mr.Karunanidhi was accused of dynasty politics by projecting his sons ahead of others in his party, he was accused of dynasty politics. His response was swift "DMK is a democratic party and every party worker is elected in a democratic manner"
   Some time after 'some time back' - Kanimozhi, Karunanidhi's daughter is the member of the Rajya Sabha. (I still think she got elected democratically ;-) What say readers?)
6. For some reason I found a lot of information talking about left parties and hypocrisies. than any other political party. This time though the events are from 2 different states, Andhra and Bengal respectively.
   The Andhra event - Six people are killed in police firing in Khammam in a protest by landless agricultural labourers. CPM demanded the resignation of the Andhra CM - Mr.Reddy. (Fair enough, I would say)
   The Bengal event - A lot of people are killed in police firing in Nandigram and Singur. But the state is ruled by CPM. What about the Bengal CM? (What do you do?)
   

Well, the list above could be endless. I just picked up a few based on the events I remembered in the recent past. But what a shame? God save India...

Well I wanted to end with the previous paragraph, but why not end with another classic double speak from none other than our ambassador to the US - Ronen Sen. Here it goes...

2 days ago - Our friend Ronen said "The nuclear deal has been approved here (in Washington, DC) by the President, and there (in New Delhi) it's been approved by the Indian cabinet. So why do you have all this running around like headless chicken, looking for a comment here or comment there, and these little storms in a tea-cup?”. He also said "I can understand (such a debate) immediately after independence," he said. "But 60 years after independence! I am really bothered that 60 years after independence, they are so insecure—that we have not grown up, this lack of confidence and lack of self-respect," (I say, well said Ronen)
Yesterday - Our friend Ronen said, after a huge hue and cry by our parliamentarians, "My comment about running round like headless chicken looking for a comment here or a comment there was a tactless observation on some of my media friends and most certainly not with reference to any honourable MP,"" (Looks who chicked out)

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Note & Disclaimer: The source of the informations are news websites and some blogs from the world wide web. If you notice some discrepancies in the correctness of the information, please put in the comments section so that I can correct them.

The 1 lakh car :: Time to take care

Time: 1 or 2 years ago.
Place: My home, Bangalore, India
TV Event: Ratan Tata announces the all ambitious 1 lakh car project.

I was watching the above announcement live on TV. When I heard that Mr.Tata is gonna give India a car for just a lakh of a ruppe, it took some time for me to digest the fact. And after that I thought. WOW. Mr.Tata is close to fulfilling one of the most cherished dreams of an Indian middle class family - OWN A CAR.

Time: Yesterday
Place: My home, Bangalore, India
TV Event: Ratan Tata announces that the 1 lakh car will be available to India by June, 2008.

I watched the above announcement on some news channel. I thought again, WOW. But this WOW, unlike the first WOW, was only for one more day.

Time: Today
Place: My home, Bangalore, India
TV Event: None.

This morning I started at 10 in the morning from my home in Kanakapura road to my office in Brigade road, a good 12 kms from my home. I reached my office at around 11.15 AM. One and a half hours for 12 kms. After I reached my office, I was doing my morning internet browse of the usual web-sites - Rediff, NDTV, EconomicTimes, IBNLIVE etc. While I was browsing through the Economic-Times website, I noticed this interesting article on TATA cars. It said that in a few years from now, TATA would be the biggest manufacturer/exporter of small cars in the world, commanding a huge 25% share in the world market. The next one was Mahindra-Renault and the other Indian companies in this list. That evening, I came back home and after a few dosas for dinner was sitting in my balcony and started to think. INTENTLY...

The points I considered to its merit were the following

• TATA's one lakh car is definitely a WOW for all those deserving Indian middle class families, who've been earning for a luxury living for a long long time. No doubt.
• TATA's one lakh car is definitely a WOW for TATA motors, who would become the world leader in small car manufacture and exports
• TATA's one lakh car is a definitely a WOW for Indian economy. India would be the global hub for small cars and probably a automobile giant in the making and towards greater glory as a world power.
  

All the points mentioned above about India moving towards global economic supremacy was making me jump with joy, when suddenly the counter-argument twin brain inside me took over. My twin brain started asking questions that may make feel sad, the same average Indian who felt elated by the 1 lakh car. What are the questions? Here they are:

• TATA's one lakh car - Is India's road infrastructure(especially the city road infrastructure) ready to handle this explosion of new vehicles to hit the road?
• TATA's one lakh car - Is India ready to make available the extra fuel that would be demanded by the sudden explosion of new vehicles to hit the road?
• TATA's one lakh car - Is India ready to balance out the tremendous environmental impact the emissions from these news cars that are gonna explode into the market?

Unfortunately for all these questions, the resounding answer was "NO NO & NO ONLY".

I have consciously decided not try to blame any person or organization or the government per se. My job is to raise questions and thats exactly what I will do in the lines to come...

• If India would be the next AUTO-HUB of the world, then why did it not take steps to amend the road infrastructure(specifically city road infrastructure) in our country?
• India is a energy deficient country. Our oil-pool deficit huge compared to say a country like Russia. In that sense, has anything been done pro-actively to tackle this additional fuel needs that might arise (or) has anything been done so that these vehicles use alternate fuel modes for their operation?
• India contributes to just 1% of the global pollution. But its a developing country. And in the years to come, the emissions are just gonna increase. Are there any steps taken to tackle this impending environment menace? The government need not foster research et all, but at least it can give sops to companies making or to people who are ready to buy environment friendly vehicles. Brazil is an excellent example of a developing country following development with minimal cost to the environment. Fact is that Brazil has a significant percentage of its vehicles running on BIO-FUELS.

I would let you, the readers, to ponder over the answers for these questions.

But in the midst of these questions, one very important question still lingers deep inside my mind and comes back to haunt me again and again and again.

"Why is it always that our dear Earth a casualty whenever there is an opportunity for the development of humanity?"