Budki's World: 2012

Sunday, December 30, 2012

Tamheed-Adhoore Chehre, تمہید-ادھورے چہرے : (Foreword-Urdu); Writer: Anis Rafi; Author: Deepak Budki

Tamheed-Adhoore Chehre,

تمہید-ادھورے چہرے ,(Urdu)

Writer: Anis Rafi,Book Author: Deepak Budki

Monday, December 10, 2012

To Be or Not to Be - The Dilemma of BJP: (English)

To Be or Not to Be - The Dilemma of BJP

(English)

Yedurappa is gone. So did Waghela in Gujarat many years ago. And later did Uma Bharti also brave herself to say adieu but she realized later that she has no existence without the organization called BJP standing tall on the crutches of RSS.
Today however the issue is different. Yedurappa’s exit is due to his alleged involvement in corruption. Surprisingly Gadkari , the BJP President too is now alleged to be involved in similar corruption charges. Nothing is proved yet either against Yedurappa or Gadkari but in case of Yedurappa BJP showed how quick they were in reacting to the charges so that the party’s image is not tarnished. Yet action against Gadkari has been delayed rather shelved. Why? No one can utter a single word inside the BJP camp because he is the chosen blue-eyed boy of RSS. And see the non-RSS faction in the BJP has suddenly become vocal be it Jethmalani or Yashwant Sinha or Shatrughan Sinha.
Again recall the exit of previous President of BJP, Bangaru Laxman, who was caught taking Bribe. Nobody defended him and he was shown the door for he belonged to Scheule Caste as did Uma Bharti belong to Scheduled Tribe. And Poor Kalyan Singh who played with his future by implementing the agenda of BJP to demolish the Babri Masjid and yet he had no friends in BJP to stand by him for he was an OC , other caste or more appropriately an outcast in a political party which has lost its way in the political desert of India.Even today I am not able to explain about what wrong has LK Advani done that he should not become the PM of India if BJP comes to power in the Centre by any chance for he was the man around whom the Hindu bloc rallied during the Rath Yatra. Exit of stalwarts like Balraj Madhok, Govindacharya, Madan Lal etc too is an enigma.
And yet these élite urban leaders of BJP who call the shots now at Delhi but cannot even gather a small mob for themselves are patting each other for their antics in the Parliament which they have stalled now for so long.
I am not worried about what happens to whom as individuals but feel for the party which at the time of inception had stressed upon high morals and ethical standards. Before 70′s it had set high standards for itself and showed character in Delhi and UP. And today when Congress has touched its very low in political Kurukshetra, I find BJP living in a fool’s paradise thinking they will win hands down. With their regional Satraps gone the writing is on the wall. In 2014 the party is not going to put up a good show and the regional parties are going to make it big including the rebels of BJP like Yedurappa , Vasundhra Raje etc.The opportunity once lost , the party will be licking its wounds for the rest of the period sitting pretty on the ruins of the edifice built by stalwarts like Shyama Prasad Mukherjee

Sunday, December 9, 2012

Tale of Two bills-FDI in Retail and Jana Lokpal: (English)

Tale of Two bills-FDI in Retail and Jana Lokpal

(English)

Nobody would have been more happy to see that FDI in Retail was passed by both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha than Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley of BJP for they represent a political party that has time and again proved to be backing the upper class especially the capitalist and trading class. Their job was done by their proxy partner ,INC. You may ask then why did they oppose it? Opposition was for the sake of opposition to show the people that they look after their interests and want poor farmers and lower middle class protected against the invasion of Multinational Companies besides exposing the parties like SP and BSP who talk endlessly about poor and the downtrodden but in fact side with the rich and the capitalists directly or indirectly. The eye is on 2014 elections.
Why did Mayawati change the tag between Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha voting? Was it CBI? No, Mayawati has been under the sword of Tantalus for so many years now as is Mulayam Singh and other small regional party heads like Lalu Prasad Yadav and Karunanidhi, except perhaps Mamta Banerjee who unfortunately has diligently painted herself as unreliable a partner who gives more trouble while in your camp than in the opposite camp. The real fact is that neither Mulayam singh nor Mayawati wants Lok Sabha elections immediately. One would have believed that Mulayam wanted early elections after he came to power but he was also conscious of the fact that in such an event greatest benefit would be reaped by BJP which would bag the anti-incumbency vote given that Congress had sufficiently blackened its image due to the scams and the exposures. The only remedy therefore was that Congress should be given time to correct itself and rebuild its reputation for the remaining one and a half years so that it is able to garner enough vote percentage and with the support of parties like SP, BSP and RJD come back to power in next elections. On the other hand, Mayawati is waiting and watching. She wants time to lapse and let people of UP know the real worth of SP. She believes by 2014 SP will have been sufficiently exposed for their non-performance and non-fulfilling of their promises which may help BSP to get majority of seats in Lok Sabha elections and also changes fortunes at local level. Other smaller parties too hope for similar results and do not want to sink along with the Congress immediately.
What is important to note is the way Congress managed to get the bill on FDI in retail passed smoothly in both the houses this time while earlier the Lokpal bill found hurdles at every stage more so from its own allies and remains hanging ever since. This in fact shows that the Gandhi-Nehru's Congress party had no intention to get the Lokpal bill passed nor were Ambedkar's Bahujan Samajwadi Party and Narayan-Lohia's Samajwadi Party interested in seeing the bill through. Reason is obvious and needs hardly be discussed here in detail. They do not want the avenues of their parallel income to be curtailed. Sharad Pawar,Lalu Prasad, Paswan,Sharad Yadav, Nitish,and Thakre all are birds of the same feather who do not want their avenues of earning to be choked. BJP too did not show any keenness to support Anna Hazare on this issue and work out draft of the bill that would have been acceptable to him and the party. Again the reason is obvious. There are number of Gadkaris and Yeddurappas in waiting in the top and middle levels of the party who too are opposed to the Lokpal. It is the same party that once prided itself for clean image and anti-corruption crusade. The remaining parties are the Communists who have unequivocally supported the Lokpal bill but they have by now been so much marginalized that they hardly matter and their voice in the well of both the houses hardly resonates.Fortunately no scams have been dug out against them despite having ruled West Bengal and Kerala for so long.
So one can well imagine the truth behind the failure of Lokpal bill ( as also Women's Reservation bill) and see for oneself as to why they did not get through the houses of Parliament. One can also imagine the dramatics of the people's representatives in both the houses who do what suits them and not what suits the people. I am reminded of a couplet of Ghalib;
Bazeecha-e- Atifal hai duniya mere aage;
Hota hai shab-o-roz tamasha mere aage.
The problem with this vast country is who will make our countrymen understand this since more than forty percent of voters are illiterate and another twenty percent are mal-educated. The frustration of these people is writ large on their helpless faces. Only some supernatural authority can save them.