The Man behind the Mask

The sudden monsoon that has hit Delhi recently has made it the wettest month of May in recent times as it seemed to give respite not only to the burning city but also washed away the most heated fight in the general elections that just passed by. Elections are over, nearly 815 million people have sealed the fate of the nation and if opinion polls and exit polls are to be believed, NDA's poster boy Narendra Modi is just inches away from claiming his throne at the 7, Race Course Road. 

Clearly the entire elections divided the whole country into two camps- the Modi lovers and the Modi critics. Though I've no shame or fear to accept that I've always been on the latter side of the spectrum, it is important to understand what kind of India we will be living in if Modi genuinely comes to power. When I think about it, it's not the general rhetoric of sending people to Pakistan who doesn't support Modi that worries me. What worries me are the things which would not be otherwise so obvious and apparent with the help of 24*7 media gaze. 

It would be indeed foolish to say that this election has been fought by the BJP only on the development plank. Those who tend to believe can happily continue to do so but we all know what the truth is. The very act of appointing Modi confident Amit Shah as the campaign chief of the politically significant state of UP is a testimony to the fact that how polarised the election has been. The Muzzaffarnagar riots just a year before the elections and statements like 'It's time to take' revenge by Amit Shah in his election speech at the same spot just further reiterates the point. They are back to the age old tried and tested formula of wooing the Hindus and ignoring the minority votes. 

Certainly the fears of Modi indeed sending people to Pakistan who doesn't support him after coming to power is utterly stupid but that is not what I'm worried of. My fear stems from the time when we were shooting for our documentary 'The Gujarat Promise'. We travelled across Gujarat, met many people both Modi lovers, critics and normal civilians. And what really shocked us was the level of insecurity that exists in the state between the people of the majority as well as the minority. While in certain areas the growing insecurity has converted it into a tinderbox, others just simply have accepted that fact and continue to live in the politically polarised atmosphere. 

While BJP might appear to be the one fighting this elections, it is not very surprising to know that the original decision making powers of it lies not in 15, Ashoka Road, the party headquarters but in Nagpur. We can well call it the political wing of the RSS or the extended Sangh Parivar as they themselves can't fight elections. It goes back to the time when RSS was banned by our then Home Minister Sardar Vallabbhai Patel after the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi by Nathuram Godse who belonged to the same outfit. The ban was only lifted later when they gave in writing that they would never enter politics and continue to work as a cultural organisation. Ever since then they've indirectly been into politics through different outings namely the Jana Sangh, Janata Party and now the BJP. 

It is the RSS and the extended Sangh Parivar outfits that has been working since years at the grassroots inducing the Hindutva sentiments across the country through their shakhas. In Gujarat, kids going to bal shakhas of RSS after school is a common affair. The very thought of young minds which are so fertile and innocent getting imbibed with the supremacy of one religion over the other is petrifying. Not to forget the Gujarat social science textbooks which said that Muslims, Christians etc are all foreigners. Though due to long term struggle it has been recently taken back but the thought continues to linger. Fascists across the world have tried to tamper with history and the easiest way to tamper with history is to tweak and modify the history textbooks and the case in Gujarat is a testimony to that fact.

It shouldn't surprise many if I may say so that if such things continue to go on. Silently, away from public gaze but quite successfully we might see the emergence of a Hindu Taliban. As even in Afghanistan, it started with the motive of cultural promotion and was never taken very seriously by the citizens but today the reality is in front of us. And even if some of you think that I'm exaggerating, then trust me I'm not.

Indo-Canadian filmmaker Nisha Pahuja's powerful and brilliant documentary 'The World Before Her' is one such example which shows us in a paradox the ugly face of our country. While on one side it shows the journey of the Miss India contest, on the other it takes us through the Durga Vahini camps, an armed women outfit of the Sangh Parivar. The first and probably the last to get access to such camps, shivers went through my body when I first saw the film. It scared me and at the same time made me worried when I saw the kind of work such outfits of the Sangh Parivar is doing to the people of our country. There are thousands of such camps across the country and with the BJP coming to power, it is only going to increase manifold. 

Today when I look back and try to contemplate the future, people ask me to leave behind 2002 and talk about development. But they fail to realise that even after 12 years of that horrific incident, poor Muslims continue to live in pitiable conditions and under utter neglect in the state of Gujarat. The condition is so worse that even after 12 years, the poor riot survivors of 2002 are rehabilitated in front of the biggest dumping yards of Ahmedabad. Yes I'm talking about Citizen Nagar which lies on the other side of the Sabarmati river, away from the hustling and bustling cosmopolitan city of the Ahmedabad. 

So post May 16th, if this is the replica that we're going to see across the country, then I'm afraid we might just lose the sheer respect that we enjoy in the global fraternity for being the biggest secular democracy in the world. As the popular saying goes, 'Power corrupts but absolute power corrupts absolutely' appears to be the most resounding phrase in a situation of a Modi sarkaar. But never be always very sure, as history teaches us that the Indian electorate has more than once thrown in a lot of surprises just when we thought that the game is all over. 

Open letters to next Prime Minister: Quality of education is important if India aims to be a super power

Even 67 years after independence, as we elect our 16th Lok Sabha after such a massive election, which is well deservedly have been termed the biggest elections across the world, the issues didn't seem to have moved beyond the general rhetoric of Roti, Kapda and Makaan. However irrespective of whoever forms the government at Centre, a plethora of issues would be staring expectedly at the new head of this gigantic country, crying for attention and which needs quick restructuring.  Among issues which have been under severe neglect because of political inefficiency and failure of state machinery is Education.

In a country which is obsessed with IITs and IIMs, the primary issue of basic education has not seen making such inroads even after so many years. While nursery admissions at Delhi schools manages to get the attention of the Delhi High Court and often been guided with comments as to how it should function, somewhere in a far fetched village of Uttar Pradesh, a child continues to struggle to get even basic primary education. Even policies which have been lauded as historic such as the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan and Right to  Education have somehow failed at the grassroots either due to lack of Centre-State coordination or because of faulty implementation. The demographics of our country makes us the youngest country in the entire world, but if this potential is not stirred by quality education and exposure, we'll end up destroying not just the fate of the country but also fail to deliver on the expectations of an entire generation. 

On Saturday, as the honourable President of India —Pranab Mukherjee was addressing the convocation of Indian School of Mines in Dhanbad, he emphasised on the fact that we should focus on creating more industry friendly graduates. And his concern is truly reflective of the current situation of both primary and higher education in this country. Forget about having one of our colleges in the Ivy League, they don't even find mention in the Top 50 universities of the world. This even after we've produced some of the sharpest minds and billionaires through these very same set of institutions. 

When Satya Nadella got appointed as the CEO of Microsoft and caught the imagination of lakhs of youth in the country, we failed to realise that he is not a product of some high profile international schooling nor the alumni of an IIT or an IIM but went to the Hyderabad Public School and then later completed his BTech from Manipal Institute of Technology which is a privately run institute. But at the same time there exists hundreds of such private universities whose degrees are not even worth the paper they're printed on forget about being anywhere close to imparting quality education. Probably both the government and we as a society have collectively failed in our responsibility to educate the masses and bring about a change in the very outlook of how we treat education in this country.

A report submitted by UNICEF recently pointed out the utter failure of state mechanism in curbing school drop out rate of the country. The report says, that while nearly 80 million children don't complete the entire cycle of elementary education, close to 8 million are out of school. The dropout rate is much more higher among girls. These reports are a testimony to the fact that we have utterly failed in providing the children of this country their very basic right of education. Though central schemes such as the Midday Meal has bring in some respite in constraining the growing dropout rate, it has clearly not been of much help. 

Apart from policies, the government needs to focus more on implementing these initiatives at the grassroots and make sure it is feasible and at the same time accessible too. Technology can play a big role in such a setup. Developed countries across the world have tapped the potential of community radio to spread education in rural areas but we in India have somehow still not being able to exploit it's potential. 

When it comes to higher education, for every IIT and IIM graduate that bags a handsome salary package, there are lakhs of other graduates who even after years of completing education can't find a suitable job. The India Skills Report of 2014 reveal that only 52 % of engineering graduates and 34 % of our overall skill pool are employable. Such poor numbers coming at a time when every parent's dream in this country seems to be one day seeing their child as either an engineer or a doctor, preferably from an IIT or an AIIMS. 

It is high time that the government realises that education is not just about earning degrees but also at the same time becoming industry friendly and job ready otherwise the person has no market value. Just regulations and legislations are not enough to solve the current crisis that we're in. The new government has to take a much more concerted effort in not just improving the quality of education but also in making it more accessible to the far flung villages of the country.

So next Prime Minister, the youth of this country has huge expectations from you and this would be one of your biggest litmus tests. Sincere efforts should be made in bringing in a Public-Private partnership so as to ensure that the quality of education both at the elementary level as well as at the higher levels is never being compromised. Effective implementation of existing government schemes and not more policies should be the key to tap the potential of the rural as well as the urban youth. The new government should also ensure that the non-conventional fields of study be made more lucrative so that students have a much more viable choice of alternatives while making a career choice. 

If the new Prime Minister fails to deliver in these fronts, then I'm afraid that even huge economic boom won't be able to help this country in becoming the next Super Power. Unless the youth of this nation is empowered, we can't really rise the ladder of success in calling us the biggest democracy of the world as democracy is all about accountability and only a liberal, educated and socially aware electorate can hold it's government accountable.

(First appeared in DNA)

A Lotus Bloom or Doom in 2014?

The whirlwinds in the political corridors of the country started gaining momentum as soon as the Bharatiya Janata Party anointed their Hindu Nationalist leader and Chief Minister of Gujarat, Mr. Narendra Modi as their official Prime Ministerial candidate. This move as speculated resulted not only in tilting the entire campaign towards a more Presidential style of elections, centered around an aggressive Modi but also led to huge polarization among the voters. With the slogan of 'Abki Baar Modi Sarkaar', BJP has put in all their efforts to reap as many political brownie points as possible by hard selling their poster boy. 

But one needs to understand that elections cannot solely be won on the basis of slogan chanting or by the personality cult of an individual. The lessons could be well learnt from our neighbors where a relatively timid Nawaz Sharif defeated a much more bold and aggressive Imran Khan in the national elections which happened last year in Pakistan. After all, not everybody possesses the charisma of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, who would stand on a dais, clad in a khadi sari, and cheer the slogan of ‘Garibi Hatao’, and people would realize that their messiah has come. So while everyone in his party and that of the allies are trying to bask in the glory, they should be careful to not tan themselves. 

Throughout the election campaign, if you analyze closely, BJP has had a two point basic agenda. One, to hard sell Brand Modi by projecting him as ‘Vikas Purush’ and two to polarize the polity by using the various constituents of the Sangh Parivaar who very effectively and silently have been doing their ground work in the crucial states of Bihar and UP where the blurring of caste equations can lead to huge consolidation of Hindu votes. So it's not surprising when we heard the news of rioting in Muzzaffarnagar where Jats and Muslims have lived peacefully for years or while suddenly the news of communal tension hits our TV screens and curfew imposed in Kanpur after there was reports that veteran BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi might be losing out the battle to Congress's Sriprakash Jaiswal. 

With all the major opinion polls projecting a lotus bloom and rout of the Congress in this general elections, it is important to look at some ground realities before we jump to conclusions. Being someone who has been constantly talking to people from key states and travelling across India for various activities, I could see a very different picture from what has been so far projected by the media as a big Modi wave across the country. Is the big hullabaloo about the so-called 'wave' actually translating into votes? Or it might just leave the party in an awkward position where while the number of seats does increase but it doesn't help to catapult them to grab power at the centre. Then what is the actual scenario that is being developing in the political landscape of the country as half the country has already voted to decide the fate of the next government? Let us have a look.

First, let us analyze the crucial projection of seats across the country with special emphasis on the Hindi heartland where they are heavily banking on. These projections that I would be presenting are based primarily on how equations are fast changing as elections come close to an end. Even with a grand alliance of regional parties in Tamil Nadu, return of BS Yedduruppa in Karnataka, stitching a tie-up with Chandrababu Naidu's TDP in Andhra Pradesh and with Narendra Modi himself addressing so many rallies in Kerela, the prospects are not so bright for the saffron party in the southern part of the country. While in Kerela it might not even open it's account, in Tamil Nadu, they can't win more than 2-5 seats. 

Similarly Yedduruppa's entry has failed to change dynamics in Karnataka and therefore cannot help win more than 10-12 seats out of 28. In Andhra Pradesh and Telengana too, the total tally for the party might not cross 2-5 seats, thereby giving BJP a total of 20 seats from South India. Coming to East India and the north-east, it looks like the Modi wave hasn't change anything much and the states are sticking more and less to the same old players. In the north-east except for Assam where they can hope for a maximum of 5 seats to their kitty, in most other states, they'll struggle to win even a single seat. In the eastern states of West Bengal and Odisha, Mamata Banerjee and Naveen Pattnaik would hold key to most of the seats leaving BJP with not more than 5 seats from both the states even if they see a rise in their vote share. Chattisgarh and Jharkhand are however two states where BJP would make huge gains and can end up winning 7-8 seats out of 11 and 6-7seats out of 14 respectively.

Now coming down to the western and northern states where the BJP is heavily banking to ride on the Modi wave, the grass is not as green as it appears to be on the other side of the fence. In Maharashtra along with allies Shiv Sena and RPI, the party is hoping to win as many as 35 seats. However latest ground reports suggest that the voting pattern hasn't much changed in the state and while a seat or two might flip to the other side, the voters are still sticking to the Congress-NCP alliance. This leaves them with not more than 20 seats in the state. States where they'll make huge inroads are Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan where they can win more than 20 seats each.

However it's the northern part of the country that matters the most. In Punjab huge anti-incumbency and an aggressive campaign by Capt. Amarinder Singh is giving a very tough time to the BJP-SAD alliance. In Haryana too, despite anti-incumbency setting in, the Hooda govt appears to be better placed and BJP can expect not more than 5-6 seats out of the state’s 14. Also in the hilly states of Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, the party can expect not more than 8 seats in total.

In Bihar out of the 40 seats, BJP was expecting that the Modi wave will blur caste lines and bag more than 25 seats. That clearly is not happening. Lalu has made a grand comeback and the Congress-RJD-NCP together with their M-Y duo is expected to win many seats and be edge to edge in many others. Nitish Kumar's JD (U) though hugely losing ground will play a major spoiler with his Kumri and Mahadalit vote banks consolidating towards his party. Then how many seats are they winning in Bihar? My estimate is not more than 18 and I'm being very humble as in many parts especially North-east Bihar, there is clearly no Modi wave.

There is a very popular saying in politics that the road to Delhi goes through UP. It is the state which sends most number of MPs to the parliament and every party has huge stake in it. With Narendra Modi himself fighting from the state, the fortunes of BJP depend hugely on how it fares in India's largest state. With a plethora of strong regional parties like SP, BSP, RLD etc the final results might just throw a lot of surprises than what majority of opinion polls has to say. And mark my words, it is only when the results of UP would be announced, will suddenly the media wake up to the political prowess of Mayawati. They might end up bagging maximum number of seats, but again, my projection says they can't cross 20-25 and that is solely because of the so-called Modi wave. 

So, with these projections, where do we leave BJP when seen in totality? My prediction is that with the help of the Modi wave, if there is any, the party will not cross more than 165-180 seats. Rest will depend on how they stitch their alliances with key regional players. With major players like Mayawati, Mulayam Singh Yadav, Mamata Banerjee, Naveen Pattnaik, K Chandrasekhar Rao etc taking a hugely anti-Modi stand, the going is really tough for the party.

Secondly, despite the odds being in favor of BJP, four key leaders in the party are facing their toughest battle yet. First in the row is Arun Jaitley.  Erstwhile seen as a safe seat, the rumors were that he would be seen only twice in the constituency, once to file his nomination and next to collect his winning certificate. But the entry of former Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh on Sonia Gandhi's insistence has made him stay there ever since. The fight is so edge to edge that Jaitley has called in his entire family and all his intellectual friends from Delhi to campaign for him. The empty chairs that greeted Modi in his recent Amritsar rally perhaps bear testimony to what is coming. Veteran leader Murli Manohar Joshi after being shifted from Varanasi is facing a formidable Sriprakash Jaiswal in Kanpur and ground reports suggest that he seems to have an edge over Joshi. 

The third leader in the fray is party President Rajnath Singh who too shifted base from Ghaziabad to Lucknow and is repeatedly invoking memories of Vajpayee to win over the voters. However Congress's Rita Bahugana Joshi is giving him a run for his money as the 4.5 lakhs Muslim votes is hugely consolidating in her favor and there are the other traditional Congress vote banks too. What is most interesting is the challenge that Narendra Modi faces in Varanasi. Though the odds are in his favor and he clearly has an edge over his opponents. The withdrawal of don-politician Mukhtar Ansari's nomination to ensure that the secular votes don’t split can play a huge spoiler for him. Congress's Ajay Rai who claims to be a local has considerable amount of support in the holy city. And then we have Arvind Kejriwal who too if sources are to be believed is gaining huge grounds with each passing day.  

At a time when there is huge anti-incumbency in the country, the much hyped Modi wave is not seemed to be gaining as much as it is projected by the media. BJP's hope to cut across caste equations and consolidate Hindu votes in its favor is clearly not working perfectly. On May 17, the very next day when results of the general elections will be announced, the front page of all the leading newspapers will bear the picture of Narendra Modi, either lauding his success and charisma or narrating his doom. While we were shooting for our documentary ‘The Gujarat Promise’ in Juhapura, I asked an old woman about what she has to say about Modi, and she replied 'There are good people. There are bad people. And there is Narendra Modi.'. While we are smart enough to read between the lines and interpret the statement both ways, it kind of sums it all.

For all sorts of bouquets and brickbats, feel free to leave a comment below or mail me at author.vish94@gmail.com