OPINION

If there can be a magic box which contains a cobra and a mongoose living together, it is Congress – Pt Deendayal Upadhyaya (22nd April, 1965, Mumbai)
 
Aam Aadmi Party, the B Team of Congress is going to celebrate its fifth birthday next month but the mother has already started the process of disownment. It seems, the Congress feels that AAP has exhausted its political utility for the holy family of ‘Nehru Dynasty aka Nehru-Gandhi Dynasty’ and waiting a suitable time to start the procedure for dismantling.

Who created AAP?
The political pundits need not to go to library because many of them have witnessed the mother’s birth pains but chose to overlook due the reasons best known to them. Here, I am not interested in describing the entire process of conception, gestation and delivery of AAP but simply pointing out some landmark incidents to help Congress leaders to recall the process.

Rapid agriculture growth and rapid rural employment growth were always the focus of India’s policy makers. Mahatma Gandhi envisaged India as a Nation of self-sufficient autonomous village republics. Land - the summum bonum of rural existence, and agricultural structure was the most important determinant of India’s development. Highly skewed distribution of land was responsible for agricultural backwardness. As land was the critical income generating asset of rural India, changes in agricultural holding structures were necessary to ensure prosperity of the rural population.

Accordingly, India’s State policy focused on State Governments formulating and implementing Land Reforms legislations. These included the Land Ceiling Act, the Tenancy Act, the Land Revenue Act and broadly adopted the land to the tiller policy. Surplus arable government lands were distributed to the poor and needy peasants for livelihoods. These policies were envisaged to promote agricultural growth and alleviate rural poverty.
 

Gorkhaland is generally presented nationally as a law and order problem with images of violence making headlines. Why would 1.5 crore peace loving citizens of a great democracy like India unite or go on a strike for a record 104 days if there was something seriously not irking them. The essential ingredient is identity, that unites all, or a place of being that unifies these people.
Identity is the very essence of a human being and if anyone is identified in an incorrect manner his very essence of being is humiliated.  Words like “Chinky”, migrant, or being incorrectly identified as Nepalese citizens while they are Indians, are common occurrences. Lacking individual identity has a snow balling effect on a community which lacks political identity. Thus the Gorkhas, who represent one percent of Indian population, have produced soldiers and sportspersons in plenty but only a handful of civil servants as they have not been extended benefits of reservation.
Today no one fights for their cause as the state is using repressive powers to crush a democratic movement wherein encounter against a fellow politician has become the order of the day.   

The programme – Man ki Baat- has completed three years of its life. It gives us an occasion to look back to know the purpose it was started with and the extent to which that purpose is achieved.

Prime Minister Modi began this initiative to be in touch with the people of India continually to interact and share his views with them. It was also conceived perhaps to usher in a new strategy to change the ways of looking at the matters, problems and opportunities differently than how we looked at them in the past.

In fact it may be taken as a new initiative for change with the use of psycho-social-cultural and spiritual tools. Though it requires the efforts of a research scholar to collect all the contents of Man ki Baat held 36 times so far and engages in content analysis, but it can be asserted that Modi has undeniably tried to activate the heart and soul of every Indian, specially the youth, the empowered in every respect specially in terms of intellectual and economic capabilities to come forward to contribute in nation building and in solving the problems of disparities, discrimination, deprivation and exploitation.

In the midst of the dynasts as leader debate, Rajasthan Congress president Sachin Pilot, himself belonging to a dynasty, announced that Rahul Gandhi was all set to take over as the party president after Diwali. This is not the first time that one has heard about the anointment of the heir as the king. Unfortunately on all the previous occasions of proposed coronations, debacles in state assembly polls have delayed the process.

There is, however, no denying the fact that the mirage of “Rahul Gandhi as young and youthful leader waiting in wings to take over” have kept the Congress workers somewhat afloat and given them some hope despite very depressing political environment. Gandhi has been lately on a trip, including tours abroad, to refurbish his image ahead of another proposed coronation.