Why NaMo is top-of-the-pops.

Our Founding Fathers made two monumental mistakes when power was transferred from the British Emperor to the Indian Government of India in August 1947.

Monumental mistake #1: They opted for universal franchise without universal literacy.

Monumental mistake #2: they did not dismantle the then prevailing framework and mindset of Feudalism before ushering in Democracy. Equally important, they did not bother to upgrade the bureaucracy set up by the British to serve the aims of the Imperialistic reign of subjugating and controlling the citizenry, of “keeping them in their proper place” at any cost as well as of extracting an annual tribute (“drain”) of £30 million (roughly Rs.450 million in contemporary exchange terms) in the reckoning of Dadabhai Naoroji (1825 -1917). http://bit.ly/1jgDmya (By the by, in Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith dubbed the British Rulers “plunderers of India”. http://bit.ly/1jCDpns)

In 1952, around 85% of the eligible voters in India’s first General Election – most  of whom still lived in abysmal poverty in the countryside − were angutha chchaap: they could neither read nor write. Ma-baap Sarkar, a legacy from the British Rulers, was the only political metaphor they understood and could relate to. The Indian National Congress won hands down. The 15% literate middle class had almost no say in the matter.

How different is the scenario at the time of the 2014 General Elections to constitute the 16^th Lok Sabha?

Increasing urbanization particularly after globalization has swelled the ranks of the urban middle class. They want better living conditions, more jobs, better governance, less − if not zilch − corruption, decisive leadership, less inequality. The omnipresence of television, the Internet http://bit.ly/1ssnDhP and mobile phones has further fuelled these burgeoning aspirations. The BJP seems to be the party of choice of Middle India.

Like it or not, admit it or not, NaMo = BJP as of this moment. The personality cult for which it is fashionable to criticize the Congress is very much alive and kicking away merrily in the BJP. NaMo demolished every likely rival within the Party using tactics almost identical to the Indira Gandhi gambit against The Syndicate in the winter of 1969.  http://bit.ly/Rmeydm Employing IT imaginatively and extensively, he has been successful in reaching to, and enrolling for his cause, the urban (mostly middle class) youth.

The World Bank defines poverty as survival on less than $1.25 per day (2005 purchasing power parity) and says that, between 1981 and 2005, poverty in India dipped from 60% of the population to 42%. The number in 2010 was 33% (about 400 million people). http://bit.ly/1s2synE There is much dispute about the veracity of the Government of India and World Bank statistics. After making allowance for population growth in the interim, there appears to have been very little progress on the poverty alleviation front since 1947 – certainly nothing to boast about with claims like “India Shining”. The UPA-II efforts to alleviate poverty (Public Distribution System, Integrated Rural Development Program, Jawahar Rozgar Yojana and Training Rural Youth for Self Employment) have met with very limited success.

As for literacy, UNICEF tells us that between 2008 and 2012, 62.8% of Indians aged 15 years and over were able to read and write. The literacy rates in the age group 15 – 24 years for the same time span were 88.4% (male) and 74.4% (female).  The net primary school enrolment rate for 2008 – 2011 was 98.6%. It looks like the 2014 General Elections have a literate electorate. Does it mean that it will be a conscientious electorate?

Ironically though, if Middle India’s aspirations are contemporary, many from their ranks still respond to Feudalistic overtures: religion, caste, social status, respect for authority and the pecking order among others. NaMo seems to have understood this characteristic of the electorate well. To assure them that he means business, he talks down to them like a decisive leader. Every election speech is a diatribe, a raging tirade. 

He blunders on declaring that the elections are for  the 14^th Lok Sabha in a rally in Gumla (Jharkhand); linking Chandragupta Maurya with the Gupta dynasty, giving Biharis credit for halting the victorious onslaught of Alexander and relocating Taxila in Bihar – all these in a Patna rally; bumping off Shyama Prasad Mookherji, Jan Sangh’s founder, in 1930 in London in a Kheda (Gujarat) meeting (in fact, he died in a Jammu & Kashmir prison in 1953); and changing Gandhi’s first name to “Mohanlal” in a Punjab rally.

The NaMo juggernaut thunders on regardless. His fans don’t seem to care about his historical inaccuracies. They have been brought up listening to lies and false promises mouthed by politicians. They want to believe in someone. That someone happens to be NaMo. His Gujarat governance record is not bad. His role in the 2002 riots seems to have been forgiven. His style of dealing with problems seems decisive. The saviour has been found at last. NaMo is the one.

All hail NaMo. Bow to NaMo. Kowtow to NaMo. There is no alternative left. 

Ray of no hope.

I am ashamed to confess that I was no fan of Satyajit Ray to begin with. http://digbig.com/4yqkf. When I joined Clarion-McCann back in 1965, the Bengalis there with whom I had to hobnob used to speak of him in a hushed, deeply reverential tone. That must have kind of put my back up. I started to almost despise Ray for no reason at all but did not articulate my views to fellow Clarionites for obvious reasons. It was only later when I started to understand the rudiments of what cinema was all about http://digbig.com/4yqkh that I did a complete about-face on Ray. This morning I read a piece in Mumbai Mirror (Interval by Chako) about a free screening of a Satyajit Ray film, Charulata, in fact, in – hold your breath! – Kolkata recently. There was only a solitary person in the auditorium – a homeless vagrant who had wandered in for the free air conditioning. Even he wanted to walk out half way but was detained by the two Ray enthusiasts who had organised the show. By contrast, the Satyajit Ray retrospective at the Lincoln Centre, New York, this April, organised by the eponymous Film Society, draws huge crowds of cinema aficionados with seats sold out weeks in advance. http://digbig.com/4yqkj. Chako also draws our attention to the fisticuffs in Venice between a female professor and a male journalist over the last ticket of Devi, a part of last year’s local Satyajit Ray retrospective. “A Ray film invites you in, but also demands that you accept it on its own terms. And those who open themselves to Ray's method are in for some of the richest experiences the cinema has to offer." This is the opinion of Richard Pena, the Film Society's director of programming. Pauline “Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang” Kael described Pather Panchali, the film that brought Ray to the world’s notice, "beautiful, sometimes funny, and full of love". Akira Kurosawa wrote: “The quiet but deep observation, understanding, and love of the human race, which are characteristic of all his films, have impressed me greatly. Not to have seen the cinema of Ray means existing in the world without seeing the sun or the moon.” “Ray's magic, the simple poetry of his images and their emotional impact, will always stay with me,” wrote Martin Scorsese. All of which brings me to the question that has always bothered me. Why are Indians so grudging in accepting genius amidst them? Why are we so petty minded? The problem, I reckon, lies in Ray’s propensity to portray life at its most humdrum as he sees it (“a 5-minute close-up of water being poured from a pitcher”). “We don’t go to the multiplex except to be bedazzled and razzmatazzed, man. We want kitsch-laden, glitzy tripe, man. Hang realism, man. For us, reality Tv with Rakhi Sawant is the only reality we can face. We are Indians. We are like that only.” Chako lays to rest the usual, most-bandied accusation against Ray that he got his fame by selling India’s poverty to the world. He points out that only the first Ray film was about the rural poor. The rest of most of his ouvre was about the affluent and educated Kolkatan Bhadralok of which he happened to be very much a part.

Celebrity revisited.

Celebrity is sexy. Fame is sexy. Brawn is sexy. Brainy is sexier, though. When did you find out this secret, Mr Gandhi? Was it on 13 January 1897 as you stepped down at 5 p.m. on to the quay at Durban from the quarantined SS Courtland? To face, as it turned out, the mob waiting to nab the defender of the immigrants on board? "Let us teach the bloody coolie a lesson he won't forget in a hurry," they were shouting. Your arrival in their midst was greeted by a volley of abuse, bricks, stones, rotten tomatoes and eggs, yes? Your back to the railing literally, you escaped by the skin of your teeth, thanks to the brainy Mrs Alexander, the Police Superintendent's spouse, who showed great presence of mind and exceptional skill at wielding an open parasol while her honourable husband distracted the rioters by his passionate rendition of the then top o' the pops: "Hang ol' Ghandy on the sour apple tree". Mrs Alexander's resourceful husband once again saved the day and your life, didn't he, God bless his ever lovin' soul!, when you were besieged in the house of the excellent Mr Rustomjee later on in the evening? On 22 January, you sent a personal note of thanks and a gift in appreciation of the kindness shown by the couple, didn't you? Barely two days later, you magnanimously declined to prosecute your persecutors saying you wanted the matter to be dropped. Good ol' Ghandy ain't so bad, after all. Mahatmahood is sexy, eh, Mr Gandhi? (32, pages 50 - 51, The Last Gandhi Movie)

"I read a newspaper cutting sent by a correspondence to the effect that a temple has been erected where my image is being worshipped," wrote Gandhi. "This I consider to be a gross form of idolatry." Funny remark to come from a man who opened on 8 May 1913 a Hindu temple in Verulam, South Africa, and defended idols in an argument with Tagore much later in the presence of Andrews, an old associate from the South African days. Gandhi's argument was that the masses were not capable of absorbing abstractions. Tagore was opposed to the condescending attitude that grown-ups should be treated as children in the matter of mental age. Gandhi illustrated his point by citing the flag as an example, saying that it gave a concrete shape to a concept like nation and that great things had been achieved in Europe by so doing. Gandhi did prove his point by becoming a much worshipped idol in India. Why the protest then, Mr Gandhi, when it was too late to undo the harm? (42, page 68, The Last Gandhi Movie)

When did Gandhi become 'Mahatma'? Maybe, the first time he was so described was at a reception accorded to him in his native Kathiawar in January 1915. A month later, Tagore so addressed him in a letter. By the time Nehru met him for the first time in 1916, the halo was firmly in place. It took another five years, though, for him to exchange his Kathiawari cloak and turban for his trademark loincloth which he did in holy Varanasi. He had vowed in the last lap of his South African sojourn, to remain celibate for life in 1906 when he was thirty seven. At about the same time, his ideas about satyagraha (firmness for a good cause) were firming up while he was grappling with the South African crisis. It was also around this time that Gandhi decided that he must embrace voluntary poverty apart from celibacy. He wrote to his elder brother, Laxmidas, saying he was no more interested in worldly possessions. Mahatmahood was already creeping up on him stealthily. Later on, when he visited Europe and called on King George V, George Bernard Shaw, Charlie Chaplin and Romain Rolland, Gandhi impishly remarked: "You people wear plus-fours, mine are minus-fours." He was in his loincloth, it goes without saying. And, there was a twinkle in his eye and not an iota of malice in his heart. (38, pages 61 - 62, The Last Gandhi Movie)

Related posts: The Mind of MK Gandhi http://digbig.com/4xrdn.
The more, the less sexier. http://digbig.com/4xrdp.