Mumbai versus Delhi

The Mumbai Indians and Delhi Daredevils will meet for their IPL match today. While the fate of this match is yet unknown and odds are in favour of Delhi, there is another front on which Delhi has already beaten Mumbai and that too with a shamefully big margin. The front I am talking about is the voting percentage of the 2 cities. While Mumbai set a target of just a measly 41% even after the huge hoophulla, Delhi managed to beat the target by posting a cool 53%. This is supposedly Delhi’s highest voting percentage in the past 20 years and ahead of other Indian metros like Mumbai and Bangalore.

Though am a Mumbaikar, I am no stranger to Delhi too. With almost 90% of my relatives residing in Delhi, my yearly trips to Delhi have made me fairly accustomed to the manners of Delhietes. Right from my childhood I was always a part of the Mumbai versus Delhi fight between me and my cousins and vociferously defended Mumbai and launched offensive attacks at Delhi. I took great pride in the independence and opportunities I enjoy in Mumbai, the great public transport and the spiritful Mumbaikars am surrounded with. Though often I had to cut corners while comparing the 2 cities on grounds of cleanliness, good roads etc, I managed to come out triumphantly from the debate by using my trump card of ‘the great Mumbai spirit’.

But no longer can I do that. Like the failing public transportation, increasing crime against women, poor infrastructure hammered every year by the feisty Mumbai rains, the great Mumbai spirit also looks on its way downhill. I often accused Delhiwallas to be arrogant and brash, always picking up a fight and Mumbaikars as ever accommodating always ready to adjust. Sadly, now my interpretation of these behavioural aspects has started to change. The Mumbai spirit has made us complacent, live with this chalta hai attitude, not striving to bring changes in our crumpling society while the brash Delhietes have gone ahead and raised their voices and brought about changes like the meticulous Delhi Metro, clean and wide Delhi roads. It may have its share of vices like the high crime rate against women, bad traffic sense among people, non systematic way of doing things in almost everything but still it has managed to brought about a change for the better.

And though am still a proud Mumbaikar and can write down a 100 things in which we fare better than the Delhiwallas , I admit that we have lagged behind in that killer instinct of changing things for better. As far as the improvement parameter, am ashamed that Delhi has managed to beat us.

The White Elephants of Uttar Pradesh

Wikipedia describes a white elephant as a valuable possession which its owner cannot dispose and whose cost (particularly cost of upkeep) is out of proportion to its usefulness. In financial terms, maintaining a white elephant is just a cost centre which will never incur any revenue. And in political terms, it means running the current government in Uttar Pradesh by Mayawati.

Our dear Behenji is on a memorial inauguration spree in Lucknow. Even though there is a PIL filed by a lawyer against the alleged misuse of UP government funds on the memorials, 15 memorials were inaugurated last week so that a Supreme Court order would not be able to spoil the Memorial party. I read in article that as per the Lucknow Development Authority, the statues of Mayawati and Kanshi Ram at various places in Lucknow cost an enormous Rs 6.68 crore and marble elephants at Ambedkar Memorial cost Rs 52 crore. Also, an amount of Rs 90 crore was allocated for the beautification of Kanshi Ram Park. I won't be surprised if UP will soon borrow the title 'Land of Elephants' from Thailand or rather it will be the 'Land of White elephants'. For those who came in late, elephant is the symbol of Mayawati's party, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP).

So acute is the egocentric behaviour of Mayawati that she has reportedly pulled down as her statue at a public place as it appears dwarfed by the figure of her political mentor, Kanshi Ram standing alongside. And now she intends to reconstruct it again. So we are basically doling out huge amounts of tax money for feeding the egos of our boisterous politicians. Mayawati argues that Congress has spent a lot of money building roads and memorials after the Gandhis and Nehrus, so why are they making an issue when the poor Dalit wants to do the same? So while the Congress and BSP engage in an competition to dump our nation with gigantic white elephants we can just pay for their maintenance.

We get the government we deserve

Long protest marches for the 26/11 victims, diatribes on national television against politicians, awareness campaigns by celebrities and yet one of the lowest turnouts in city of Mumbai. I thought it would be just the opposite. But Mumbaikars have definitely sprung a surprise for everyone by churning a voter turnout of just 49%.

I have never seen any election with such a wide campaign, urging people to come out and vote and yet we failed. No one knows what went wrong. I see a lot of articles saying that people are so disillusioned by the government that they have lost faith in governance and politicians. All hogwash I would say. I feel the root cause of this is the great Mumbai spirit that we all are so proud of. This chalta hai attitude which makes us think that how does one vote of mine matter? Let anyone come nothing is going to change. I am happy with the way my life is, so let it go on. Another root cause is clubbing the election day with a long weekend. Now if our smart election commissioners thought that people would deliver their constitutional duties before going on their weekend holidays, then they were obviously proven wrong. Knowing how we Indians feel about voting and how motivated we are about casting our ballot rights, I don’t understand what made our EC to club the election holiday with a long weekend.

I don’t know who said it but he obviously hit the nail on head when he/she said that the society deserves the government they get. And this is so true in a democratic nation like ours. How many politicians are fighting the elections raising issues like economic, rural development etc? The political parties have released their manifestos. However good or bad they maybe, how many of us have actually gone through them? We can only curse the government but when it comes to doing something about it we so easily chicken out saying that all politicians are bad, whom do we vote for? This time there were some prominent personalities like Meera Sanyal standing for elections in Mumbai. Are they going a chance to prove themselves or given a chance to prove things if we chicken out this way?

I read that battle in Rajasthan is mainly about the castes there with great divide between Meena and Gujjars and with upper castes with BJP and lower castes and Muslim votes with Congress. Why blame the parties for proliferating caste divide when the society themselves is ready to lap it all up. We need real leaders who make these people understand that we have to rise above these caste and religion issues and vote for development rather than just becoming a guinea pig for the power hungry. Else we will keep getting the kind of politicians we deserve and as the present lot shows they aren’t that great.

It’s election time once again !!

Will Mayawati succeed in becoming the Prime Minister of India or would Sharad Pawar manage to pull a coup? That’s the million dollar question doing rounds on the dinner table of most of us Indians. Unlike earlier, elections are no longer about Congress versus BJP, they are more about coalitions versus coalitions. Mergers and Acquisitions are what the political doctors have ordered for the aspirant PMs of the country.

So you have the BJP-BJD marriage breaking up in Orissa, Shiv Sena getting back together with BJP after threatening to file for divorce while it still continues to flirt with NCP. NCP acting like the Casanova, that has reserved Congress as its back up, but still has a roving eye and is eyeing all the possible political permutations and combinations. BSP is of course playing the hard to get temptress whom everyone is trying to woo. CPM is like the dumped spouse who is trying to take revenge from its former spouse (Congress) by forming a third front and trying to steal any possible mates that Congress is looking for. Trinamool Congress is looking like the cat that has whisked the milk as it has managed to make Congress bow down to its charm. And of course grand daddy Amar Singh is still making schemes to get Mulayam Singh somehow closer to the throne.

Poor BJP and Congress look like the grand old Patriarch who in their old age are trying to ward off attempts by the new kids to send them to old age homes. What with their own homes on fire with a lot of infighting going on. Election Commission, the Sarpanch (Village leader) is trying to get the whole house in order. No wonder saas bahu serials are taking a major hit on prime time. Even Ekta Kapoor’s team of writers cannot compete with such heavy duty real life political drama and are nowadays seen watching news to draw inspiration.

Anyways experts are now looking at the elections to boost the Indian economy as more money will be circulated (read buying votes, giving money to goons for booth capturing….etc). Hopefully, they will keep providing food and fodder to the news channels and keep the fire burning in their kitchen and set the ad revenues on fire. Many unemployed youth will get temporary jobs of filling as crowds during electoral speeches. Sale of SUVs, Bikes etc will be on rise as our public servants make their once in 5 year rounds to their constituencies. And so hopefully elections will help us beat China in the last quarter as the country with fastest growing GDP. So, three cheers to the political landscape of India that will provide some excitement in our dull lives!!