A story for my Grandson to read when he grows up; of the times he was born

Ah! Boy you wish to know about the India in the timed you were born? You say you have come across many versions of times and events and it has roused your curiosity. All versions, you find are partisan accounts, you say. All accounts emotional and abusive of some one or the other, confounding the confusion, you discover. Well, let me narrate to you my bias of the times.

 Well, those were, indeed, bewildering times. India was in transition, economically and morally. We humans tend to believe that morality and justice make for good literature to be read, in times of distress or leisure and then left to adorn the display shelves. People in 2014 were no different. Excuse me, I sense I am rambling.

     The change was quick and had acquired, can I say unmindful of the inset contradiction, permanence, making people lose their moorings. The goal that remained was self aggrandizement. Ah! I mean, not quite though; for there were as many people who lived substantially the by values dear to them. If I am ambivalent then please do not chaff at me. You see, I too lived those times and continue to suffer from then contemporary symptoms of confusions and suspicion.

Actually the times were not bad at all.

 Well! On second thoughts, times were really bad. You say that that does not make for any degree of clarity! Well, you see, those were enigmatic times with no clarity of bearing and I am also getting on. Let me try again.

Political discourse had cease to generated informed debate to establish the right course for the national activity. Unsubstantiated accusations were hurled thick    fast and fast and worst, people were enjoying such slanging matches. Obnoxious and     vicious literature was considered witty and propagated over the social media.   Leaders had stopped to explain their vision to the nation. Instead they sought popularity by mimicking their rival. The times were bad because the parliament would not be allowed to function. Gone were the days when a Shyama Prasad Mukherjee would tell a miffed Nehru who has offered to quit that the parliament had made him the Prime Minister and Nehru would have to continue doing both, remain Prime Minister and listen to his chastisements, for the MPs had elected Nehru and he could go only when the MPs so desired. Several bills of national importance failed to receive approval which would have helped improve the fortune of the country, in the time of worldwide recession. The Parliament no more a forum for debate had become the forum for the expression of hatred and derision and sectoral demands. Was it like the Jats take over in the dying hours of the decadent Moghul Empire- India fragmenting and withering away? Let me think again.

I suspect that I am becoming a prisoner of my own rhetoric. It was not as dark as I paint. Though the parliament was stalled, its select committees worked feverishly and earned the admiration of the professionals who were called upon or chose to depose before the committee. Many important laws were legislated. Several measures of potential for transformation of the society were implemented, some substantially others partially depending upon the states which were the agency of implementation. Several measured pooh poohed then, proved their intrinsic worth, later.

Times were bad for the government under attack from various quarters, including sniping from within, who had, for a time, all but abdicated. Most activity by the government was stayed and made subject to prolonged legal scrutiny and it appeared as if the courts had taken over the governance. Height of a dam or if an under the sea range is the remnants of the bridge built by Lord Ram and his monkeys, to go to Lanka to reclaim his stolen spouse, became the subjects of adjudication by their learned lordships, increasing their backlog of work by several years and increasing the misery of the other litigants.  The parliament, unwilling to legislate, was inclined to investigate instead. National accountancy had stopped to pin point correctives to government accounts and taken to compute presumed losses to the delight of the political opponents of the government. No institution was doing what it was supposed to do but vying to do what the other institution was expected to do.

Well! Perhaps it was not as bad as I make it sounds. The young nation had just experienced a decline after a high rate of economic growth. In the first rush of economic redistribution and political activism bad coin was driving away the good coin. Yet it cannot be said that all was so moribund. The government after the first shocks had revived itself to an extent it could for the fresh elections had been announced. The courts under severe criticism from several sources had begun to murmur need for corrective action. The parliament was expected to function normally after the elections.

 For the hopeful it was a much needed renaissance and for the skeptic, the end of the world. Stories are born of desolation and history records renaissance. As the story telling is a favorite human pastime, skeptics ruled the discourse.

Hopes soared for those who believed that Modi was about to sweep the national elections and sweep away the much derided Man Mohan Singh government. His supporters had begun early, prepared well and spent humongous amounts of money on advertising and the deployment of man power. Modi had taken to the dictum that to be famous, make people laugh. In his speeches he would caricature the prime minister and others adversaries aggressively, indeed impolitely. By the time he had finished his speech no one had the thought or the patience to ask him, how he proposed to right the national wrongs. Media had taken to Modi because he provided sound bites which kept TRP healthy and did not require them to strain their faculties. Modi had even pre-empted the national verdict. He had proclaimed that the nation had decided to make him the prime minister. Manmohan Singh had already been consigned to history. And yet, the tall claims of the Modi group notwithstanding, his party was missing from large tracks of the land. Many sects and communities preferred to lay trust with their own, ignoring complex concerns of the political analyst and the inevitable, the self proclaimed intellectuals, commonly known as the journalists. After the exhaustive publicity over a sustained period, people where getting bored of Modi, even the media had begun to ask questions.

Times were not good some claimed because there was corruption in the government offices and the government. This upset the people much. They would collect at Jantar Mantar make all kinds of speeches condemning the government and its official without giving up on stealing on the taxes themselves or bribing to get their work done without suffering the queue. Their leader, one Kejriwal, had caught the imagination of the people. He received much adulation and approval. He began by making allegations against the government official and in time converted it into his pass time, casting aspersions upon all and sundry, without fear or favor. Me think; without reasonable proof too. But soon people got fed up of him also and began to ignore him. Notwithstanding his penchant to hurl invectives at the powers that be, which was enjoyed much by the people, he had no prescription for the national ills except unimaginative palliative of free water and electricity to those who could afford to pay for it for they alone had the connections for water and electricity. We will never know the extent of wrongdoing by the powerful or the McCarthyism of this sect. Yet, the Kejriwal phenomenon had  swept away the complacence of the national political spectrum       

The times were bad, really bad. There was lawlessness. Female foeticide as well as the killing of brides for dowry was often reported in the country. There were reports in increase of the number of rapes, murders and other felonies. Fatwas by the mullahs were common and khaps frequently liquidate young lovers, married or otherwise who did not follow the customs of the khap. Honour killings too had been reported. Jean clad girls visiting pubs or restaurants would be harassed by the Hindu chauvinists. Mullahs would shriek through the loudspeakers atop the minarets and Jagaran and rat-jaga were popular.

On the other hand the fatwa by the mullahs were commonly flouted and Khaps under pressure from the law as well as the media had begun to exhibit weariness and a tendency to succumb. Honor killing, rapes and dowry were being now reported, investigated and punishment meted out to the felons. Ladies had taken to jeans and pubs with a vengeance.

It was distressful to see young people not on the football fields or the tennis courts but in the Dhabas and the Mall. They would rather play computer games than move their limbs. And yet the cricket had caught the imagination of many and  the six pack abs popularized by the film stars had persuaded several to join the gymnasiums which were appearing in larger numbers in the cities.

India had begun the mission to Mars and mastered the cryogenic technology, polio had been eradicated though Japanese encephalitis was the new terror, e governance had begun to take shape. The much criticized and less debated poverty line had been crossed by a large number of poorest Indians. India had several modern industries including the much admired information technology industry and the pharmaceutical industry, telecom had reached every nook and corner and financial inclusion was running apace. Airports, metros and roads were being built.The national economy was third largest in the world. So perhaps times were not too bad after all.

 I apologise to you if I have confused you some more. But one thing I can assert with object clarity, that lot had changed and more change, and at a lot quicker pace, was manifest.