India, it seems, is closed today. All opposition parties have come together to oppose the fuel price hike and the government is isolated. Activists of BJP, CPI-M and other parties have managed to down the shutters of shops and offices, stopped public and private vehicles. Trains are not running in many parts of the country, planes are also grounded in many cities. On TV, opposition leaders have said the government stands isolated.
And so does the the common man, we feel. Price rise is a serious issue and the sky-rocketing grocery budget is hurting us all – not counting about one or two percent people that also includes most politicians (going solely by the self-declarations of assets worth crores of rupees). There are whole villages, for example, where people have stopped eating pulses because they can't afford them. Governance Now carried a series of reports from across India in its April 1-15 edition (see Price rise leaves the common man gasping). Rising prices, like that refreshing beer, hurts in parts where no other headline-grabbing problem can reach. Inflation is the biggest problem faced by the largest number of people in the country today. Except for the de-legitimacy of our political class.
The common man is assiduously wooed by the Congress as far as slogans go, feels ditched by the ruling party, but his bigger tragedy is that he cannot put faith in empty promises made by others either. That is why when you and I came out on the streets today morning it was not to join the BJP or CPI-M cadres but to ensure we reach our workplaces some way or the other. A BJP advertisement in the newspaper requested parents not to send their wards to schools and support the bandh. Few bothered to follow the request: Delhiites well remember they voted out a BJP government precisely after onions were costing so much that roadside eateries stopped serving the side dish.
Our political parties, as a commentator put it in a different context, are like different brands of washing powder. They may have slightly differing brand images, but basically they all have nearly the same chemical composition. One brand offers to remove adamant dirt, another banks on promising a trophy for your child in a school function, a third would appeal to the smart customer inside you. So, one party has caste or religion as its plank, another promises an imaginary stuff called good governance and so on, but when they come to rule, they all rule just the same. Their economic policies do not even have different branding anymore, they are all for what they call economic reforms, which have only increased the chasm between haves and have-nots (or have-notes and have-noughts). Take a look at long-term inflation graphs, deficit charts or for that matter Sensex charts and remove indicators for years: can anybody point out on the charts when BJP came to power or when those proletariatwala Left parties supported the ruling coalition?
You and I will join in and a Bharat Bandh will be hundred percent successful when somebody gives a call for protest against our wheeler-dealer, can't-be-bothered politicians.
