Why Modi?

The Congress and its allies must be delusional.  Their supporters must be even more so.  Or else how could someone who thinks there was no loss to the nation in the 2G spectrum allocation scam still be expected to show up in the media at all?  Wouldn't anybody with even a modicum of brain want to hide such a fool from the public eye?  

Yesterday, Finance Minister Chidambaram made a condescending remark about Narendra Modi saying it appears as if Mr. Modi is taking an interest in the economy of the nation.  An interest?  No kidding!  A man who knows nothing about the economy can actually reform a state and make it the most productive, sought after investment destination in the nation?  Really?  Where the hell does this attitude to ridicule come from, after failing in almost all economic tests?  Inflation, out of control!  Current Account Deficit, massive!  Imports, increasing!  Exports, no growth!  Savings of Indian people, going down!  Some record this!

Chidambaram had the gall to say he welcomes people taking an interest and hopes that they will try to learn, first by unlearning, and then learning anew.  No shit!  This great learning is what has caused India's coal reserves to be looted, its spectrum allocated to random parties with huge losses to the exchequer, labour shortage in agriculture, terrible schemes like the rural employment guarantee schemes in which nobody benefits while the nation becomes full of beggars waiting for the next round of freebies ... the list goes on and on.

There were real opportunities - to rope in a huge amount of energy security for India.  Venezuela was willing to sell oil at below OPEC prices to certain nations, and India was on that list.  Iran already had a great relationship and was even willing to purchase in rupees!  What did the bloody Congress do?  Refuse Venezuela and agree to "wean" itself off Iranian oil, because that white female political goddess Hillary Clinton thought we needed to be weaned, like fucking babies.  She is the same woman who once said Mahatma Gandhi ran a gas station in St. Louis, Missouri!  Can you believe showing this moron any kind of respect?  There wasn't one Congress member with any bloody spine that told her to shove it.  Obama would have understood - that's the way the Americans are.  If you're straight with them, they get it.  But these slave minds are bent, crooked, even to us, so of course they'd bend over backwards for a white woman from the USA!  What we need to wean ourselves off is dependence, and sycophancy.

Here is why I will vote for Modi and hope he becomes PM of India - the guy actually has a track record of growth, a model of development, and a showcase of work he is willing to do.  Gujarat is not a hot destination for nothing.  This guy actually thinks he can do that to the rest of India.  The idiots in Congress, starting with their puppy, think India needs to be on life support, and they are the heroes that will provide it.  Modi thinks India can do better and do much more, and we don't need condescending and insulting programs - and he thinks right.  He will make India work.  That alone will get me to vote for him.

Screw the Congress, screw being lethargic, and screw being stuck in rhetoric.

Rahul Gandhi says he would like to see young people in politics.  Hello!  He's young and he's a dodo.  What if more young dodos join politics?  That's not what we want.  We need able people to run the show.  Age is just a number.  Just because Manmohan Singh is proving to be senile doesn't mean age is the problem.  Being senile is the problem!  Rahul Gandhi is proving you can be senile at a pretty young age.

Kapil Sibal wants a debate?  Seriously?  What for?  For Modi to waste his time?  Is this the best tactic to weaken Modi - so he can be debating with this fool instead of campaigning for the BJP?  How much of a debate can you have with someone so hopelessly delusional?   I am sick of this Congress lot.  Just to get them out of the way I'd vote for the BJP.

The Congress is the best party to rule a nation that no longer exists.  It is the Congress that created that weak nation, and it is the Congress that needs such a weak nation, in order to further their unimaginative agendas, sycophantic dynasty, and retarded notions.  Despite their strongest efforts, India has managed to come out of the delusion, and is now taking a deep, good look at itself.  Indians are frustrated, not because of not having enough to eat, but because of being suppressed from reaching their true potential.  

We don't need free food.  We need a free nation.  A nation free from the Congress party's antics.  A nation free from Kapil Sibal and Chidambaram.  A nation free from the pseudo intellectual Delhi high society coterie imagining it can run a nation.

I'd vote for Modi - nothing political, nothing personal, just for the fun of seeing fools kicked out.

- BSK

Why I don't trust Baba Ramdev.

When I was a kid, my friends and I used to ransack other people's gardens for fruit.  We loved the thrill of it, and we ate a lot of fruit.  We were always ready for action, and we were a menace in the neighbourhood, but people put up with us.  It's not "legal" to steal other people's fruits, but a group of mischievous boys who carried no real malice clearly could be allowed to carry out some "illegal" activities.  But, those times passed, and none of us turned out to be thieves as we grew up.

Today, for some reason, a lot of adults in India ARE okay with much more blatant, dangerous, and clearly malicious and malignant levels of illegality.  They have no problem paying bribes, breaking traffic rules, and staying absolutely mute to a lot of wrong that goes on.  They have no problem cheating with their ration cards, no problem evading taxes, and no problem looting crores of rupees from the nation's exchequer.  Where do these people come from?

What I remember from my friends as a kid is that we were always happy.  Sure we got into trouble once in a while, but we didn't have too much to worry about.  I also remember that we had a lot in common - we signed on to the same ideas of "fun", and we had no hidden agendas.  Most importantly, we stood by each other and understood each other's perils and challenges.  On a raid, we could trust one another.  Success or failure, we were there together, to try again!

This is where I have a problem with this bearded troublemaker Baba Ramdev.  I don't trust him.  I like the fact that he is making trouble, and I like the fact that he's got a lot of fools riled up with his demands against corruption.  But he isn't one of us, folks.  In fact, he's very much like the guys we're fighting against - wealthy, well connected, and powerful.  Imagine if a thirty five year old father of two wanted to go on a fruit raid with us ten year olds.  You think we'd take him along for the ride?  Of course not!  He has no business coming along with us.

This Baba Ramdev has planes to fly him wherever he wants, more than a thousand crore rupees in money, an island somewhere in Scotland, and a whole lot of followers who are willing to give him money.  He has highly qualified people to advise him, legally and financially, and he has a bit of an "empire".  Is this the guy who would be under pressure if asked to pay a bribe to get an apartment registered in his name?  Is this the guy who will stand for hours in line to get something done at some government office with me?  I don't think so.  He doesn't need the same things I do, at a fundamental human level.

He wants all black money stashed abroad to be brought back to India.  The task is noble, but the demand is not just naive, it is outright stupid, because it is steeped against a looming fast unto death.  If this money has ever been quantified, or identified as belonging to such and such persons, we would have to initiate criminal proceedings against such persons, then declare them guilty, inform international law enforcement agencies such as Interpol, then ask respective governments of these tax haven countries to initiate transfer of funds.  This is a precise process, and if a nobody like me can know what is involved, someone who is asking for that money to be brought back to India must actually ask for this process to be set under way, not just scream for the money to come back.  Clearly, this guy is not very well informed and he doesn't present himself effectively.  No leader.

I still stand by his right to protest peacefully, gather with any number of people anywhere, and make his demands to the government.  But if he is important enough for cabinet ministers to receive at the airport, and important enough to be on the news making the Prime Minister and the government in power so nervous, we better know who this bum is.  To me, an ill informed, unthinking, flashy, religious, dodgy, attention seeking noise maker is just a bum.

So, who IS Baba Ramdev?  He is no Anna Hazare.  He has no record of public service.  He isn't qualified in any way to lead any enterprise.  But he has an empire.  How?  He isn't a famous philosopher to have changed the way we perceive the world and the universe.  He is not a great teacher either as far as I know.  He sure as hell did not make his empire charging fees for yoga lessons.  So what is his enterprise?  I am all for yoga teachers getting into public service, and that is not my problem.  The problem is, I don't know this guy well enough to let him represent me or any other Indian.  So, I don't want him speaking for me.  It is that simple.

His followers being many Indians cannot automatically make him the leader of many other Indians.  His followers follow him for being the Baba, but Ramdev is who we don't know much about.  Any Baba has followers, but not many of them can lead something they don't know much about.  We're talking about the nation of India here.  Baba Ramdev wants Hindi to replace English.  Anybody who respects the Constitution of India and who is not a fool knows Hindi is not the national language of India.  It irks me that after so many years of being a democracy, our public education level is so low that many, even political leaders, talk as if Hindi is the national language of India.

Now, he's called for an armed rebellion.  He says he has a force of 11,000 people trained in the art of self-defence.  Fair enough.  But defence against what?  Against our police forces?  You don't need anything too sophisticated to take on our cops.  Just post a couple of women journalists with video cameras, and all our cops will behave rather well.  The only reason this police raid on this Baba's camp occurred at midnight was because media was asleep at the time.  This Baba is going crazy, and this "sena" reminds me of the raid on the Babri Masjid - flat out trouble.  It is the same monkeys that are backing this fool now.

The RSS and the BJP are his friends.  The RSS is political, and so is the BJP.  What is a yogi doing with the support of political entities?  If something is political, it is not automatically corrupted, but there is plenty of historical record for us to worry about.  The India I know and respect sometimes is secular, and does not lean towards any religion or political mindset.  So, what does this Baba Ramdev represent?  I'm not sure it is a healthy, vibrant, democratic, secular, forward thinking India.  He talks of "shaastra" (knowledge) and "shastra" (weapons).  What might be next?  "Sati"?  I hope not, but this guy can surprise anyone!

This is a prime example of how democracy can throw up lunatics who are free to do everything, including making asses of themselves - and others who follow him.  What he is clearly doing here is protesting against the very government our own people voted for!  He thinks we should be up in arms against the people we put in office?  This is as anti-nationalistic as it gets!

This call for "swadeshi" when he flies in a foreign made aeroplane (which he himself by the way, exempts from his "swadeshi" list!), using foreign oil, owning an island in Scotland, and with a thousand other violations of the already outdated principle of "swadeshi" just make him an outdated lunatic to me.

He is not shy of theatrics, attracting attention to himself, doing stunts like dressing up like a woman to escape detection - there's an element of drama in him.  But, anyone who mixes his religion and his politics, for whatever gain, is in my opinion an untrustworthy rascal.  This is a secular country, and all religions are indeed welcome, but personal.  So far, he hasn't spoken about his god, and that's a plus, but there is far too much saffron in his support group.

The bigger reason I resent this fool, even while giving him credit where it is due is this - after more than sixty years of being a nation, after reaching a point where we should be taking up an excellent place amongst the league of nations, after all the advancements we have made, is this Baba Ramdev the best face we could come up with to fight against corruption?

None of these misgivings should rob from this man, however, his right to speak his mind, gather with people, or start a movement.  He should not have been evicted or thwarted from doing anything that is not a law and order threat.  I do think however, that this man has some sort of power over people in government.  I don't need to know what that power is, but he does attract an awful lot of attention from many bigwigs.  Maybe he knows some of their dirty secrets?  Maybe he sells a powerful aphrodisiac?  He did try to export some medicines to the USA that were stopped by the Food and Drug Administration there!  This is one hell of an active monkey!  I wouldn't vote for him, or endorse his ways, but I would like to see him around.  He is just too much fun!

-  BSK.

A Nation of Passive Opportunists.

Anna Hazare has re-written history.  In fact, he has ensured the history of India is being written again.  He did the same thing Mahatma Gandhi did to the British - occupy high moral ground and blackmail the powers to succumb to his demand.  This word "blackmail" has a negative ring to it, doesn't it?  That's only because it conjures up images of cheap, witless psychopaths getting something they do not deserve, through devious means.  There's nothing devious about Anna Hazare's means, so clowns like Karan Thapar should stop acting like they are experts of this word "blackmail".  Long live the blackmailer, for the victim is the villain in this case.  Forty two years to pass a bill that gives us the right to prosecute the corrupt?  Enough of this, indeed, Annaji.

The mediocre always has to be pushed, prodded, woken up, beaten, and thrust into action by the extreme to get it to out of its inertial slumber.  India is a nation of massive mediocrity, dying to get worse, but somehow not allowed to by economic pressures.  We are not a non violent nation at all, as some of us would think.  We just choose the safer option because we're afraid of violence when it could turn against us.  What kind of influence do political parties regularly have on the "hapless" masses?  Any local MLA can call upon the services of murderers, thugs and rowdies to beat up any citizen that dares question any move!  This is why we are passive, not non-violent. 

But, we're opportunistic!  Anna Hazare gave us the opportunity, and we pounced on it.  This was our opportunity, not to clean up the nation, but to let our frustrations out.  We might get something out of it, but we might also forget all about it by the time the final draft of the Lokpal Bill comes out around the 30th of June this year.  It is a good thing indeed, but the movement that Hazare talks about is yet to happen.  It takes a fair amount of stamina to fight the system, especially when every moron around us has subscribed to a corrupt system.  Easier to pay the bribe, and get things done smooth and quiet - can this attitude change because of a Bill?  Most definitely not.  It still takes the citizen to approach the Lokpal and complain!  This takes work!  How can we Indians be expected to do work that doesn't pay?

Given the opportunity to get rich through corrupt means, without a major risk of being punished, most Indians would not hesitate for a second to jump into the cesspool.  How is the Lokpal bill going to address this mindset?  It will not, and it is indeed not the aim of the bill.  Given the opportunity to get "ahead" through corrupt means, short circuiting fair competition, most Indians would indeed do exactly this.  How else would we have fake pilots flying our aeroplanes?  We are cowards and we feel sick about it sometimes, but we convince ourselves we are being smart about it.  This is what our intelligence is used for.  Centuries of training in survival have taught us to flourish by staying out of the way, like germs.  Germs don't threaten enough to invite extermination, but are dangerous enough to keep us sick and unproductive - exactly what India is today.

How is the Lokpal Bill going to work, when it becomes the duty of the germs to inform the body of the invading disease?  We love the dis-ease.  We thrive in it, we thrive because of it, and we love the calmness of the sick patient, who has given up all hopes of fighting back.  In other words, this Anna Hazare character is a pest who is making us come out of our slumber and telling us we don't have to be germs anymore, because the patient is willing to let us lead a healthy existence within her body.  God bless Mother India, but how will the sheer masses of incompetence cope with an India that wants to throw out corruption?  Corruption is what keeps our masses lazy, well fed, and uncomplaining.  What can replace this incredible fuel?

We want opportunities.  Opportunities to further our laziness, opportunities to further our economic goals, and our sense of entitlement and power.  These have always existed.  Now, we also want opportunities to "feel good" about ourselves.  This is a new want, a new addiction in new age India.  We didn't want our boys to win the world cup because they played the best cricket and were truly deserving of the honour.  We wanted them to win so that we as "Indians" could wave the flag and yell at the world.  This is very sophomoric and idiotic of course, but it is also very American.  The USA is the country for us to look up to, for some reason.  No wonder a lot of our idiots have started putting their hands on their unfit chests when OUR national anthem is playing.  This again is nothing but an "opportunity" to showcase our patriotism just like Americans, but it has indeed become the opportunity for us to show how stupid we are, since even the Americans are supposed to do it not for their national anthem but for the Pledge of Allegiance!

There is nothing wrong in wanting to be Number One.  So, the pride we feel in our cricket team is natural.  How about doing something about the #119 we have in the Human Development Index?  See, we do not have the shining, sexy, fashionable opportunity for doing this.  It is not going to be quick, it is not going to be jingoistic, and it is not going to be vocal, so this process is going to be dull, unattractive, grinding, and horrendously time consuming.  We may not even be around when we get within #100 of this pesky index!  So, indeed we are not going to even try!

Anna Hazare didn't just provide the platform.  In this age of media glare, he provided the stage for many of our clowns to show up and perform.  The government yielded, not because it was morally forced to, but because it did not want to look like a failure on this stage!  It is all about perception, and performance on the stage!  No wonder Bollywood is completely in support of Anna Hazare although it produces movies with underworld money, has actors who shoot down wildlife, and even those who buy machine guns from terrorist outfits!  Was India outraged when Sanjay Dutt came on TV feeling bad about the terrorist attacks of 26th November?  Of course not!  We forgot that he had immersed himself in criminal anti-national activity but remembered him for his role in Munna Bhai or whatever crap.

We have become a nation of simplistic, easily manipulated fools.  We are no longer capable of critical thinking.  We go with what we like or dislike.  Anna Hazare is rather hard to dislike.  He is also not in the grey area, where critical thinking becomes immensely necessary.  He is out there in the white area, which is easy to sign up for!  That is why we chose to support him, not because we understood the full import of this Lokpal Bill and his blackmail tactic.  It takes the threat of calamity to force India to act in any haste to do ANY good.  We Indians love the foreboding threat of anything larger than life.  That is why we love our movie heroes to beat up fifty villains.  If he was human, it would require fifty of us to help him, and that won't be so interesting would it?

If we had to vote for a Supremo, a dictator or a king, (called "President" in some countries), we would gladly switch to that system.  We have grown up for centuries with kings as our benevolent dictators.  We even fondly recollect those times as the golden past of India.  The BJP even has a king Ram as their idol, so I wonder why nobody has asked them what the heck they are doing in a democracy while talking about a king all the time!  We do not like democracy really, because it puts responsibility on us.  If we could be slaves, we would.  That is why we make kings out of our elected leaders, and they gladly accept!  That is why they loot, and we applaud.  Look at those statues Mayawati has built of herself, and we know exactly what "opportunity" means for an Indian.

So, how to we function in the collective?  We do not!  We did not choose democracy.  It was chosen for us.  And now it may be too late to switch to a benevolent dictatorship, because too many of us would want to be the dictator.  So, we have this farce of a system where we elect people who don't have to listen to us or serve our interests as soon as they are elected.  Now, we're going to have the means to throw them in jail for corruption.  What about our own apathy, our incompetence, and our complete acceptance, even sympathy, for the crooked?  After all, we're the nation of really passive germs, who totally understand the need for survival.  How do we switch to intolerance?  We should suddenly thrash the peon who wants ten rupees for his "coffee"?  Or refuse to pay a donation that will ensure our unfit kid's a seat in that engineering college?  How are we going to change ourselves?

Our media has played a massive role in popularizing Anna Hazare and his campaign.  But this is not a service it embarked upon performing.  This was a big enough story to carry at the top.  Viewership!  Numbers!  Money!  Opportunity indeed!  From the World Cup to the IPL, the news channels were forced to fight for scraps.  Now Anna Hazare has provided them with phenomenal gravity.  It's a good thing this did not happen during the India-Pakistan match!  Very clever of you, Annaji!  Perfect timing!

Now, whatever happened to our sailors captured by Somali pirates, the Adarsh building scam, the 2G scam, the Commonwealth Games scam, and the thousand of other scams?  None of them are worth our attention now?  Eerily, it is time for something to come crashing down.  People must die for us to pay attention.  That is what Indian lives are worth - to bring viewership to our TV channels.  Aha!  Now, there's an opportunity!

- BSK.

The VERDICT - you cannot have the truth!

The BJP today condemned Home Minister Chidambaram's statement that the famous Ayodhya title suit verdict of the Allahabad High Court has nothing to do with the demolition of the Babri Masjid which remains a criminal act.  The BJP does not want the Home Minister to say something like this, because the matter is before the court.  Apparently, an act of vandalism that ends in the destruction of a historical monument, is not obvious enough for the BJP to accept someone calling it a criminal act, even if it were a matter of opinion.

Despite the hope we can have in the Supreme Court, the most dangerous precedent has however, been set by the Allahabad High Court.  By giving even the slightest legitimacy to matters of faith, it has chosen belief over truth, by deciding not to go purely with facts.  The "verdict" - to split the disputed land in 3, equally, amongst the litigants disputing its ownership, is in itself, perhaps the most uncontroversial settlement it could have prescribed, but that sort of "commonsense wisdom" is meant for people's courts, not for a high court.

The "law" as we have subscribed to, by being a democratic nation, is written in letters, not in beliefs, and not in our judgement of how the verdicts may play with emotions and feelings of communities too vested in their beliefs. The court is equipped to deal with facts, not beliefs.  If someone now comes up with an empirical evidence to disprove the existence of God, then what happens?  Our legal systems should be impervious to these situations.

Where are the facts that can establish to whom this land belongs?  What do we do if we cannot arrive at those facts?  Simply ask for more evidence, it is that simple.  Wait until the evidence shows up and if it does not, rule in favour of status quo and throw out the litigation(s).  That is all a court has to do.  Has the Allahabad High Court done that?  It has gone a step further, without fulfilling its fundamental duty.  It has chosen, very strangely, to bring a settlement into play, without making the law take its course.  It has chosen to quell the "problem", instead of ending the dispute.

This "settlement" verdict, even more bizarrely, is the sort of thing that much lower courts, like Panchayat courts, resort to.  That is the expectation there, and they are immensely qualified to do so, through an informal jury that usually know the parties in the dispute rather well, and the entrusting of the judgement is left to some wise "counsel", usually the older citizens of a village.  These are the courts that order stripping people naked, honour killings, revenge rapes, public humiliation, and other inhuman punishments, that are clearly unconstitutional and highly illegal.

The courts of the more formal legal "system" have lawyers, to interpret, clarify, and sometimes enforce the "law".  It is a very rational profession, that depends on volumes of "Indian Law" that many are students and practitioners of.  It is an evolving set of laws, but at any given point in time, "Indian Law" exists as an edict in written form.  God is not called upon to enforce it.  Our law enforcement agencies are.  If we were to consider beliefs, religious sentiments and such irrational subjects in a court sworn to uphold the "law", we should have religious leaders, psychics, tantriks, priests, mullahs and such working in courts, not lawyers, advocates and judges!

In its most fundamental essence, the job of a court is to uphold the "law", not even attempt to deliver "justice" even as it pronounces judgement.  If there is no evidence, the alleged murderer walks free!  How many times have we seen this happen?  It is the only way the "law" works.  If the law is found inadequate to deal with a certain dispute, the case rests, sometimes indefinitely.

We as a nation, have unwittingly, stepped onto the slippery slope of legitimizing the irrational and given it the status of equal consideration with objective truths.  For this alone, we will have to pay a very heavy price.  "Satyameva Jayate" is not true in this case, do we even realize?

By the precedent set by this verdict, credibility is given to events that supposedly took place hundreds of years before INDIA came into existence, on the 15th of August 1947.  The title suit itself is only about who the 2.7acres of land in Ayodhya belongs to, but the three way split laid out by the "verdict", based on some place of worship having existed there many hundred years ago, over which supposedly another place of worship was built, also years before India came into existence, borders on absolute madness.  Even more bizarrely, madness is what is supposedly being avoided right now by this immature "compromise".

This was never about Hinduism or Islam or what people believe in.  This should always have been about the law of the land.  What if somebody gets it into their head now, that their ancestors' temple or an entire civilization's ancestral, historical or religious wealth is buried beneath the Parliament building?  How about beneath the Rashtrapathi Bhavan or the Taj Mahal?  Shall we demolish these buildings and wait for another verdict to tell us whether that is criminal or not?  Clearly there is no end to this kind of nonsense.

What would it take for the nation to please step away from juvenile utterances of "India First" and other such nonsense, and take note that what is under attack here is not the freedom to have beliefs, or practise religion, but the very basis of what a "nation" stands for?  The Constitution of India does not have a "God" concept in it.  It is a very mature document, and one that we have all, by being citizens of India, by choice or by rude or convenient destiny, subscribe to.  We swear allegiance to this document each time we use Indian currency, apply for a passport, or show our identity to avail a service.  All this exists, because we, the bona fide citizens of this collective called "India", have chosen to define ourselves by writing down (not believing in) what constitutes and defines India.  This very definition is under attack here now that we are opening the doors for revisionist historians armed with useless rhetoric, beliefs, dogma, and an inarticulate sense of being "Indian" that is clearly not recognizable by our Constitution.

It might be very challenging for some of us to even get involved with an issue of this nature, to even invest the thought to understand what is at play here.  Surely, there have been no riots, so this must be a good thing?  By that logic, it must be a good thing that hundreds of our women are getting raped on a daily basis, children kidnapped and sold, and spurious medicines are killing thousands of us.  Heck, no riots!

This is about the whole idea of a "nation" that is being challenged here, and the Allahabad High Court, somehow, right now, has chosen to do what it should have recommended for the three litigants to do in an out of court settlement, and fallen well below applying the law of this land to clearly state the ownership of the piece of land, which was, by the way, never split in its ownership in any time in history!

What do we stand for as a nation?  Do we take our laws seriously?  Do we respect our Constitution?  Do our leaders stand for the oaths they take?  Do we have ANYTHING at all that is sacred to us as citizens of this nation?  If we say "yes" to any of the above, then we must realize that religion is at best a personal matter, and even when it is a matter of community, it still cannot be given enough legitimacy to become a matter of the nation.

If we are about to embark upon a mission to right all the wrongs of Indian history, why don't we agree to agree to smash every structure that stands today to see what lies beneath?  Surely, this would bring ALL truths from our past out in the open, and we can build a new India, maybe even a shining one, from scratch!  Our lawyers would be delighted with millions of lawsuits!  They might actually have to ask for God's help to handle the sheer volume of work!

Please be disturbed.  Be very, very disturbed if you understand the gravity of this new issue - of the judiciary choosing to mete out a settlement instead of the truth it should always pursue.  Who are we going to rely on now to uphold the law?

BSK.

Voting Compulsory??!!

The fool's done it again! With each passing day, LK Advani seems bent
on lowering his standing a bit more.

In his latest conch call to the nation, after the dubious claims of
his monkey army being able to bring back money from Swiss Bank
accounts like they brought back Sita from Lanka, now this idiot wants
Compulsory Voting!

Helllllloooooo!!!!! Is this guy even awake? What kind of a joke is
he trying to pull on us?

Voting is a right, you idiot, and we "exercise" our rights. We do not
"obey" them. If we're ordered to do it, that wouldn't be a right, it
would be a compulsion, an enforcement, an order, a decree, or a
dictum. Voting is none of this, and should never be.

To say the least, this foolhardy idea would require a Constitutional
amendment, and a historically significant one, for this would be the
first time a democracy, where "rights" and "freedom" are trumpeted as
the holy grail, as the high moral ground for us all to tread on with
awe and respect, we would have to give up one of the most fundamental,
differentiating, empowering "rights" in order to obey an order. Good
bye, democracy!

It is such a deep, scathing insult on everything we stand for, on the
very basic idea of India, and an absolute attack on the very soul of
our collective, that we should be baying for this fool's blood.
Instead, guess what, as if to underline our apathy towards all things
Indian, this crack pot might actually become Prime Minister!

Imagine having a Prime Minister that doesn't even understand the
difference between a right and an order! Imagine having a clown who
cannot tell the difference between a democracy and a dictatorship.
Imagine having to vote for a punk who is ready to strip away the very
right that gives his own life some sort of meaning!

Let's assume that voting does become compulsory.

Very well, so how is this going to be enforced? I don't show up at
any voting station on election day. I find myself in Madhya Pradesh,
or abroad, when I am supposed to vote in Bangalore. How is the
government going to bring me to my voting station? And how long is it
going to take before all Indian voters are rounded up and made to
vote? And how long is the counting going to last, if the enforcers
suddenly discovered five hundred people who didn't vote, spread over
fifteen districts? This is bound to be a lot of fun!

India by the way, is one of the strangest democracies in the world,
where physical presence at your own very voting centre is mandatory if
you want to cast your ballot. There are millions of Indian citizens
outside the country all the time, and during election time, all of
them stand disenfranchised, due to the absence of absentee ballots.
What the bloody hell difference should it make where I am on a given
day, to the simple act of casting my vote?

At any given point in time, there are atleast ten thousand of our
military personnel on UN duty somewhere away from India. More often
than not, they are busy trying to set up a democratic system in some
godforsaken country. None of them can cast their vote today because
of our own stupid system that prevents them from doing so. Most
Indian soldiers, including airmen and sailors, have very little chance
of voting because of the current system. Military personnel can vote
only during general elections, in their area of posting, only if they
are registered with the Election Commission to vote in that specific
area. What is the likelihood of this taking place?

I'd like to see the Indian government airlift ten thousand of our UN
troops out of Somalia, bring them all to their native polling booths
in India, ensure they cast their precious ballots and fly them back
before the next morning, so that some village doesn't get massacred.
Oops, not my idea.

The BJP, with its slogans of "India Shining" and the noise about the
IT revolution notwithstanding, have completely ignored the fact that
not having an absentee ballot system is a shame on our democracy, just
a little smaller than having to put up with voting becoming
compulsory! So, why can't the wrongs be fixed before we lose our
rights?

If we are ordered to do something as silly as vote, even when we may
be ignorant of our candidates, their stands on issues, hundreds of
parties with shady loyalties and shadier agendas, and a general
fatigue with the process of having their incompetence hammered on us
through slogans and campaigns and mudslinging and very immature
behaviour, we would be hard pressed to find sanity and make a choice
right in front of the ballot paper.

Enter form 49-O. It is a form you can fill in order to let the system
know that you are willing to take the pain to come to the polling
station, but do not find any candidate worthy of your vote. Guess
what? Most polling stations do not even have this form! It is a form
for "Voting Nobody" and yet making sure your vote isn't stolen. If
there are more 49-O forms filled out than the number of votes any
candidate has got, that candidate is out!

So, compel us, you idiot, and we will fill our 49-O forms en masse!

It is a tragedy that no political party will ever voluntarily tell you
about this dreaded form 49-O. Electronic voting machines do not even
have a button for that "No Vote to Any Candidate" option. If voting
was made available online, you bet this would be a popular option!

Back to the crux of the matter - compulsion. IF we agree to be
compelled, surely, we should be able to compel the government to
fulfill a few compulsions we can put on them. How about making it
compulsory for all courts in the country to maintain a zero backlog of
cases? How about making it compulsory for all trains to arrive on
time or money back to all passengers? How about making it compulsory
for all corporations to pick up garbage and not leave any street
dirty? How about making it compulsory for all politicians to give
deadlines and fulfill all election year promises or go to jail and
forfeit all rights to stand in any election in India?

Holy crap! All this amounts to actually doing some work! Why, it
even asks people to perform! My God, this might amount to an
expectation of excellence! I think most of our politicians wouldn't
mind a slipper on their face instead of having to live up to such
"compulsions"! Heck, it's even fashionable these days! See how well
it works without being compulsory?