3,550 years ago…

by Manish Anand

Public memory will now be refreshed with a historical epoch that a man made. Exactly 3,350 years ago the man who changed the face of civilization and collectively uplifted the human consciousness was born in India’s neighborhood. Gautam Budhha who chose his own path and dawned en era of peace and prosperity in the kingdom of Magadh which was torn into intercine war with its neighbours was born in a peaceful and comfortable lap of Himalaya in the second century BC.

A historical lecture is not intended, rather a peep which is highly relevant in this age when the world is torn into a never ending wars and clashes, leading to the loss of too many innocent lives. The violent might of the invading army of Mohammad-bin-bhaktiyar Khilji snapped the last remnants of Budhha’s teaching and the torchbearer of his wisdom from the land of Buddhism in the 14th century. Many Budhhist monks fled to Tibet as history records, but there too they have met the might of communist China, which is hell-bent to end the last link to the Buddhist way of life.

Sri Lanka, which was converted to Buddhism by Ashoka’s son and daughter, has been witnessing an endless internal strife. The toll is being put in millions. But for what! Only to carve one’s own nation because Singhalese and Tamils can not live together. In Budhha’s time, Magadh too was locked in a bloody war with its neighbours like Vaishali and others but the teaching of mutual tolerance made them to call truce and live together. No one now can teach that art to the warring nations and to the domineering nations like the United States, China and others who are heading towards destroying the world with their intolerant political designs.

The land of Buddha too has forgotten him for all practical purposes. While Nepal suffers from a despotic king, India is yet to get back its pluralistic culture that it was proud of in ancient India. Remember in the Magdhan Empire or in the Gupta Empire or in the Upanishadic time, many streams of belief and faith lived together and prospered. Ashokan rock and pillar edicts depict that there was a mature civilization with multitude of streams of beliefs and faiths. India gave secularism to world when they were living in Dark Age. Irony is that in the same land intolerance runs high and deep with no one to moderate different beliefs into one living community.

Budhha must reborn and that too in large numbers as the world has turned into a higher mess that what he had faced 3,350 years ago.

Bania shops of Journalism

by Manish Anand

Boom in Television News Channels has fuelled unprecedented mushrooming of media institutes in Delhi apart from other cities. All are on the bandwagon to sell the great journalism dreams.

You can be Rajdeep Sardesai, Barkha Dutt and others, the media business tells hoards of students. It’s a different matter that Barkha and Sardesai had different path of career growth which can in no way give credence to these institutes methodology.

At the end of the day, these institutes are more of a bania shop selling journalism certificates with no tangible trainings imparted to their pupils. Cost for these certificates is also at its high. Don't be surprised if you were told that minimum cost for a diploma is Rs 30,000 and it runs as high as Rs 2 lakh. But cost is no deterrence as students make beeline to get admissions in such institutions.

But the silver lining is that many of working journalists or those who are past their prime have got something to make easy money by. Their pockets have deepened no doubt. And they too say that there are many idiots with lots of money then why not get a share from them. Efforts are also least as you just need to talk and journalists are never at a loss of words when it comes to chatting. There are so many stories to be told; own experiences to be precise. And students will think oh how knowledgeable the faculty is. Poor folks indded!

The boom is unjustified and unreasonable because journalism industry is too small and highly competitive apart from being uncertain. Flip side is that these institutes tell their customers that opportunities are tremendous and exciting. “Interviewing a Prime Minister or taking a pot shot at the government, bureaucracy, polity is something that few professions can enjoy, an often repeated encouraging remark that the shopkeepers dish out.

At the bottom of the barrel lies many of these ambitious journalism students who end up working for content writing, press release writing and at worst working for free as interns at media organisations for months. Prime time wasted never comes back is not properly understood as yet and most importantly in backward regions of India. There could be other exciting options as well, both professionally and monetarily rewarding.

But, meanwhile, young men and women are not really bothered paying a hefty sum for a two-hour daily class to get a journalism certificate. It will bust that is for certain, but will leave many broken hearted.

Stupefied BJP

by Manish Anand

A stupefied Bhartiya Janta Party unrolled itself at its Mumbai national executive. Dramatis galore, the sheen of the incumbant BJP president Rajnath Singh was stolen by the Vajpayesque of Pramod Mahajan as the designated mascot of the party. Rajnath shouldn't be sulking either as he is the plant of Mahajan for the time being as per the reading goes on.

Bolt for the party was the controversy of Mahajan favouring Reliance and benefiting by proxy by more than Rs 1,000-crore coming in the media. How could sanity in the top BJP leadership decide the future baton of BJP to be passed on to a man with such a battered image. Clash of personalities has always been the undoing of the party. An alternative in the making to Congress is definitely now under question mark.

Interestingly, Mahajan represents the true face of BJP. His organisational skills, raising funds for the party have always been appreciated except for the way the funds were raised. And the party heavily depended on his skills all these years. Remember, the India Shining jaggernaute that BJP unleashed and the man behind the whole exercise.

LK Advani finds it very easy to ascribe the garbage in the party (men caught for cash-for-query scam or sex scandal) to the Congress culture. This is the most simplistic way of washing one's hand off the mess. Advani is now too weak and old to take responsibility for the stink that the party has gathered in its backyard.

The signals coming from Bihar where BJP along with JD(U) has come into power also indicates the compulsiveness of BJP to make goods with the power that it finds itself in. A senior BJP leader and who was tipped to be the deputy chief minister in Bihar twisted officials of his department (he is a minister) for filling up of his vehicles with oil while he along with his family members was on a private trip to Varanasi to pay obeisance to Lord Shiva after he bacame a minister.

Old habits die hard, someone had said. Power trap is too irresistable for BJP to come clean out of it.

Worse is the poverty of idea at the level of top leaders. Probably, they are no more leaders but followers of their folks.

Under these contexts it becomes imperative for Mr Rajnath Singh to be a man of the occassion. Stand up to the challenge and weed out rooten eggs in the basket. Pretty challenging the task is, but must be taken up as he stands at a moment where BJP can either mar its prospects or come stronger in character and commitment.

Early signs do not seem encouraging. Congress must be thanking its stars for being bleassed with its main Opposition party in utter disarray.

India’s ‘06 task: Face it

by Manish Anand

The new year 2006 dawned with new talks on the Indian political horizon. While the President Dr APJ Kalam remains cosy with his ‘Visions’, the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, is still engrossed in his rightist economist’s mould. The most acute challenge for Indian polity as well as the coalition government is to bridge the galloping divide between rural and urban India.

While the urban India (metropolis mostly) leapfrogged in the last decade, thanks to boom in the service sector, but rural India kept on sleeping into the quagmire of poverty and lack of opportunities. Divide is alarmingly acute. The babus manning India’s economic policies have systematically ignored starvation deaths by tribals, suicide in large numbers by farmers from Andhra Pradesh and Maharshtra, exodus of rural people to urban centres, massive erosion in the quality of life among urban and rural people due to obvious reasons, and worst, lack of symmetry in India’s social and economic growth.

Aping the west has been the easiest way out for the Indian government, and it still remains so.

Sustainable growth has been captive of experts’ past time activities in India, and a photo opportunity for ministers. Hence, S Swaminathan, Sandeep Pandey, Rajendra Singh, Baba Apte and few others remain a miniscule community. The apologists see India’s economic growth in software professionals criss-crossing transnational borders, stock-market peaking record high, mushrooming of shopping malls in metropolis, boom in the telecom sector, and yes, so many young men and women getting jobs in various call centres.

However, it could be explained fairly easily as ministers and bureaucrats responsible for the panning and implementation process seldom come out of their comfort zone in New Delhi and other developed cities. To peep into interiors of India can wreck their comforts!

The Indian government must let many growth centres to take roots in the interiors of India, and most importantly in the socially and economically backward regions. Agriculture and small scale units have to revitalise their economies with much wider participation of people. These centres must set in the process of reverse migration of people. Yes, they will have to compete with the transnational giants, which could be made possible by nurturing niche markets with across the board collaboration among media, government and people at large.

Small islands of self sufficient economies are possible as few examples are already there in India. The need is to take them to higher level. To make effect to this possibility, the babus and netas will need to undergo changeover in their mind-sets and policy approach.