In the 80’s, near Churchgate railway station, in Mumbai, to
be more exact, opposite EROS theatre, every morning while coming out of the
station on my way to office at Nariman Point, an insane man in his 40’s clad in
torn Khaki shirt and equally torn khaki pant, his hair disheveled, I could see
him crying and shouting aloud ‘khana khana’ (food, food). Whether any good Samaritan
took care of him and gave him food, none knew for sure. The truth though a
tragic one was that including myself no passersby were seen paying heed
to his loud cries. His crying aloud reminded me of elephants crying in my
village which reverberated across my village and for that matter any other
village, when went hungry or when ruthlessly beaten up by its mahouts.
In Mumbai if somebody paid heed to the wild cries of the mad
man, it was a wonder. In the crowded city where every human being in a sense is
mad to rush to his working place and return in the evening he/she often forgets
to look around while walking in a hurry. The thing is no different in this
cosmopolitan city which could implode any moment due to the incessant inflow of
job seekers.
One thing I noticed in the evening upon my return from
office after 5 ‘O’ clock on my way to catch the local from Churchgate was the
disappearance of the insane man from where he cried aloud like an elephant. Without
any qualm I would say like others if they could remember him we never felt for
him or took kind of him and that is what city life is all about.
Now that years have flown by, now that we are in the first
half of 21 century poverty across the land is above 60 percent. We can’t with
sincerity write anything about the rate of poverty coming down.
Street-children, beggars and slum-dwellers etc often find it
difficult to have at least a square-meal a day. This doesn’t mean that 60
percent of Indians are street-children, slum-dwellers or beggars. There are
millions who don’t have covers over their heads, and 750 million without
sanitation facilities who are forced to defecate in the open shamelessly. You
might be knowing fairly well that approximately 78 million citizens are
without roofs over their heads in India.
Besides these tragic truths as per the World Development Index
India ranks near 140 among the 194 countries across the world.
I am forced to write about these sad truths on going through
an interview given by Minister of State for Human Resource Development, the
versatile intellectual renowned the world over as the former Under Secretary
General Shashi Tharoor to Manu Joseph,Editor of Open Magazine.
Dr.Tharoor is eloquent when enlightening Manu Joseph about
the achievements of UPA II government. He dwells upon the MGNREA (Mahatma
Gandhi National Rural and Employment Guarantee Act) brought into law by the
ManMohan Singh govt during his first term. Dr.Tharoor goes on claiming that the
scheme could provide jobs to millions of jobless across India and thereby could
wipe away poverty from million homes. He goes on to add that by opening
accounts in nearby bank branches they have been provided easy access to money.
In North India where the number of villages far outnumber cities, the distances
between the rural areas and the banks where they are situated too far away, the
beneficiaries will have to slug it out to reach the banks where the behaviour
of authorities towards these poor ones are merciless. They will have to stand
in long queues to get their peanuts. Dr.Shashi Tharoor seems like being ignorant
of the fact. He elaborates some other landmark measures enacted by the UPA II govt the Food Security Bill, Land Acquisition Bill,
Pension Regulatory Bill even while both houses of Parliament were plunged into
cacophony. He squarely blames the Opposition for disturbing the functioning of
the Houses frequently on flimsy grounds. The gentleman seems to have forgotten
the long array of scams right from 2G Spectrum Scam, Adarsh Housing Scam,
Common Wealth Games scam etc etc and of late the Coalgate scam all running into
lakhs of crores of rupees draining off the exchequer.
Opposition disturbing the proceedings of the Parliament is
not a new phenomenon. When NDA govt under Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was in
power it was the hobby of Congress and its allies to disturb the two Houses
running for months. How long they continued to plunge both Houses into pandemonium
over the coffin scandal accusing the then Defence Minister George Fernandes. Dr.Tharoor
can easily wash away the sins explaining
he was not a political entity then. Gentleman, please don’t try to play
innocence.
When prices of essential commodities are sky-rocketing, when
the prices of essential commodities and food are rising high, when fuel prices are
running high causing high inflation, when under-nourishment of millions, lack
of education and health facilities are rising day by day, when the ugly phenomenon
of rape is staring in the face of Indian women should the Opposition sit in
Parliament like disciplined students sitting in front of the teacher?
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