Shiban Khaibri
The recent bandh call given by some opposition Parties, also with the nom-de-guerre of “Aakrosh Diwas” to “fight” the historic move of the NDA Government’s demonetization – mostly with an eye on its roll back , pathetically for the sponsors, had no impact worth the name , instead it proved as a flop show. The crocodile tears for the stereotype four words’ parroting “Gareeb, Kissan, Mazdoor, Vanchit” had no impact on expected takers. The only notable thing out of the entire proposed juggernaut was Didi’s raised pitch and the vow, “I will not stop until and unless Modi is out of power ……….I will “again” go to Delhi and raise my voice and demonstrate in front of Modi’s house” This “again” is important to note in that it makes relevant, though with a grain of enlivenment, the story of King Bruce and spider, try – try again. Who from amongst the leading partners of sponsors, chiefly the Congress Party and the customary Comrades donning the vestigial hammer – sickle to impact, had made errors in calculating and reckoning things revolving around the mood of the Janta Janardhan who undoubtedly had to undergo the travails and troubles on account of “Notebandhi” braved the same smilingly and made it known to many a reporter on umpteen occasions contrary to what they were expected to speak to soothe the Grand Old Party, the Marxians, the occasionally red caps donning Samajwadis of Utter Pradesh or the new born “neat, clean and honest” Aam Aadmi Party. It was amusing but quite ruing to watch spokespersons of the Congress Party not feeling proud of our wheels of daily activity moving normally in the interests of the country but was citing a few instances of illusory “success” to buttress their view that the call had met with “good response”. What a paradox, in this developing country with multifarious problems, mainly economic and security related, there should be politicians to feel happy and vindicated over “Chakka Jaam”. A few visuals of some Communist activists in Patna with red flags, stopping trains, mounting on them and squatting on the tracks were seen “helping” the poor.
While Politicians not in power, severely criticize Railways management and services, the slow speed, inadequate facilities, absence of more trains and the like, do they take into consideration as to why for pressing demands , genuine ones no doubt as people might suffer from time to time, should stopping train movement and damaging railways properties take place .? Referring to a recent example of the losses suffered by Railways due to Jat stir in Haryana early this year are put at nearly Rs. 155 crore. It was noteworthy that 13 Parties were against the Bandh so much so that Congress had later to change its stand from “Bandh” to “Aakrosh Diwas” and the performance card of this Aakrosh Diwas was dismal and a total flop. The reason being that the sponsors of the bandh or Aakrosh Diwas could not, put forth tangible points of view before the public as to what were they actually demanding. The speculations were rife that there was something black (and enough black) in the lentil in the demand of “Roll Back”, or some “more time” or a sufficient information to “prepare” the people for it etc; and as a counter protest, many shopkeepers opened their shops in those localities where on every Monday it is a weekly off and it was Monday on Nov 28.
The people traditionally have the habit to make “Adjustments” whenever there are difficulties around and this change over from one pattern of notes to another new version, bringing in its wake, short term difficulties, could never be ruled out though agreeably more preparations and wide spread arrangements covering even the remotest villages should have been done to a reasonable extent by the government. To this behavioral pattern, some opposition parties wanted to meddle in order to bake political loaves but could not succeed.
It is a cause of concern that both houses of the Parliament had repeatedly to be adjourned all these days and practically all work and business transactions were washed away. The opposition Parties may be having genuine concerns and implementable suggestions to offer but putting conditions that the Prime Minister should be “summoned” in the house to sit through the entire time of the debating day and face the arrows of criticism, sounds untenable and unreasonable looking to the over busy schedule of the PM as also the sincerity of the rationale behind it. The ruling dispensation charges the opposition to keep on shifting their goal posts making it ambiguous as to what they actually wanted. The washing out of the proceedings of the houses has so far cost Rs.81 crore for Rajya Sabha and Rs.49 crore for Lok Sabha . With this money (Rs.130 crore), we could have installed as many as 930 new ATMs in the country. How many schools we could have built with this wasted money can be an easy job to do. Can this country afford the luxury of wastages and losses from the people’s taxes collected? Can political parties or their supporters in countries like Japan, USA, Australia, England act on these lines as we do , not to speak of countries like China, Russia etc? Why such a method adopted to reason out issues ? Various problems needing urgent solutions are staring us in the face. On the other hand, the manufactured anger over the monetization issue vis-à-vis the difficulties faced by the people and the resultant ruckus and the stalemate in the Parliament by the opposition Parties depict their response in negativity to national issues.
It is not that all opposition Parties are against the move of demonetization as Bihar CM Nitish Kumar has hailed the decision, so has the CM of Telangana K. Chandrasekhar Reddy extended his Government’s full support to the much awaited decision and so is Naveen Patnaik of Orissa. Nitish Kumar has gone further in suggesting for attacking “Be – naami” properties to intensify the tirade against black money. It was heartening to see many shopkeepers, businesspersons holding placards reading,”Your black money is gone, why should we close down?”
There is no consolidated opposition but confusion inter-se which led to the flop of the Bharat Bandh and, therefore, made Gulam Nabi , LoP in Rajya Sabha clarify that Congress had not given a bandh call. Even in West Bengal, as usual with Comrades, they had given a call of Bandh while TMC under Mamta Banerjee “supported” Virodh only. Terms like undeclared “Financial Emergency” and “Anti People” and “Country suffering” have become out of tune and their impact has increasingly waned if not vanished fully. Still, it would be worth suggesting that the leaders in opposition Parties should not be seen jousting in attacking the Government and knowingly convey that no senior Minister or the one in charge of the concerned portfolio should make official statements and give proper clarifications in the Parliament but only and only the Prime Minister. Prime Minister is one among the equals and the cabinet form of government does not mean the Prime Minister alone. As Modi is charged of being “Autocrat”, the opposition wants it to be shown as such by giving credence to the statements of the PM only in the Parliament. Well, the government does not seem inclined to walk into this trap to the indignation of the opposition Parties.
Left Front chairman Biman Bose acknowledged that the strike call failed to evoke any response. The outright rejection by the people of calls like bandh or protest, the Aakrosh Diwas (Protest day) interestingly turned into Aabhar Diwas (Thanks or admiration day). That should have put at rest any further areas of conflict on the issue and the winter session of the Parliament , now for the remaining days, allowed to function normally and transact usual business but it seems unlikely to happen. Minor issues like hacking of twitter account of Rahul Ji and Congress Party are made into issues of unprecedented national importance as also some minor issue of flight landing of an aircraft which had on board Mamta Banerjee . Both these issues are looked into seriously as per reports but it is amazing that these political Parties and their leaders are not showing the requisite concerns for the security of the country and the menace of terrorism , a constant threat looming large on our country. In fact, many act as doves to walk on the “talk” rope with a country that nourishes and despatches terrorists like the ones who attacked our Nagrota army camp while Omar Abdullah says ,”Chest thumping on surgical strikes caused terror attacks, India has been dishonest to the people of Jammu and Kashmir.” His father, Farooq Abdullah says, “PoK is not Hindustan kay Baap Ka.” It is stunning that Pakistan has more sympathizers here than in Pakistan itself. Derisive as it sounds, such policy of changing colours is the reason d’être to attempt to emerge relevant.
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