India Today: a pessimist’s delight

“A long, long time ago...
I can still remember
How that music used to make me smile.
And I knew if I had my chance
That I could make those people dance
And, maybe, they’d be happy for a while.”

Maybe not so long ago, we were in the BJP led coalition regime which had all but the very best of policies running for the corporate India. Thankfully, the saffron was stuffed where it belong to, in the puja rooms and the sadhus and politicians donned the reformist mantle, out to make the nation shine.

Thus came the telecom reform (this time for the cell phone and the Reliance phone for the aam aadmi) and along with came a slew of well thought out guidelines, which till today, are the strong foundation for the sector to reach where it has today.

We had the foreign money flowing in, thick and fast and suddenly, the sleepy, humdrum small towns woke up to improvements in the infrastructure drive. The trickle down effect hadn’t really started then, but the govt. from their New Delhi vantage, started on the India shining drive. The opposition, meanwhile, was confused, and not ready as to how to take the development drive and with what.

Aha, surprise of surprises, election came and the saffron Brigade was thrown out and Congress led coalition took guard. The market went on a depression and we had a few black trading sessions tanking the market.

But thankfully, the new team was even better, with MS, PC and MSA corporate India had a new trinity to cheer for, and to their credit, they had done fairly well uptill now.

Today, the Dream team of UPA faces a near certain defeat. Though BJP, the natural alternative, is busy shooting itself in the foot if not the senior leader putting the same in their mouths, time and again, it may as well be asked by the public to take charge yet again in an another fractured verdict.

However, what has changed now is that, the BJP is again in the regressive mode. Its think tank has been beyond the best before period and the second rung leaders, are more rabble rousers than national leaders. Their ability comes under doubt once again, as they re ignite the communal flares to gather eyeballs.

Sometimes, one wonders, what kind of a time warp are these “leaders” and their supporters living in?

Look at incidents where CDs of needlessly inflammatory information are spread. Look at Singur, Nandigram and its like, where villagers are being duped into opposing development. Somebody please tell me, till now, by tilling their land, what level of livelihood have they been able to secure?? Industrialization with clean governance will provide them to lead to a better lifestyle with more job security.

But who is listening to logic?? Sadly nobody.

Look at Retail stores and pvt institutions being needlessly interfered with, by politicos who remind one of the infamous labor leaders of the 80s whose mere appearance used to result in lock outs of mills with millions of dollars of capital wasted.

India, and the Indians, if decide to chose such leadership, brings me to justify Maclean’s song.

“A long, long time ago...
I can still remember
How that music used to make me smile.
And I knew if I had my chance
That I could make those people dance
And, maybe, they’d be happy for a while.”

I hope and wish, that this song doesn’t the reality of India in 2007 and beyond…..