OPINION

When a community is visited by a catastrophe, a leader given to demagoguery speaks with ‘passion’ to extricate oneself from any criticism. The newspapers in the national Capital decided to billow city’s chief minister Arvind Kejriwal’s appreciation of the rescuers more than the hot winds would have billowed the blaze in Mundka which devoured about 30 lives.

None questioned why public had to run rescue operations for full 90 minutes before the fire-tenders arrived on the scene. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), post the catastrophe, has been firing all cylinders to pass the blame of the aphonic leadership of Delhi BJP, which has been at their wits end on how to respond to the flurry of charges.

In an eye-witness account, water-conservation activist Diwan Singh wrote in a social media post that even after the fire vehicles arrived the rescue work could not be started because they were ill-equipped to reach out to people on the third and fourth floors. He mentions how the fire-officials went helter-skelter seeking help from local people to give a semblance of shape to their so called rescue operations.

A building in the outer lying areas of Delhi witnessed a devastating fire, the number of the dead are still being counted. With this headline splashed across the newspapers was also a news about Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia writing to Home Minister Amit Shah to stop the bulldozers bringing down encroachments and illegal buildings.

In their competitive politics over bulldozers, there is a lesson from the Mundka fire for both the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)-led Delhi government and the BJP-controlled municipal corporations. The reports revealed that the several storied building which went up in flames did not have license either from the fire department or the municipal corporation but still it had functioning offices and warehouses jeopardizing lives of people.

And this is not the first instance of fire in the recent times. In December 2019, the Anaj Mandi blaze claimed 44 lives, making it the most severe fire incident in the national capital after the Uphaar Cinema tragedy that had claimed 59 lives and left over 100 injured in June, 1997. 

Just a few days after the Anaj Mandi blaze, another fire tragedy took place in Outer Delhi which claimed the lives of several people. A fire ripped through a three-storey residential-cum-commercial building in Kirari area, killing nine people, including three children. Even earlier this year, in March, seven people were killed in a fire that ravaged several shanties in Gokumpuri.

An internet user with the screen name ‘blue_beetle’, and supposed real name Andrew Lewis, wrote in a post in August 2010, “If you are not paying for it, you’re not the customer; you’re the product being sold.” These comments have been made especially with the reference to the ‘free services’ like the Google and other social media platforms like Facebook, and Twitter among others.

However, the purpose of using this quote here is to reflect on the politics of subsidy and free services provided by the political parties as major poll promise. Prior to the emergence of Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), this allurement of subsidies were largely limited for the rural voters especially those with agricultural land holdings.

Kejriwal, however, patented the politics of subsidy through a promise of free power and free water to the urban voters of Delhi during the 2015 assembly polls. On coming to power he implemented the promises too, despite much burden on the state’s exchequer and infrastructure, and riding on the popularity of the policy returned to power with thumping majority in 2020.

Delhi University has rolled on its centenary celebrations. There has been some articles and news reports in the newspapers, mostly half-baked, on the contribution the university has made in the past 100 years of its existence. One is still to come across any serious analysis of the contribution of the hoary institution, which is also this writer’s alma mater.

Whenever an educational institution reaches a milestone of its existence, it’s the opportune time for it to reflect upon its contribution to the society. In the West, it is now established practise to research and write history of an institution during its jubilee celebrations. In India, the practise, however, has been to bring out self-congratulatory volumes in the genre of coffee table books. Which is what the Delhi University has also done.

At major event of the centenary celebrations, attended by the Vice President Venkaiah Naidu and Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Sunday, the activity involved release of a stamp, release of a coin, release of the coffee table book, release of curriculum for undergraduate programme in Hindi and Sanskrit and the website. The schedule of the events gives us an idea how these celebrations are going to be bereft of any academic exercise.

If one were to write about the moves to ‘revive’ the Congress using a Christian metaphor, one could say that the Mother Superior of a convent called the 10 Janpath has realised that its baptized inmates were not good enough to lead the congregation of the faithfuls. Having realised that she is into seeking help of monks from various monasteries to do a miracle to retain the herd of followers.

One such ‘miracle making monk’, who goes by the name of Prashant Kishor, has just refused to help as he knows that neither miracles happen in politics, nor he has miraculous powers. Congress president Sonia Gandhi may believe that her party like a human body is in the intensive care unit of a hospital and that a shot of life saving drug Coramine can revive it but then it’s a completely misplaced conclusion.

The poor health of the Congress party is due to its loss of presence at the grassroots. The grand old party’s own history is replete with instances and events which helped build it into an organisation with pan-India presence. If the party president is so keen on reviving the organisation may she take a leaf or two out of party’s archival papers.