Can Anna checkmate the Government again?

Dishearten by the assortment of accusations on his Team and the style of functioning of its individual members, Anna decided to expand the numerals of his core committee to fifty. He asserted the inclusion of intellectuals from the depressed classes and Muslims; a small transformation from a gang to a small political faction. In the mean time he fired all the individuals who had used him, including his Blogger.

The Government on its part continued its vendetta course. Team Anna was hounded from all the direction. Anna’s talibanic opinion of public whipping of alcoholics and his naïve comment on Harvinder Singh’s slap invalidated his Gandhian credentials. The loose talk of Anna on various issues backfired.  

The unsoiled IPS officer Kiran Bedi, has court ordered FIR registered against her. The case relates to fraud and misappropriation of funds by her NGO. The second such accusation leveled against her; there won’t be any smoke without any fire.

The Emotional Arivnd Keriwal, who just cleared his service records/dues and taxes of IAC, is up against the Judiciary in support of Kiran Bedi, his flip flop accusation and support of the latter’s action made him a smart politician.

In Summary, the whole apolitical movement of activists and people transformed itself to a political party of accused politicians. The opaqueness of the fund utilization, the individual agendas of the members and some non practical demands of Anna removed the shine out of the movement. The allegation and the reaction to the accusation, raises lots of doubts and questions in one’s mind. The integrity and sincerity of the team is in quandary.

Anna has started his howls; “the Government has cheated us”. He has reserved his venue and the dates-December-11, well before the Bill is tabled in the parliament. How on earth, these people still have a face to show us? Are they dreaming of a Box office hit and record collections? Can they still cheat us? Can they still checkmate the Government by media and peoples support?

I hope the Government is ready with a move to surprise all of us. The political class is challenged, when its privilege and right is at stake, time and again they have proved their intellect to us. The bill would be passed; credit for the passage of the Bill would go to the political class, not to the unelected ones. One should be surprised if the same lokepal bill is used to prosecute Team Anna. Anna! Check and mate.      

Why this kolaveri marketing of 3?

“A good advertisement is one which sells the product, without drawing attention to itself.”

That was an advertisement quotation by an English Business man, David Ogilvy. Even the best of the products needs some bit of marketing or Advertisement. One of the best forms of advertisement is the word of mouth advertisement, opinions which are passed from one person to other through oral conventional means. This conventional source has the potential of a wild fire; spreads incessantly without any fuel. Often, wild fires are caused a small spark.

The leading dailies of Chennai carried a front page news on 21st Nov, the new rage of the city- a new song called “Why this kolaveri di”. The song was uploaded to the free videos site, youtube presumably on 16th November and with a short span of five days it received almost 3 lakh hits. Kolaveri is hot topic of most of the twits and blogs for this week. The craze of 3 lakh people would force anyone to peep into youtube and listen to the song at least once. Yes, I have downloaded one on 24th November. By the time I was down loading it, the number of hits was 3,385,025, almost four lakh hits.

What’s the USP of the song? It’s the lyrics, voice and personality of the singer, Dhanush. The lyric is not bounded by a single language or grammar. If fact, the revolutionary idea of this kind, just took six minutes. The lines of these lines are so down to earth and humble. The Tamil language has been elevated to an unprecedented level; even the likes of Amitabh Bachan have started listening to Tamil songs. The voice had almost obliterated my myth; the need of carnatic training to be a singer. Dhanush has proved one core point; it’s the talent and experience. Any body can become a singer; Dhanush has become a Dronacharya to many Ekalavyas. The personality of Dhanush lacks the typical chocolate boy image, his wheatish, slim and not so educated looks pleases the masses. Men folk of TN, find it easy to correlate their own personality with a Dhanush than an Arvindswamy.

On his part Dhanush capitalized on his innocent looks, immature slang and physical characteristics. Most of his successful roles have been the typical, tapoli ones; the Uneducated, poor, not so handsome guy going in for the dream girls. The formula has worked well in all of his first three movies. He had his share of glooms and dooms from his movies of 2004-05, but he manage to managed to make a come back and eventually grabbed a National Award for best actor.

The timing of the release of the song coincided with the release of his new film “mayakam enna” and exit of the shruthi hassan’s “ 7 an arivvu”. A very good attempt to capitalize on the current popularity of the lead actors.A small survey of the youtube videos was made on 24th Nov; the Indian national anthem uploaded on Aug -18 -2006, had 1,958,116 hits. Another version of the anthem sung by a congregation of legends of Indian music, uploaded on July-20-2009, had 43,746 hits. And “The most beautiful speech in all of the American History” the “I have a dream “speech of Dr. King, uploaded on Apr-18-2007, had 119,300 hits. One finds it very difficult to digest the fact, how come a mediocre song like this would have caught the overnight attention of nearly four lakh viewers. Common sense dictates, those hits are artificial and fake ones. The headline news probably could be paid advertisements.

In the end, the episode sold the product 3, its lead actors, Music Director and Producer to us in a single shot in very economical way. No posters, TV or print ads still, the product reached the desired audience. The song was called as soup song, flop song or in short a song for the loser’s. It would have created a greater impact, if it was sung by a real loser-Silambarasan.

Petrol: the salt of Liberalised, Independent India.

The Yatra of L.K.Advani, has at last come to an end this week. The dreary 38 days all India tour, in spite of all the media’s consideration failed to inspire the Public at large. The saffron party may publicly, boast of huge crowds to all their events across India, but, it failed to create a Movement as it was expected. Yes, the citizens of this country are dismayed over many issues; Governance, Corruption, Nepotism and the queen of all evils-Inflation. The people of this country are literate enough to understand that, these issues cannot be solved by speeches and a tour in an air conditioned Hi-Tech Coach. On his part, Mr. Advani still proved his mettle on many issues personally bothering him. First, the invincible Raj Dharma Yogi-Atal Bihari Vajpayee was secluded from the PM race. Second, the towering personality cult of Narendra Modi was gloomed, at least momentarily. Third, the disputed PM candidate has consolidated his position of Influence as a National leader within his party circles. The fourth issue, which he actually missed out, was, to carry forward India against corruption movement.

In the days of the ancient, the disenchanted subjects of Kings and Queens congregated and fought against their royals. Success of Violence was a game of numbers. But, with the advent of Guns, Grenades and artillery, revolution and revolts became risky propositions. However, terrorism, Naxalism and Gorilla warfare, did challenge the authority of States; but, these kind revolts hardly gets any public sympathy or legal funds. Modern laws of the executive and Judiciary softened the approach of the state towards its citizens, the people got many avenues to voice their dissent or challenge the authority of the state. Universal jurisprudence, required the states to welfare oriented towards its subjects, the concept of colonialism was ostracized even in the occupiers country. Non-Violent Resentment against the Government became more acceptable and thus Freedom of speech developed into a Universal Law.

Indian History is replete with battalions of revolutionaries and warriors, but all the institutional and individual endeavors are eclipsed by one man-M.K.Gandhi.  The Non Violent part of our freedom movement is Unique, most of the modern day events (Twentieth century) that lead to our impedance were either legal and in most of the cases violators of law willfully surrendered to authorities to face the consequences. M.K.Gandhi being a lawyer himself knew the power of civil laws and was highly knowledgeable about the influence of the English media in the civilized world. His resentment techniques were simple, nonviolent, and often attracted thousands of not so literate Indians and English Media’s attention towards him. Public protest like vrats, anushans and Yatras have become the very common these days, but the mother of all yatras was; the Dandi march.

M.K.Gandhi, walked for miles across many villages for days, many of the men folk (women were forbidden by MKG) merely walked along with him. With the English media on his side, Gandhi just took a hand full of salt and broke the slat act. The message, he wanted to convey was, the cost Indians pay for their salt. 

Salt is an essential ingredient of the Indian cuisine, in spite of having kilometers of coastlines, salt production was regulated. The Indian salt Tax of 1882 (www.mkgandhi.org) regulated the production, transportation, distribution and retailing of salts. Licenses were required were native production of salt, the salt industry was almost in the British hands. One third of the salt was manufactured by the British Government, one third by Native licensees and the remaining was imported from Britain. Salt in those days was a heavily taxed commodity; even in the days of G.K.Gokhale a basket of salt costing 3 pies was made to cost 5 annas, a tax of 2000 percent. The salt Revenue has enormous powers to powers to search properties, forfeit assets. Violation of salt law had heavy penalties and prison terms. Abstractly, it was a draconian law. The salt law was withdrawn by the Indian Prime Minister J.N.Nehru, in 1949.

The Indian fiancé minister Manmohan Sing liberalized the Indian Economy in 1991, the same Economist as a Prime Minister of India deregulated the Petrol from Government regulation in 2011. As was the case of salt, petroleum companies are in the Public sector, private sector and import sector. Unlike salt, refining of petrol is not a simple task, it requires heavy investments. It’s true, that, the Indian Society benefited by Telecom deregulation, but the same society is not able to accept deregulation of petrol. why? Nobody is complaining about the price of gold, and then complain about a international commodity like petrol? The reason is price of Gold is uniform across geographies, but according to Times of India, a liter of petrol should cost us only Rs 41. A consumer of Tamil Nadu pays a premium of 76% on the original cost due to various forms of Taxes and charges in India. Tamil Nadu imposes a Value added Tax of 27% on petrol and earns a revenue of Rs 260 Cr per month. A match could be made to the revenue made by the British, Salt and Opium formed a major part of it; For Tamil Nadu its petrol and Tasmac Liquors. 

 Deregulation should have been a boon to us; it is not price of petrol that makes it costly, it’s the bloody taxes. How should we raise our voice against the taxes non-violently? Whether our Politicians and Babus deserve free supply of fuels, for their motorcades and Travel? As there is no substitute for salt in our foods, there is no substitute for fossil fuels for various modes of Transport. Had Mr. Adavani, roamed across India in a Bullock cart, he would have a rewritten Indian History. Bad Luck, he missed a golden opportunity. How do we come out of this mess? Simple, we should learn from others mistakes, Team Anna’s Mistake. They campaigned for a Lokpal supporter; we should campaign for a petrol Tax detractor.     

             

    

Team Anna: a disillusioned Gang of four.

Anna Hazare started his faction with the support of few a members; a cop kiran Bedi, a revenue collector Arvind Kejriwal and Lawyer & Lawyer son duo the Bhushans. Anna deserves all credit for taking up the issue of Lokpal Bill, the public anger against the rampant corruption in the various Government echelons and the media focus involved forced the power confederation to take a premature Handshake. A half hearted initiative though; a label of civil society was affixed to them and the Congress Crisis Management team obliged to an audience with them. The wild and civil society members sat together, to write the ombudsman Law for India and finally ended up writing the two complementary Jokepal tragedies. An extraordinary gesture, members of Government directly taking the public on board while preparing a policy draft, god’s grace .The parliament had to take the burden of scrutinizing two other versions, in progression the House preceded towards a quandary. Irked over the pandemonium in parliament; Anna voiced his revolutionary intentions; the strong arm of law placed the who’s who of Indian corruption as Anna’s cellmates. A country rose up against the police atrocity, a government of the people had to give up. Anna’s campaign started with his fast, a horde of volunteers joined his team. The fast caught the limelight of the media, support poured in from all echelon’s of the Indian society. The alternative media too played an active role in the campaign; people’s power terrorized the ruling class. Worried over loss of its privilege, the political class rose up to occasion and concurred with each other.
The fast as such ended with a very positive note, victory for everyone and loss for none. The movement brought together a country; many India’s develop into one nation. People recognized the power of Unity, technology and media proved their roles in a democracy. The fortnight of the movement, would ever remain etched in the annals of Indian History in Golden words.
The individualistic ego was the first killer, Baba Ramdev, a popular Yoga guru wanted to start a similar movement against Black money. The campaign was crushed with by the iron first of the state, all known sources of Income was ascertained. The black money crusader failed to prove the shade of his money as white. The second saffron clad swami Agnivesh was isolated as a mole of the Government. The teams decision to oppose the congress in the Hissar By-election saw some more volunteers withdrawing from the team. Bhushan Jr was publicly manhandled, for his anti-National views on Kashmir. Kiran Bedi was accused of overcharging her travel bills and Kejriwal of siphoning of donations made by public to his trust. The movement collected a Hoard of rupees and its account was revealed only after public accusations. Anna on the other hand was/is accused as an RSS mole. Anna cleverly went on Maun Vrath during this period and kept his integrity intact, but in the eyes of the public the team lost its credibility. To make up for the lost image, creation of a private ombudsman was proposed; people who wrote the ombudsman law for the country are in need of a private one for their own actions.
In the mean while, the gang of four, refuse to fade away from the media glare, one wonder why on earth they don’t trust the parliament? Why face all the unnecessary attacks and controversies? Why the disillusioned temperament is still kept alive? Is it for the continuous stream of cash flow? In conclusion, the team has become greedy, parochial and corrupt. Alas, the political class has successfully integrated Team Anna in to their order.

A senseless and farcical script called, Aezham Arivu.

The recently released movie Aezham Arivu, a wonderful commercial entertainer, garnished with all the ingredients of a typical Kollywood movie is a ‘must view ‘these days. Even two weeks after its release, all the screens are Jam packed. A magnificent movie eulogises the achievement of the ancient Tamil knowledge and civilization, any Tamilian would come out of the theater with a sense of pride and achievement. Well, that’s what films are supposed to do, take you to a illusionary world. If any conclusion has to be drawn from the movie, it’s just, as clear as a diamond crystal, Tamil civilization and society is a deteriorating one. One wonders, whether its a vulnerable society still weakening or already its extinct.
A sixth century Buddhist Pallava prince goes to china and lays the foundation for Kung-Fu, Chinese medicine and becomes the presiding deity of shaolin. A modern day shaolin student is sent by China to wage a bio-war against Tamils, with an intention of mass-selling a forgotten Indian Antidote at inflated prices. The core objective of film, according to the producer, is to show case the contribution of the Tamils.
The lead actor, Shruthi Hassan, tries a lot to evoke the Tamil Spirit and sense of pride, commercial, political gimmick of the producer. Except of the eyes, Hassan, a Xerox copy of Bollywood’s sarika shah, fails to cut any ice as a Tamilian. In spite of her paramakudi genes, the Tanglish accent is too awful. One wonders, how on earth, can somebody trespass into an IIT lab for twelve days, why a bio war only on Tamils not on Indians, the scripts lacks common sense at various instances. A professor of Bio-Technology aids for bio war, without any self protection; descendants of a prince have a picture of their sixth century ancestor; the DNA theory goes against the sprit of Dravidian Movement.
The Chinese have always been ahead of us, it was never invaded by foreign powers. They built huge walls to protect them. India was invaded by many countries; it was under foreign rule for five centuries. Khyber Pass never had any walls, still its open for invasion. The Chinese had religion of equals and a common language /script; we were always a divided nation. The Chinese preserved their culture, knowledge and heritage; we lost them incessantly. There is no point in basking on the achievements of aryabhatta, Bhaskara or a Kautilya; modern achievements substances more than BC achievements.

The film has a very parochial view; Tamil society. The Tamil Dravidian society was distinct from the Aryan one many ways; the race, religion, language, non rigid classification of its people based on Geographical settlements. The Aryan invasion erased all of these, except for the Tamil language, everything was aryanised. Our gods became relatives of their gods, their rigid caste system was imposed on us, and our language praised their gods. As citizens, we are Indians, but as a race we still remain, Aryanised Dravidians. The pure Dravidian is an extinct order. The DNA theory is farce one, no Kshastriya safe guarded the Khyber Pass. The instigation of martial skills through DNA; is similar to the martial race theory proposed by Gen.Lord Roberts, long abandoned by the Indian Army. Talent is distributed equally across races; through practice and perseverance can create anything out of anybody.

Anna Hazare: The Indian Tele-Media’s Mojo Jojo.

The Indian visual media is bona fide middle class one, its main customers are the educated, white collared, secular and urban youths. A large society which could be considered as product the socialists, a generation with Govt employed parents, secure urban upbringing and oblivious of real India. As most of the filmi chaps may say, there are two Indias : India and Bharath , this is that and that is this…blah blah..Sociology they say can be divided in to two types, urban and rural. The multicultural, multilingual and market dominated urban regions is the real Indian Republic envisioned by the constitution. The Govt dominated,laggard and castist rural regions; India, nothing changed here since independence. The disaster is the Republic is a rich minority, which never votes and India a poor Majority, which decides the govt. The Indian Tele media can be categorized into two types, vernacular and English/National. The vernacular ones are directly controlled by the politicians and the national ones are remote cotrolled. The recent Radia Tapes disclosure clearly illustrates the nexus between Business, Broadcasting and the Babus. No one whispered about the media involvement or media ethics, but the 2G accused A. Raja was almost convicted on TV. The entire opposition has got all its ammunition against the big fish P.Chidambarm, legally valid govt correspondence as proof and still none of the media wants him arrested. They don’t even say how he won the election, all that is said its in the courts. By the time the court decide who actually won the election in sivakasi, the next election would come and PC would have complted his five year term as a cabinet minister. The point i want to make is, the Indian media is biased.

It gives only those stories which its customers would like and avoid what its customers would not like. Apart from the regular politics,if it’s the cities, it would be all about its development and pollution and if it’s the villages it would be about innovation, corruption and poverty. The educated youths understanding would never go beyond these and so would be the media coverage. Topics like child labour, Rural dislocation, shrinking agri lands, human trafficking,land grabbing, unmarried partners, minority isolation, rural discriminations, tribal issues and North East India, we hardly see or hear about any of these in so called National media. Naxalism, separatism and indigenous independence struggle not only marks a failed state but marks the failure of autonomous democratic institutions like media. I feel very compelled to quote the great African American Malcom X here.

“The media's the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that's power because they control the minds of the masses.”

To prove my point, the way media handled the case of Ruchika Girhotra’s molestation case , the accused was a DGP SPS Rathore who misused his power to escape from justice for 19 years. It was only after 19 year, he was convicted and only after his conviction the movement justice for Ruchika started .The campaign against the DGP went for almost a month. The grief , agony and pain endured by the Girhotra family was empathized by the media . The DGP was by no means was an innocent man and deserved a harsher punishment. A comparison has to made with an another judgment in Vachathi case delivered by a trail court on 29 september 2011 in TamilNadu, 269 odd govt employees of revenue , forest and police department were convicted for repeated rape of 18 tribals girls . The girls were repeatedly raped for one full day, until 9.00 pm. No news about the sentences, meager punishment though; it didn’t make a headline, the urbanite doesn’t care about the forest and tribal and M.Karunanidhi didn’t distribute any free TVs to the tribals. Even before i complete this parah, the second tragedy struck the tribals; Jail term of the first and fourth was suspended by the Madras high court, based on the contention that the two were officers and the investigation officer does not have the governments permission to prosecute them. No permission from the Government, even after 19 Years and no condemnations from the Judge. As the G14 members said, number of judges per Million should be increased; for Justice delayed is Justice denied.

Fine, who is this Mojo Jojo?. He is the villain in the famous American cartoon series power puff girls. Is Anna a villain then; no, Mojo is not human, he is an ape. Anna is an ape, the visual media’s ape, a very shrewd ape who apes a mimic called M.K.Gandhi-a creation of the British print media. Except for the mahars, he is the undisputed mahatma for all indians, no one will loathes him. To start with, he was a simple, secular, non-violent, celibate and a mahatma who fought for the emancipation of the untouchables; this is what the print media of the British India said and Independent India thought us. The truth, he was a racist; he called the native South Africans as kaffirs and half castes, pseudo-secular; Muslims of India feared his religious affinity, castist; he refused to support the Mahar agitation for the right to pray in temples and held a 21 days fast opposing separate Mahar electorates, affluent; even by today’s standard only the elites can afford London education,Pseudo Non-Violent; he appealed Indians to enlist as combatants for WW-I, and probably a Homo..; google Joseph Lelyveld. Was he a real Mahatma? .His Ahimsa and sathyagraha philosophies were alien to South Africa not to India, implementation of these non-violence had the sympathy of the South African press and forced Gen.Smuts to reconcile with Gandhi. The trick worked with British Indian media as well. Anna Hazare too, followed the same route.
Attempts are being made to project Anna Hazzare as the, next undisputable leader of India. Fast and walks have become the order of the day; its being used as a blackmailing tool for petty political purpose. One small team cannot represent a billion individuals and two Bhushans cannot write Laws for India. Their Joke book called Jan Lok Pal bill attempts to supersede the Indian Constitution. Mr Kejriwal may be a chamcha of Anna Hazzare, but it’s highly deplorable to misuse the media and place him above the parliament. The fact that, the parliament above its citizens does not mean any Individual is above it. Politicians can’t claim any superlative status either;for what’s supreme is the constitution not the parliament. The constitution is the fine thread that binds us as equal citizens of one country. If Jan Lok Pal bill aims of a single authority for all the tribulations of this country; then it amounts to tampering of the constitution, the balance of power between Legislature, Executive and Judiciary will be lost. A fight for supremacy between these institutions would result in chaos. It was a foolish decision to Jail Anna Hazzare, it caught the media’s attention and media caught the cosmopolitan’s attention and the foreign media made it a Revolution. Humble request to the media, enough, too much, the acts of your Mojo Jojo is too predictable, show us a different cartoon.

References- Wikipedia, Times of India.