Resurgent Indian Patriots
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Since his Lashkar series, Mukul Deva has been regarded as one of the best in the military fiction genre in India. And now he comes up with RIP – Resurgent Indian Patriots, another thriller about the endless scandals and corruption which has plagued our nation for years on end. Does it work? Let’s check it out.
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Dharnas against the government, FIRs against corporates, statements against FDI, holding the state and the country to ransom – the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) party led by Arvind Kejriwal has done all this and more since coming to power in the last week of December. What have they achieved? What have they governed? What they are planning to do in the future? Do they even have a roadmap? Let’s check it out.
Arvind Kejriwal left ‘Team Anna’ midway during the Anna Hazare’s movement against corruption in Nov-2012. He decided that if they wanted to get the Jan Lokpal Bill through, they should form a political party. Many who believed that one should be part of the system to change the system supported his decision. But some of them including Hazare disagreed. There was confusion on how will his party get its own members to even fight elections let alone win them. Some wondered whether they will have enough funds to fight the election. But despite all this and against all odds, the party was formed towards the end of 2012.
1 year on, Kejriwal won 28 of the 70 seats in the Delhi Legislative Assembly election. Though they hadn’t gained majority, in a surprising turn of events Congress supported AAP to form the government. And so Kejriwal came to power almost one year from the day he began his journey for a corruption free India.
The dictionary defines “Mediocrity” as something ordinary, par for the course or inferior in quality to something else. But then isn’t mediocrity a word created only by humanity? When we are taught at school during our early years, we are taught about excellence and failure. There is no middle ground for words like “Decent”, “Ok”, “Fine” etc. But then when we humans grow up, mediocrity percolates every part of our lives. Though what is considered as mediocre by some, would be considered as excellence by others.
2011 has been a pretty interesting year in many terms. From the highs of India’s World Cup victory on April 2nd to the lows of the 2G scam and the death of many prominent personalities, we have seen it all. But nothing could beat Team Anna and their campaign to bring forward the Jan Lokpal Bill.
As far as the Indian industry is concerned, Infosys and Tata lost their captains to youngsters of the next generation. But Kingfisher began facing some serious turbulence in its flight of “Good Times”. “Kolaveri” and “Flash Mobs” became the buzzwords among all of us for their own reasons.
Anna Hazare’s Jan Lokpal movement, Terrorism, News coverage on any issue by our TRP loving news channels etc. etc. – Wondering what am I talking about? How can all these things have any relation at all, right? WRONG! There is a small but very important thread which connects these things which are generally as diverse as chalk and cheese. Joining the bandwagon is often referred to as ‘copycat’ behaviour in blunt terms. But is copycat behaviour really bad? Obviously for something like the Anna Hazare movement or cricket fanaticism it shouldn’t be bad, right?
A lot of people in this world are normally jobless. Obviously jobless really doesn’t mean the people who are actually ‘Below the Poverty Line’ and don’t really have any work at all. I am referring to people who have jobs but just love to fight for a cause however good or bad it may be. And they may fight for a cause despite the fact that they may not know much about it.
Twitter has gripped the attention of millions around the planet with its 140 character SMS style microblogging service. It reached 100 million active users recently and has also crossed 5bn tweets. A large number of heads of state and celebrities use Twitter daily to talk to their fans and followers. Ok so that’s enough of facts, isn’t it?
But then can Twitter cultivate real friendships? Do people search for real friendships here? What would define a real friendship? Can real friendships exist on social networks where people may actually fake their identities? I am sure many of these questions would be swirling in the readers mind. Let’s take it one by one.
Team Anna as the group including Arvind Kejriwal, Manish Sisodia, Kiran Bedi, Prashant and Shanti Bhushan, Santosh Hegde along with Anna Hazare among others is called achieved the unachievable or so we have been asked to believe. They were able to mobilize support for the Lokpal Bill riding high on Anna Hazare’s non violent methods. Support which was unseen and unheard of throughout the country.
An educated middle class which doesn’t vote but criticizes, doesn’t stand up and be counted by joining politics themselves but criticizes, doesn’t want to be the change it wants to see but criticizes joined this movement like never before. They were out on the streets, on Twitter, on Facebook, in company chat rooms everywhere rooting for the man himself as well as the cause he was fighting for.
Anna Hazare has brought the nation together like never before. If news reports are to go by he may have just been the 3rd entity to do so. The others being Bollywood and Cricket – our two main religions. But then Anna Hazare is different. He’s here to fight against corruption. He’s here to fight against the crimes and frauds the politicians of this government as well as those of the future governments may cause. He’s here to introduce a Jan Lokpal Bill which if made into a law could well bring the end of several distinguished and prominent politicians.
Corruption as we all know has been ingrained in our Indian psyche since time immemorial. Whether its simple things like paying the auto guy an extra Rs 50 just because it’s night or complex ones like paying capitation fees running in lacs to educate our children, corruption has always been there in some form. Obviously many people wouldn’t call this corruption and say that it’s part and parcel of everyday life in India. And it’s only the ministers who are always corrupt in some form or the other.
From Baba Ramdev to Anna Hazare to their hundreds of followers, fasting is the in – thing today. It has become some sort of fashion statement which every person worth his salt is taking to. A yoga guru extolling people to fight corruption and black money. An ex – army man and a socialist fighting for the Lokpal Bill. These are good acts for large scale improvement of public life, MIND YOU! But then this has created something of a recipe for becoming internationally famous. Whether it was intentional or unintentional is anybody’s guess.
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