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Dear
Prime Minister
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When
India chose you as its Prime Minister, it chose a statesman; it
chose someone who had been through the rough and tumble of national
politics for over five decades and who represented truth, transparency
and a rare courage. Rare because politicians are hardly known for
their courage, they are known more for their deviousness and self-serving
attitude. You were different: we all believed so. You had a drive,
a commitment to getting things done: the manifesto of the coalition
you led was a manifesto which exuded a change for the better. You
promised more power to the people; you promised an openness which
once again we as a people were starved of. But look at what you
have given us.
Your government has cultivated certain sections of the media in
a manner which is brazen and completely unheard of: you have put
the Peter Mandlesons of this world to shame when it comes to putting
a spin on all things. You have ensured that the media loses out
on all senses of objectivism through the kind of sops you have handed
out and the kind of party politics you have indulged in: today,
more than ever before, India has a media which sups with the Government;
which mouths whatever the Government wishes it to and yours Mr Prime
Minister is perhaps one of the most intolerant Governments when
it comes to either facing or accepting criticism. In a country where
you manipulate the media to the extent you and your press managers
have done, what hope is there of reason and a balanced viewpoint.
In your earlier avatars you showed a complete sense of surrender
to petty bargaining: whether it was the famous tea party with Jayalalitha
or tolerating the shrieks of Mamta Banerjee. We elected a man who
would lead India: not a man who would succumb to every pressure
whenever and by whoever it was exerted. But the truth is, even today,
it is a Government which works best (and perhaps only) under pressure.
The
people of this country are still seething with anger and disgust
at the lives we lost in Kargil: your response is to welcome the
murderer to our shores: the same man who killed our innocent young
soldiers; who everyday presides over bouts of terrorism in our Kashmir:
today, this man is being made a hero by you and your Government
and not once have you even bothered to tell us why you are meeting
him and what exactly we will gain from this meeting. We are common
citizens and we don’t understand the machinations of either
your politics or your foreign policy: just tell us this. Will this
man from across the border guarantee us peace in Kashmir? Will this
man ensure that we never lose lives over nothing on desolate mountain
peaks? Can you guarantee us this, Mr Prime Minister?
Because
this is the voice of the people and its been a long time since you
and your Government has heard it! In a show of bravado you promised
us an inquiry into the intelligence failure in Kargil: but what
have we got till today? Absolutely nothing. Not a word. No one punished.
No one brought to book. Just swept under the carpet until another
crisis looms.
Your
Government witnessed the kind of expose of corruption few Governments
in this world have seen but Tehelka will also be buried with the
same panache as are some of our brave. No one will be punished for
their corrupt deeds; no one will face the wrath of the nation :
all will be forgotten and we will let it pass. But is this the kind
of India you wish to lead? Is this the kind of India that you want
your foster grand-daughter to inherit?
You
have the power to change all this but you don’t seem to want
to exercise it. Your Government has unleashed one finance scandal
after another: Ketan Parekh; the UTI scam, SEBI’s ineffectiveness
and more such but once again your Finance Minister has never offered
to resign: he still maintains an arrogance which seems to suggest
he is in control: the truth is he is not: for that matter neither
are you. There are people in Orissa and Gujarat who still clamour
for a roof over their heads and your emissary George Fernandes moans
the fact that Karunanidhi does not have an air-conditioned cell!
Have we become a banana republic? Or are you as I believe you are,
the master of tokenism? Make token statements; create token situations;
take token actions? What did your Government achieve by recalling
Fatima Beevi?
Your
Government has also seen the collapse of any propriety in politics:
you have ministers who beat up policemen in public; you have party
people who sulk till they are brought into the cabinet; you have
your parent organisation curse and abuse the Government and you,
till very recently, had a Home Minister who the world thought didn’t
see eye-to-eye with you : so what kind of Government would you call
yours?
I
have often been warned by my friends that I shouldn’t write
in the manner I do : I might be raided or put behind bars : but
I don’t think that is germane or relevant: the truth of the
matter is I believe in you and which is why I believe you can make
this change. You can get rid of the non-performers from your Government;
you can cleanse the system rather than exist with it. You seem to
have lost the will and that is our worry.
You
may feel you don’t need to take these risks for you may never
fight an election again. But the fact is Mr Prime Minister, you
have no right to obliterate your just calling from the pages of
history.
You
owe it to tomorrow’s India to change today’s India.
That
will be the true calling of a statesman.
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