Census 2011: Demographic Changes in India

Earlier this month, the Government selectively released (unofficially) some census data on religious demographics in India. While the delay in reporting data is inexplicable, the data in itself confirmed a couple of trends observed in the last 3 decades. These broad trends are: 1. Rising share of Muslim Population in India; and 2. Decreasing share of Hindus in overall population.

However, the reporting mainstream media was, as it is wont to be, heavily skewed. It primarily highlighted 2 aspects: 1. Falling growth rate of Muslims; and 2. The ‘paltry’ increase of Muslims population share at 0.8%. This, the media votaries mocked, was a certain proof that all the talk by the Hindu Right of demographic change was nothing but fear-mongering.

While many Indians, in their comments to the purported ‘analytical’ news reports tried to highlight the gross errors in reporting, comments do not make or mar impressions. Some right-leaning websites did try to draw more realistic conclusions from the partially released data, but owing to their limited reach, it is doubtful if they would have even 0.5% of an impact which a Times of India report declaring ‘All is Well’ can have.

Of all such notes, the one by Dr JK Bajaj, India’s leading demographer, on Indiafacts is by far the best. There is hardly any aspect, either historical or current, which is not covered by Dr Bajaj, who presents and dissects available data dispassionately.

One might ask the need of this blogpost if Dr Bajaj’s analysis is so comprehensive. My humble submission is – while I am ill-equipped to add anything worthwhile to Dr Bajaj’s analysis, this post could probably make it reach out to handful of more people, providing key points in brief.

• As per the census data, growth rate of Muslim population in between 2001 and 2011 was 24.4% as against a general growth rate of 17.7%. What most of the mainstream reports did not state that this 17.7% comprises the growth rate of ALL communities and not communities other than Muslims. Unreported was the growth rate of Hindus, which at 14.5% is lower than the Muslim growth rate by 9.9% in absolute terms. When compared to the Hindu rate of growth, Muslim growth rate is higher by a whopping 68.8% (9.9% over 14.5%). Even when taken against the mis-directional National average, it is still 37.9% higher (6.7% over 17.7%)
• Much has been made by MSM on the decline of Muslim growth rate from 29.5% in 2001 to 24.4% now. However, what has hardly been reported is a steeper decline in growth rate of Hindus, i.e., from 20.3% to 14.4%. Yet again, apologists have tried to attribute higher growth rate of Muslims to their supposed poverty and illiteracy. Yet, this does not explain Kerala, where Muslims have risen from 24.7% to 26.6% of the population despite being much better off compared to Hindus, both economically and socially. Even the much poorer Pakistan (20%) and Bangladesh (14%) have lower growth rates. So much so for illiteracy and poverty driving Muslim population growth.
• Now the ‘paltry’ growth of Muslims from 13.4% to 14.2% of the population. For one, Muslims share in population expanded by around 6% over its base (14.2% against 13.4%). In the same period, Hindus share in population dropped by around 2.7% on its base (78.35% against 80.5%). As a result, for the first time since independence, Hindus are less than 80% of the population.
• In the last 60 years, Hindus have dropped by 6.8% on its base (from 84.1% in 1951 to 78.35% in 2011). In the same period, Muslim share in population has grown by a whopping 45% (14.2% in 2011 against 9.8% in 1961). As such, any impression that the Muslim growth rate is ‘paltry’ is simply self delusional. Of even more importance is the fact that Muslims have registered equivalent growth of 0.8% population share in the last 3 censuses consecutively.
• In many states, particularly Assam (34.2% in 2011 against in 30.9% in 2001), Kerala (26.6% in 2011 against in 24.7% in 2001), West Bengal (27% in 2011 against in 25.2% in 2001), Uttarakhand (13.9% in 2011 against 11.9% in 2001), Goa (8.4% in 2011 against 6.8% in 2001), Haryana (7% in 2011 against in 5.8% in 2001) and Delhi (12.9% in 2011 again 11.7% in 2001), share of Muslims in population has risen much faster. It is this demographic growth which has result in de-Hinduisation of villages after villages, in fact, whole of Talukas in Bengal and Assam and disturbingly being seen in pockets of North Kerala now.
• In 1909, UN Mukherjee had authored a book, Hindus, a dying race, based on his study of the continuous decrease of the Hindu’s share of population in undivided India. While the doomsday scenario painted by the author seems fanciful, it is a fact that the in 1881 (when the first census was taken), Muslims accounted for 20% of the Indian population. In 1941, they accounted for 24.3% while in 2011, Muslims comprise around 31.8% of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. For the Hindus, it has meant that from being close to 8 out of 10, they are now only 6 out of every 10 people inhabiting the Indian subcontinent.

Why are the above figures important? All of us understand the power of compounding in finances. How can then one assume that compounding would work differently in population growth? If Pakistan had a growth rate equivalent to Bangladesh, its population would have been lower by around 5 million. Likewise, if Bangladesh had a growth rate similar to Pakistan, its population would have been higher by some six million. A widening gap between Hindu and Muslim growth rates simply means that the Muslim population share would keep on increasing in a geometric progression.

And all this is assuming that the census data is correct. To assume that is again delusional. Any observer / resident of Andhra, Tamil Nadu and tribal belts of Orissa, Bengal and Jharkhand would vouch that the Christian population has increased dramatically. Data submitted by churches themselves indicate that Christian population in India is closer to 4% rather than the declared 2%. If we consider data reported by evangelists as authentic, then Christians have an even higher population share. Plain and simple, currently a Scheduled Caste person loses reservation benefits if the fact of conversion is reported. So, while people may get baptized, they may worship and get married in churches, their official documents record them as Hindus. If, the current Government, in its urge to prove its secular credentials, does extend reservation benefits to Dalit Christians, rest assured, the reported Christian population in India is certain to register an exponential growth.

When people talk of Bangladeshi infiltration, they miss that infiltration of Hindu refugees actually pushes up the Hindu population share and growth rate. That it is still relatively lower only shows the high growth rate of Abrahmic religions in India. And since it can reasonably be assumed that while Hindus are converting to Islam (particularly of the Love Jihad variety), the scale of conversion is very low compared to Christian proselytization. As such, even when accounting for Muslim Bangladeshis in India, Muslim growth is to a large extent, is organic in nature.

What is the cause behind higher growth of Muslims? While cultural and political factors (including infiltration) certainly contribute, can some blame not be apportioned to successive governments of India?

Indian Government has been pushing for population control since decades. While the message for population control may seem less pervasive now, what is curious is the focus of family planning – exclusively a Hindu face. Of all campaigns run by the Government, hardly any, if at all, advert had any Muslim character (either in name or appearance) who was facing issues on account of a large family or to who the message of family planning was being disseminated. Remember your Doordarshan days and those sundry ads in various newspapers and hoardings? The woman in question would always be wearing a bindi and sindoor. Ever remember a woman with a burqua or a hijab? Or a man with a skull cap or a Muslim beard? Maybe the Government’s efforts were not conscious. But, subliminally, with Muslims missing from the frame, the message was that it was the Hindus who needed to stop breeding. 

If only a change in demographics did not mean a change in culture, taboos and territory, population growth of any community, for its own sake, would have hardly been of any concern.

Poriborton - a mere change of face is not enough

With successive Indian Governments not exactly having set the Ganga on fire with their list of accomplishments, the 6 year NDA Government (1998-2004), was not really a bad deal for India. If nothing else, that Government did nothing which created a social fissure or economic meltdown. Yet, the Government failed to get re-elected. The reasons vary as per biases of the observer. For the secular fundamentalist, it was on account of the Gujarat riots, for the statistician, an outcome of alliances, for the socialist, a backlash against capitalism and for many committed BJP supporters, an apathy which held them back for voting for the party.

This intermittent blogger has previously argued that the seeds of BJP’s downfall had been sown in between 1998-1999 itself and that the NDA’s return to power in 1999 General Elections was more of an incidental event rather than an affirmative reward by the public. The reasoning is simple – the BJP lost vote-share as compared to 1998 and rather than breaking new ground, like it had done in between 1996-98 and earlier in between 1989-1991, its footprints had reduced. Moreover, unlike previous occasions, when a war or a large internal security issue had resulted in an electoral surge for the party seen as being best placed to secure the Nation, the Kargil War could help the BJP only retain its tally of 182 seats.

While the non-BJP/anti-BJP camps may offer different viewpoints, the reasons behind BJP’s denudation was obvious. The people who had voted for the BJP all through the 90s had not done so for love and fresh air alone. They had done so in hope of a break from the past, a new model of governance and a hope of having a ruler who could walk the talk. Yet, what did we have? A Prime Minister who made the obnoxious Nehruvian consensus his own! A party which seemed determined to desperately woo those who seemed even more determined to hate it and a polity which continued to rule the way it had for the previous half-century! Unfortunately, it was not the BJP alone which paid a price for acting like those proverbial pigs in ‘Animal Farm’, who, having dispossessed the oppressor, aped the latter and became one of them. More than the BJP, it was the Indian Nation which got punished in form of a decade long debilitating rule of the UPA.

So much so from the past!

But why to rake up these painful memories when we have a BJP Government at the centre today led by a charismatic individual who single handed has won a majority for the party?

This digging up of the past is important for while early, not only is the BJP is acting like those who it has defeated, it is showing signs of yet again succumbing to the need of getting accepted by those who have nothing but disdain for those who make the BJP what it is. If this assertion seems to verge on hyperbole, let’s consider the following:

• Commencing dialogue with Pakistan even when the ground reality of its support to terrorism has not changed
• Effecting an individual driven change in rules of service for TRAI
• Changing railway fares through an executive order rather than the budget
• The PM’s ostensible views getting communicated through whispers and leaks
• Proposal on easing Visa restrictions on Bangladesh, forget about clamping on illegal migration
• Government’s inclination to press ahead with enclave swap, Teesta water treaty with Bangladesh
• Continuing with UIDAI
• Little movement or even statement of intent on corruption cases involving the previous dispensation, sons-in-laws

More ominously, those very experts, who had warned of apocalypse if Modi were to come to power, are now sending messages of reassurance that the new dispensation’s adventurism has been replaced by pragmatism and life will continue as it was before May 26, 2014. After all, for these experts, anyone who lights candles at the Wagah border is certain to warm cockles of their bleeding hearts.

True, the India society has become accustomed to a slow pace of change. Yet, the masses who voted in droves for Modi, did not do so with a hope of having a saffron Congress in saddle. If a vote for Modi was an endorsement of what he had come to embody, it was an even stronger rejection of the past. A vote for Modi was a vote in hope of a better tomorrow, not a fatalistic acceptance of a little more of the same of the last decade. 

The BJP may complaint that the public is not allowing them a honeymoon period. But why should the public do so? If a Government enjoys fruits of power from day 1, it has to be accountable from that day. True, there is a time for build up but that gestation period should not end up un-nerving the public, particularly when the early signs of poriborton are more of the same. Anyway, in this world of instant communication, which incidentally the BJP should understand, having tapped its power only recently, there will be little patience shown by those who got swept to voting booths on the promise of a positive change. 

Lest the BJP feel that it being treated unjustly, let it remember that human beings are designed to judge more strongly those who they have trusted. Vengeance for trust broken is high – ask Aam Aadmi Party. A BJP seen as getting back on its promises will be wiped out even more comprehensively than the Congress. While that fate may be five years away, we have critical assembly polls happening later this year. For a government whose legitimacy was questioned on shallow grounds of vote-share, a loss in the polls would be a serious setback, indicating that the surge of support for Modi/BJP was but a temporary anomaly. The polls are for BJP’s taking. What it needs to do is to simply walk its talk and if that seems difficult, at the very least, not commit those acts which it had opposed, while in opposition.

For the sake of the Nation, let us hope that what are now being seen as disturbing signs turn out to be false alarms and that the BJP does deliver what it has promised.

Unilateralism is not National Interest

Doing the same things again and again but expecting different results is a sure indication of madness.

The pending land swap deal with Bangladesh has taken a lot of space in newsprint and bytes. Most of these articles and op-eds refrain that it will be in the best interest of India to go-ahead with the land swap and that the opposition is putting sectarian interests over National interests.  On receiving end particularly is the Trinamul, which has been accused of constantly placing interests of West Bengal over interests of India, first when it torpedoed the Teesta water sharing treaty and now, when it has taken a stand against land swap. However, the accusers are probably not aware that such accusations in a way accept that the proposed treaties were not in the best interests of the State of West Bengal. Logically speaking, how could arrangements harmful for a state be beneficial for the Nation when it is states which comprise the Nation?

Another set of sage advice which our chattering classes have been offering pertain to our need to strengthen Nawaz Sharif and refrain from make a big issue of sundry killings of our soldiers. It is offered that while Sharif is keen on peace with India, the army establishment isn’t and hence is creating a situation where Indian reaction will force Sharif to adopt an anti-India stance. In the same breath, these worthies contend that it is the army which runs Pakistan and its nascent democracy rules only at the pleasure of the Army generals. If that be the case, then pray, what exactly will be gained by engaging with Sharif, a person not in control of his army’s actions?

A Nation displaying consistent behavior in its over 2500 years of chronicled history is not a commonplace occurrence. However, ethnographers have often commented on the amazing degree of continuity India has displayed over these centuries. In words of many, were it possible for people to travel across the dimension of time, an Indian villager of 500 B.C. would not have felt out of place in a 19^th century village. Why would he, when the mode of agriculture, allied occupation, festivals and the general way of life would hardly have undergone any change? Hence, given our natural tendency for status quo, it is not really surprising that India’s approach to its relations with neighbouring countries has been more or less consistent. There were aberrations though. Chandragupta Maurya, Kanishka, Chandragupta II, Alauddin Khilji and the British, all in varying degrees, followed policies which recognized that security of the heartland lies in fortifying its borders. Sadly, the cumulative impact of these regimes was not strong enough to bring about a change in the approach of other rulers. Overall, the approach of our rulers to our neighbours has been a mix of denial, disdain, fear and appeasement.

It must be said the Chinese cannot be accused of shortsightedness. Mao had seen the entire Himalayan region as ripe for China’s picking, with Tibet as the palm and Ladakh, Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan and NEFA (Arunachal Pradesh), as its five fingers. And what has our approach been? India unilaterally and unequivocally gave up all its rights in Tibet and the result was a belligerent China entering our backyard. If Tibet had been the only foreign policy disaster bequeathed as legacy by our first Prime Minister, it could still have been explained away as a misstep. However, the same fantasy filled foreign policy saw India gift Manipur’s land to Burma without any reciprocity, failure to stand up for the rights of Tamils of Indian origin in Ceylon and the summary expulsion of Indians from Burma. In face of huge resistance from within the Congress and from the opposition, our first Prime Minster entered into a pact with Pakistan on protection of minorities in their respective Nations. Just how effective was this pact can be gauged from the large scale pogroms which East Pakistan unleashed on its hapless Hindu minority soon after this pact.

One could say that India found a resolute leader in Lal Bahadur Shastri when he took the war to the heart of Pakistan. However, Shastriji too succumbed to the very Indian trait of magnanimity and ended up frittering the gains of that war at Tashkent. Indira Gandhi proved that was a cut above most politicians when she took decisive action to create Bangladesh. However, it was the same Indira who gave away all the leverages at Simla. It was the same Indira who handed over a strategic island to Sri Lanka without any reciprocation. The iron lady gave wound up Shanti Bahini without any counter benefit from Bangladesh and proved ineffectual in protecting the interests of the Indian Diaspora in East Africa.  

One would have imagined that a Government headed by the hyper Nationalist BJP would have steered India’s foreign policy to a more pragmatic plane. Indeed, it did seem so when India detonated atomic bombs. However, the Nation soon realized that all the gains of the blasts were squandered away, first by a unilateral moratorium on further blasts and then by adoption of an ill-thought no first use policy. Fifteen years after the blasts, it will not be unfair to say that the only gainer from May 1998 was Pakistan. That Nation not only achieved a visible nuclear parity with India, today it has a larger and much more potent nuclear arsenal and more critically, a more reliable delivery system as compared to us. Some of us may take solace that our atomic and missile journey has been largely indigenous while Pakistan’s weapons are a bastard child sired by China and North Korea. But how does it matter on the battlefield? Pakistani weapons won’t decide to reduce their potency out of respect to our efforts. How effective are our weapons anyway when the blasts allegedly failed to meet all of their vitals and a no-first use policy is certain to allow a hostile Nation to decimate our seats of power before India is even ready to react?

Probably in his quest for a Peace Nobel, Vajpayee inflicted significant harm to our National interests. If surrendering our last leverage on Tibet was not enough, he created further openings for China in the hitherto uncontested region of Sikkim. It was the NDA Government which legitimized Musharraf’s coup when it invited him to Agra. Each abomination, be it the Kaluchak camp massacre or the Parliament attack, India was adamantly consistent in its efforts to engage with Pakistan. And who can forget the spectacle of the tortured, maimed bodies of16 BSF soldiers, hung on poles like carcasses of dead animals, paraded gleefully from village to village by bloodthirsty Bangladeshi mobs? Even in that year, it was an India friendly Awami League Government at helm of affairs at Bangladesh and India’s shamefully muted protests were explained away as being driven by the need to strengthen Sheikh Haseena’s hands in an election year.

As far as the need for having a land-swapping agreement with Bangladesh is concerned, it is a no-brainer. For more than half a century, residents of those enclaves have led virtually orphaned lives. With there being no practical way of connecting those enclaves with their respective Nations, it is best that those pieces of land be exchanged. But, like any other human transaction, International relations too cannot be unilateral and devoid of a quid pro quo. Bangladesh will gain land out of this agreement. Bangladesh will gain water out of the Teesta agreement. What will India gain, if we leave aside the nebulous talk of some goodwill with God knows who! Will India gain transit rights across Bangladesh or will it see firm action from that country in holding back those who infiltrate into India? Or at the very basic level, will it result in Bangaldesh handing over an equivalent portion of excess land to India?

This will not be for the first time that sundry voices have asked India to play the magnanimous big brother to a smaller Nation. However, past experiences indicate that none of our actions have resulted in any gains for India. Much was made of the need to transfer the Tis Bigha corridor to Bangladesh but what did India gain out of it? Likewise, the Tin Bigha transfer in early 1990s achieved little other than creating new Indian enclaves in Bangladesh. India signed a heavily biased Ganga water treaty with Bangladesh in the hope the hostile Begum Zia would become friendlier to us. What exactly did we gain out of that give-away?

It is a truism that a Nation ought to strive to maintain healthy relations with its neighbours. It is even truer that a rigid adherence to a singular approach cannot be effective. Our standard approach of engagement, even in the face of gravest indignities and unilateral appeasement is not going to secure our neighbourhood. For too long has the Nation been held hostage to an unrealistic make believe world of low-impact diplomacy. Let our policy makers go back in ages and recognize the genius of Chankaya. Let them adopt the principle of managing our neighbours through a judicious mix of Saam, Daam, Danda and Bheda.

It is only a matter of time...

“My heart goes out for the people of Assam” so said Jawaharlal Nehru, when the hapless people of Assam were staring at the prospect of being invaded by the marauding Chinese. Nehru did not wash his hands off the North East with these immortal words. His Government ordered district treasuries to burn Indian currency lest they fell into Chinese hands and facilitated the exodus of civil servants from the state scrambling to escape the Chinese Invasion.

Much to Nehru’s surprise, the Chinese withdrew and Assamese realized that they were still an Indian state. Only, now with a realization that they were dispensable and mattered little to those dictating India’s destiny from their hallowed quarters at Delhi. Nehru and successive Governments have done precious little to allay the security concerns of our people from the North East. For decades, no roads were developed or bridges constructed out of the fear that they will aid the Chinese troops when they invade the North East next! Some border road development does seem to be happening now, now when the Arunachal border is connected to the Chinese mainland with all weather railway lines!

Successive governments at New Delhi have not been oblivious of the fact that armed invasions are not the only means to subjugate a people. Since we left the North East to its fate when they suffered an armed invasion, isn’t it fair that we leave them on their fate in face of other invasions too? If not the Chinese, why not the Bangladeshis? Assam has to be subjugated and preferably cut off from the rest of India and any means would do!

The recent bloodshed and humanitarian tragedy occupied a full 4.5 days of our National Media. Quite an achievement when the Guwahati molestation continues to stir up outrage and Rumi Nath continues to get new defenders of faith! Very clearly, for the National media, the death toll of 50 (official) and 4 lakhs of refugees mean little. But why did the same media go apoplectic when less than a tenth of these figures were affected by the Kandhamal riots, triggered off by the dastardly assassination of a venerated Hindu saint and his disciples? Let us not even talk of their Gujarat cottage industry where it would seem that massacres in African states took inspiration from the badlands of Gujarat.

Is it because it is quite inconvenient to visit Assam, particularly the affected districts? Or is it because the people don’t really resemble the ‘mainland Indians’ that much? Or is it because they believe that the North East is made of savage barbaric tribes who fall upon each other periodically just to sate their primeval bloodlust?  Or is it because the riots were between Hindus and Muslims, in which, horrors of horrors, atrocity on the Hindus, were too stark to be swept under the carpet? But try they did. Read any news-report and you will find it beginning with sorry tales of Muslim victims before it apologetically puts in a few lines for the Hindu victims too! One wonders what would have the police reaction been in case the ‘Promotion of communal violence bill’ been law? As per that Act, the Hindu refugees would have been treated as criminals and put behind bars!

Sadly, even those news anchors and columnists who are not unsympathetic to the plight of the Assamese Hindu, have adopted the moniker of ‘immigrants’ for the Bangladeshi swarms on Indian land. They are not ‘immigrants’. They are infiltrators. Period. 

Again, these people would like us to believe that this is not a Hindu vs. Muslim issue. Certainly, the Assamese Hindu sees both Hindu and Muslim Bangladeshis as people who have no rights over Assam but does the Assamese Muslim see it the same way? The answer is a clear no, with Muslim leaders vehemently protesting even the articulation of the idea of infiltration. If this is not about religion, why does the Assamese Muslim stand up with his Hindu counterpart to decry this demographic invasion? Why do all minority bodies in Assam promote and support the continued infiltration from across the border? Why do these leaders prefer to ignore the reality of Bodo refugees and claim that Muslims bore the brunt of the riots?

No amount of obfuscation would cover the fact the demographic invasion from Bangladesh has resulted in the native people becoming a threatened minority in their own lands. A proud race which withstood Islamic invasions and chased the Mughals out of their lands stand subjugated today, defeated by its very own Mir Jafars and Jai Chands. Lower Assam is as good as lost to us now, with the ethnic cleansing in this round of riots resulting in exodus of the remaining Hindu population from those districts. It took less than 3 years to cleanse Kashmir valley, 20 years to cleanse the West Pakistani lands to erase its Hindu population, and 25 years to irretrievably Islamise the East Bengal Lands. It has taken barely a century to silently invade and cover large swathes of Assam and adjoining states. The fact that the initial Bangladeshis were refugee Hindus does little to soothe the angst of the overwhelmed people. Who, in his right mind would be so generous so as to take in so many dependents that he turns to being a dependent himself? Unfortunately, for the North Easterners, the Tripura tribal has lost the land of his forefathers to refugees from the other side. The same way, Barak valley had turned into an outpost of Bengal long before the problem of Muslim infiltration had raised its head.

Some columnists have tried to give a spin to this entire saga by claiming the Bodo angst to the chauvinism of MNS. Are these people even aware of the import of what they are speaking about? To claim that the Bodo hostility to the Muslim infiltrator, if not controlled, will spill over to the Adivasi, to the Assamese and then the Indian is Goebbelsian propaganda of the worst order. Which Nation in this world would grant infiltrators rights? Forget about rights on an equal footing with its citizens? Even the celebrated Human Rights icon Au Sang Su Ki draws the line when it comes for ‘rights’ for the Rohingya Muslims, who by all accounts, are not Myanmarese citizens but descendants of Bangladeshi infiltrators. And since Myanmar won’t accept them and Bangladesh has little use for them, what better than to accommodate them in India? One can only wonder on how could over four thousand of them manage to supposedly cross Myanmarese borders and travel across Assam, Bengal, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh to reach New Delhi to demand rights on our lands?

Over millenniums, India has been a melting pot of people from various races coming, settling and then finally mingling with the Hindu society. These people adopted the Hindu way of life, their dress and the language such that we cannot even make out the origin of people in our midst. But, these were people who wanted to be one amongst us. How can the Indian Nation embrace people who come stealthily, displace and dispossess us and wish to become masters of our destiny?

Is it only a matter of time that another feckless Prime Minster will exclaim ‘My heart goes out for the people of Assam’ once again?

Not a Reformer certainly

I hold no brief for Mamata Banerjee but cannot help but wonder on what exactly has she done to deserve the hostility of the ELM? If it is on account of her rusticity, the media darling Lalu can give her tips anyday. If it is her propensity to throw tantrums, she can learn a thing or two from Jayalalitha. If it is her opportunism, she will be a student to the likes of Nitish, Naveen and Paswan and if it her populism, Manmohan Singh can teach her a thing or two.

Just imagine, a single woman who almost single handedly fought a mighty party / Government apparatus for over two decades and is known to by incorruptible (by standards of Indian politicians) is treated like a virago by the ELM. Her fault, she does not pay obeisance to the reigning matron at 10, Janpath and more critically, she is not seen as favoring the business houses. So, Mamata is berated for protesting against the Teesta water treaty. Her fault – she protested against the unfair share which Bangladesh was being provided under the treaty. The ELM conveniently declared her as being against National Interests and for putting provincial considerations over the National ones. Pray tell us, is Bengal not India? How can something which is bad for Bengal be good for India and most importantly, how can one claim that by giving away National assets, India gains. A question to all r those who still like in the make believe world of only give and no take, please tell how exactly did India gain by giving away rights on Tibet to China, by giving over Manipuri land to Burma, by handing over Katchtheevu to Sri Lanka, by handing over Tees Bigha, Tin Bigha and the Ganga water to Bangladesh? Both the Indus Water Treaty and the Ganges Water treaty are loaded in favor of the smaller nation. What did India gain with these acts of magnanimity that it should be more magnanimous?

Mamata is chided for her land use policy. So, what should be done? All the sharecroppers and small land owners be gassed or sent to gulags? Or have Kalinganagar, Nandigram, Vedic Village, Bhatta Parsaul repeated in thousands of villages of Bengal? While it is certainly Government’s business to promote trade and commerce, it is not its business to act as cronies of business houses trying to make money in the guise of growth. 

The ELM’s dislike of Mamata has reached newer heights with the Railways fare hike by Dinesh Trivedi. Sadly, the commentary provided by the ELM only serves to buttress the notion that a vast majority of people who masquerade as journalists are career discards who could do nothing better in life. Firstly, simply because Dinesh Trivedi declared the fare hike in terms of paise per km, it was declared by those sanctimonious people as marginal hikes. Of course, had they managed to clear their basic arithmetic examinations in school, they would have known that existing fares were (in progressive scale) less than 30 paise per km for second class rail travel and Rs 1.01 for AC second class travel. The hikes proposed by Dinesh Trivedi are marginal only if 15%-20% hikes are marginal. Another pretender from the same ilk, Vivian Fernandes, who happens to head a media company claims that fares had not been raised for the last two decades! Huh!

This is not to say that there was no case at all for a fare hike. At the same time, a mere fare hike does not make either the Railway budget progressive or Dinesh Trivedi a reformer. What has Trivedi done except to raise fares? There is absolutely nothing in the budget which would help reduce superfluous expenditure, improve safety, improve maintenance, improve passenger amenities or at the very minimum, improve cleanliness and punctuality. If claims of bringing down Opex Ratio is being greeted with orgasmic sighs, it only shows the barrenness of their intellect for it does not take much to understand that if revenue is increased, opex ratio will come down even when expenses are not reduced. No sir, Mr Trivedi has been hailed simply because he ostensibly stood against Mamata (though the entire saga reeks of having been fixed by the main protagonists). 

It is funny that precisely the same set of people start crying themselves hoarse when airfares climb upwards. Haven’t airfares been static for more than a decade? Should they at least not been tripled since everything has become so expensive? No, they haven’t for scale has also resulted in economies and airways have also cut down on superfluous expenses.

That we are back to the Indira and Rajiv years in terms of budgets seems to have escaped notice of the ELM completely. In those years, each budget would mean increased taxes, increased prices. This year, we have had hikes in Excise, Service Tax and Train Tickets. Almost everything will be more expensive. Reforms are dead and so is the India growth story. The ELM which went breathless commending UPA 1 & early UPA 2 for growth is strangely silent now. It never bothered to accept that economy performs with a time lag, i.e., policy decisions have a gestation of at least 2 years to bear fruit. UPA 1 reaped benefits of NDA policies and now chickens of UPA1 are coming home to roost. Long live the Italian matron! Long live NAC and long live Manmohan!