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Freedom is precious. Let’s value it, not abuse it! #Elections2014 #VoteSmart
Last week, I found myself at Teen Murti House in the heart of New Delhi. This is where the Nehru Planetarium and the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library are located. I was here to attend a talk, a couple of hours too early. On impulse, I decided to stroll through the museum, a great alternative I though to sitting under a tree and scrolling through my phone!
Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India, lived and died in this house. The grand building witnessed not only many important moments of a young nation’s history, but also absorbed the vibrations and echoes of many meaningful debates and reveries, I am sure. I had heard terrible things about the museum, of how badly the great photographic collections was displayed, how much more is possible, etc. But I am a sucker for museums and I set that sort of negativity aside during my time there.
A grand colonial building!
Kushak Mahal, Tughlaq’s hunting lodge is inside the Teen Murti campus, just opposite the Planetarium building
A lovely spring afternoon!
Inscription next to Jawahar Jyoti, the eternal flame that burns in his memory
An aside: It is a sign of those times that Cambridge educated Jawahar wrote to his father in chaste Hindi, something that the most of us English-medium folks would find hard to do today. I felt a bit ashamed!
I walked through pictures from Nehru’s early life without much interest, but the fascinating perspective of the freedom struggle that the display offered got me thinking. Few of us realize what a long way we have come and how precious our freedom is! I read the names of hundreds of people on those walls, brave people I didn’t even know about who had dedicated their lives to a cause, because of whom we can dream the dreams we have today.
Even fewer question what we are doing with this freedom? Are we choosing to reinforce prejudices and stereotypes that our colonial masters reinforced for political and economic gain or are we working to create institutions and processes that set our nation on a new path of change (Historian Romila Thapar talks about this)? In fact, are we really free?
Isn’t that a great question to ponder over today, as our nation goes to polls. India is the largest democracy in the world and its relatively high voter turnout astounds the West repeatedly. As I’ve mentioned before in this blog, this puts a great responsibility on each of us to vote intelligently and to vote for change and NOT vote for people who reinforce the old stereotypes and continue to play us against each other for narrow political gains.
I’m not even getting into how we abuse our freedom everyday (break traffic rules, bribe the cop, have differential rules for others and none for ourselves!). I’m not going to ramble about how we need to become better citizens and better people, find ways to work with each other, contribute to our own community and neighborhood, etc. To me, these are no-brainers! We know all of that, but we choose to ignore it because we believe the future of our country is in the hands of THEM, corrupt politicians, stupid egoistic bureaucrats. Perhaps it’s time to think differently and take that future in our hands, in whatever way we can!
We are fortunate to live in a democracy. The wise men (and some women) who wrote our Constitution and set up our democratic processes gifted us many powers we don’t bother to use. I’ve been reading up and thinking deeply about these issues and only beginning to understand what these powers are. I’ve made many friends in Gurgaon (you know who you are!) because I’ve been curious about these issues and I laud the dedication of those who take up citizen activism at sometimes great cost to themselves. And I see great hope for a country that has people like these as its citizens. I’m learning everyday that citizenship is as much about GIVE as it is about TAKE; it is as much about our relations with EACH OTHER as our relations with THE STATE.
Here is a pic I took from the display at the museum that puts my thoughts in perspective.
Citizenship starts with making your community better: Thoughts on the AAP manifesto
I watch Kejriwal’s antics and I laugh, along with many who make fun of him. I doubt his capabilities, I wonder about his future. But I also admire his courage. Not just him, but all those who has taken the ultimate step towards making change possible. All those who have joined the AAP, given up being ordinary citizens to become people with a cause. I am excited to live these moments of history, experience these cataclysmic changes.
I, like many of you, am afraid to commit. I am shy, scared, ambivalent. I do not understand politics as deeply as I think I should. But I do care, about myself, my family, my nation. And I firmly believe that the way ahead can only be with the participation of all of us in the democratic process, in ways deeper than just pressing the button on the EVM every now and then!
I, like many of you, am loath to take either side on the Cong vs BJP, RaGa vs NaMo debate. I see them both as part of the same problem. Even though I abhor right wight politics, I do not see the Congress being able to, at this time, provide any stability or direction. AAP’s short stint in Delhi confused me. Like many of you, I wondered if this was the end before the beginning. I also went over the various choices again and again in my head.
This morning, though, something clicked. I was tired of hearing people make wild calculations about who would win and then try to take sides as per these estimates. It seemed to be a lot like betting on the horses. This is not a horse race, I thought. I’m not gambling, I’m trying to take a rational decision about who to vote for! I decided to vote by gut feel, for the sort of politics that I am willing to live with.
I read the AAP manifesto and it echoed a lot of things I have felt and said about how I want my nation to be. It, most of all, was rooted in the idea of giving power back to the people, the idea of deepening democracy. A few analysts feel it toes the Congress line and in a sense, there is a common left of political intent. (Aside-All manifestos must talk about the same stuff; modus operandi, collect a list of current hot topics and put in a point about each!) But therein ends the similarity. In tone, the AAP document empowers citizens. The Congress manifesto reads in a top-down fashion. It sort of lords it over us, the masses. It is a critical difference, I think. The AAP’s document is also a lot more succinct and well-organised. The BJP is still silent, as of this moment (I just checked their website).
The idea of devolution of power is problematic, especially for us Indians who have been used to someone or the other being our mai-baap for centuries. But it’s time gave a chance to party that says of itself: “It is not a party that will solve your problems. It is a party that wants Swaraj; that wants power to return to your hands, so that you can solve your own problems.”
This is just my own personal point of view. Each of you reading this is entitled to their own perspective. I am not trying to convert you. But please, those of you who follow the strange logic that they should vote for XX because they will win anyway, please rethink. Either you should just admit that you agree with XX’s political agenda, or you should follow your heart and vote for the right candidate in your constituency. Please remember, citizenship starts with making your own community better!
Good governance can only come out of good intention! Not feeling optimistic about Gurgaon- April 7, 2012
In May 2011, Gurgaon residents elected its first set of councilors under a newly formed Municipal Corporation of Gurgaon (MCG). Nothing dramatic seems to have happened since then. In fact, from what I hear, many initiatives remain mired in conflicts between councilors and contractors, contractors and MCG officials and MCG officials and councilors. Voters who dare to ask questions are pretty much told to shut up and show up to make changes at the next election!
So when Shashi Tharoor says that good governance must become the passion for governments, I can only laugh! In the context of Gurgaon, good governance does not even seem to be in the vocabulary of the government. Day after day, residents struggle with the same issues–bad roads, frequent power cuts, lack of policing, traffic mismanagement, no system to streamline private developments with mainline government-supplied infrastructure, poor maintenance of public spaces, no street lighting, mafia-run public transport, nuisance liquor vends at every crossing….I could go on and on. And councilors continue to not care. Clearly, they ran for public office with the sole intention of filling their personal coffers. I sincerely hope they are not being able to achieve even that, which is probably the case since contracts would need to be given out and some work shown for pockets to be lined!
Of course, part of the issue is that Gurgaon’s educated urban population doesn’t really turn out to vote. And priorities of rural voters and urban voters do differ. Councillors, therefore, do not really feel the need to be answerable to you and me. I am tired, however, of trying to divert the blame for lack of governance on lack of motivation by citizens. We deserve good governance because we pay the taxes that fund the government. Gurgaon’s urban citizens may not vote, but they pay hefty taxes to the state government and deserve not just basic, but world class amenities.
Gurgaon is an opportunity gone waste for Haryana. Yes, the government’s made a killing on land, but opportunity for continued revenue generation is being wasted as the city languishes in a semi-developed state. If Kingdom of Dreams is not making enough money to pay the government taxes, something is terribly wrong indeed! I don’t feel optimistic at all about a city that fails to make its entertainment destinations economically viable, a city where the transition from ‘scattered islands of population’ to ‘community’ is painfully slow and receives absolutely no government support, a city where no one really seems to care and those who do….. don’t vote!
ramblinginthecity 