An Open Letter To My Fellow Indians

Dear fellow citizens,

Today I want to share my views on Indian politics with you with an effort to enrich my knowledge and understanding about it.

After a certain age, you have memories that are so old that it makes you wonder - was that really me? As a teenager, I used to be obsessed about politics. I learned to read newspaper watching my Dad every morning reading newspaper at the breakfast table. I used to be up-to-date with all the minute details of national and regional politics- from Trinamula Congress to Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, from Omar Abdullah in J&K to Chandrababu Naidu in Andhra Pradesh. I used to win every GK and current affairs quiz that used to be held by our community members. At one point in my life, I wanted to be a politician.

As I grew older, I lost interest in politics for obvious reasons. Let’s take the current situation for example. These people can go to any extent to come to power. From rigging the elections to poaching the MLA’s. And for what? You think they are so desperate to form a government because they want to serve the nation? Did you say yes?... Oh, Honey! You’re so cute!

Let’s face it. There’s not even one politician on the face of India whose only agenda is to serve the nation, and not to gain power and money.

This is an era of radicalism that I haven’t experienced in my lifetime. The number of brainwashed extremists that I see on social media is very unsettling and irritating. Since when did we stop using our brains and just started believing in unverified nonsense? When I ask the so-called bhakts- so did we bring all the black money back in India? They respond in denial- Gappu chalse, pan Pappu nahi chale. – Meaning- we can tolerate false promises but not a moron leader. I agree. I completely agree with the second half of the statement, but my question is- gappu pan shu kam chalavi levanu?- why should we tolerate false promises?

The politicians are making a fool out of us in an obvious way. For example, I see very prominent taxes and laws imposed on citizens by this government, but I don’t see any prominent positive impact of these taxes and laws. All I am asking these bhakts is to help me understand how this government is any better than the previous one. 

I am a hard-core data-loving person. I will not believe anything if it’s not supported by real data. Please explain to me how demonetization helped eliminate black money from our country. Where is all the GST money going? How is Swachch Bharat tax making India cleaner?

All I am asking for is transparency in our government operations. When I see these gullible bhakts brag about our government on social media, I wonder if they received satisfactory answers to these questions.

In America, there is a protocol called Amber alert to report child abduction. When a child abduction is reported, immediately an alert goes out to every single cell phone of that area with the details of the accused kidnapper and their car. You can’t turn off these alerts even when your phone is on silent. This alert came into place in 1996 when a 9-year-old girl named Amber Hagerman was kidnapped and was found brutally killed after four days.

Can the bhakts tell me if a concrete protocol like this was established following Nirbhaya rape or Asifa rape? As I said, I stopped following politics a long time ago, but seeing the confidence of these bhakts, maybe they know what the government has done to stop rape and violence against children and women. Can they assure me that I can sleep peacefully at night knowing I won’t wake up to more horrendous news like this?

A country, where its children are not safe, is a complete failure. We don’t have a right to brag about our “vikas” if there is even one child unsafe in our country. The first agenda of our government should be to keep our kids safe. Then arrange for their healthcare and education. Everything else comes later. Be it Swachch Bharat or Make in India. Impose as many taxes as you want on earning citizens, but there is no excuse when it comes to child safety and development.

I surfed through some of our government websites, and I must say, to my surprise, they are very well-organized. I read some of the reports that are published on these websites. There is a committee report for children’s rights which states that the laws are outdated. It is full of embarrassing details like high absenteeism rate of teachers in government schools, abuse and killings of kids in detention centers by law enforcement officials and worse. The committee has made some recommendations to address these issues which, I feel, should have been implemented 50 years ago.

I looked for a report where I can find some accomplishments of the government. This following statement is directly copied from the Final Achievements report (2014-2016) of Ministry of Women and Child Development – “The Ministry of Home Affairs had issued an advisory in 2009 to all state governments to increase representation of women in police force to 33% of total strength. So far 8 states have reported to have reserved posts for women at different levels of their police force. Most of the other states have agreed to start working on this.” - What do you mean “most” of the states have “agreed”? They don’t agree, they comply. They were asked in 2009 to implement this, it’s 2018 for God’s sake, and still only 8 states have implemented this rule. If I presented such a crappy report to my corporate bosses, I swear to God, I’d get blasted like a Diwali cracker.

If you ask me, I think there should be 50% reservation for women in police forces, civil sectors and politics. What I don’t understand is, how is this an achievement? Making great plans and schemes is not an achievement. Execution followed by desired outcomes is an achievement. Talk to me after they actually implement this policy or at least specify the date by which it will be implemented.

It would be interesting to find out how many of these noisy bhakts have actually made an effort to read these long and boring reports, and get the real data before defending our government.

It's the radical ideologies that scare me the most, especially when they are built on flawed logic, be it in politics, in society or in religion. Be an informed citizen, not an ignorant bhakt. Do your research. Don’t trust your leaders blindly. Don’t build your beliefs and ideologies based on what you see on news channels and read in newspapers.

I know the bhakts get very offended and defensive by this kind of confrontation, but my intention is not to start a violent debate with them, I genuinely want to understand what it is that they can see and I can’t.

At the end of the day, all of us want to say with pride- Saare Jahaan Se Achcha..., but the truth is  - Mera Bharat Mahaan… Banaana Padega.. 

Jay Hind! 
Ashwini Parmar.