Politics of Modi and Kejriwal during Covid 19

Radhakanta Barik

After seeing the film Ankur by Shyam Benegal one can reach a conclusion that feudalism has two long phases: One phase of feudalism with philanthropic approach that the feudal lords used to take care of his subjects who depend on him including his concubine and son, the other phase is the son's feudalism which does not believe in any philanthropy and it makes profit for himself and even does not bother of his people who used to depend on him including the concubine who is expecting the child. This is the cruel face of feudalism.

This brings out the truth regarding capitalism under the Congress rule where there is a human face and today capitalism under Modi having no human face and it is meant for making ruthless profit for the capitalists. This comes true in the case of migrant labour where Modi is not ready to have a social package whereas the Congress pleads for a social package with Rs 7000 for each labouring family and free food. We should request Shyam Benegal to bring a film on capitalism to explain two phases.

The survey shows the social composition of migrants to MP who constitute almost 60% from SC and ST. As the BJP is an upper caste party showing its bias against them, by not giving a social package of Rs 5000 to each laboring family with free food. This may be the reason the BJP leadership is thinking for going towards a conservative economic policy where giving a slogan of 10% GDP as their upper caste supporters will go on campaigning for them and their works for the migrant labour. As Amit Shah has said they have done enough in the campaign for the BJP workers in Bihar and Bengal. But in reality, it is coming around only 1% of GDP and 9% percentage is preserved for their upper caste supporters who are expected to lose the job now for coming two years. This is the most difficult time for masses as they are suffering for the lack of work, income and food.

They are sucked into the process of getting Corona as they were forced to congregate for going home at the railway station and bus stands. This is a difficult time as middle class sit in their houses and see the spectacle of working people walking on the roads. They are carrying their children and plastic bag on their heads. This is a different time when people are dying on the road without food and water. Indian administration could not provide them food and drinking water which is not a difficult job for the district administration. Middle class are losing their patience with the Anurag Kashyap the leading film maker says that Indian middle class is disintegrating. He is an artist who can imagine before the Lockdown declared. After the Lockdown declared the middle class who came to stabilize during the 2002 to 2014 from 5% to 25% of Indian population are in the process of disintegration. According to the Survey conducted by NCAER that those having scooter, motor cycle are a part of middle class. With the disintegration of people whose income from Rs 10000 to 15000 has happened before the Lockdown. With the Lockdown the government is going to target the class having the income from 15000 to 40000 whom Modi used to use a concept Neo middle class and they will disappear as their children will not get any job and they will depend on income of their parents. This crisis is going to create havoc in class structure of a society. They will be joining the working class. There will be two classes one side: the working class struggling to survive and another class will rich who consume the luxuries. The scooter and motor cycle will be shifting from workers to upper sections of society. Modi's anger is against the Bajaj's Hamari scooter who is speaking against the Lockdown.

BJP government is following the conservative economic policy according to the Nobel Laureate Prof Abhijit Banerjee. It looks strange as the party's social base comes from Rajputs and Brahmins. Both are pauperised in the process of consolidation of capitalism. Their children want the jobs and employment. They left the Congress during the phase of liberalisation hoping their children to be accommodated in private capitalism. Private capitalism is facing crisis which needs investment by creating demand. Demands can come only if cash is there in the hands of people. The BJP government is adamant about not allowing the labouring and poor getting money under the social safety network. The economy cannot move as facts tell that India's growth has gone down and touching the lowest level. Then how the children of the upper castes would get high skilled managerial jobs in the private sector. They are with any party who can provide the jobs. They were with the BSP under the Mayawati in the last time and acquired most of the jobs. They are with the Yogi Modi as they want to get the most of the jobs. Most of law officials are belonging to Brahmin caste in UP and 170 from the Brahmins out of 200 in UP. But how far these two castes will go with Modi and Yogi as the economy is going to have negative rate of growth. This is a million dollar question for these castes who are behind the Hindutva movement but Hindutva has shifted to Banias of Gujarat and then question arises how long these two castes will remain with the BJP.

administration and political establishment. In the meantime, the police men of Delhi are arresting the political workers and student leaders from Jamia and JNU without any reason and making them responsible for the riots happened some time back. Middle class know everything who are responsible for the riots. In such a blatant violation of human rights the Supreme Court is standing silent for almost more than two months without taking the case till the last week when it arose to the occasion and gave the judgement on conditions of workers. Institutional decay makes people worried and shocked. This is the time they see the civil rights movement is happening all over USA and almost 100 towns are engulfed in the protest politics. The Lockdown is there and here but no protest politics against inhuman treatment of workers and civil rights activists making them shocked and numb. silence of the Supreme Court has created fear in the minds of people as they read the Constitution as the corner stone of social revolution but today it is unable to defend a constitution where as American Supreme Court is thriving in defense of constitution and in refence of people on the streets and media and judiciary which is the discerning feature of the difficult times.

Delhi had a population of 30 lakhs used to have six hospitals. Today with a one crore and 30 lakhs the same number of hospitals. Even Kejriwal government bans non Delhites to get admission into these hospitals which are insufficient. He during the last five years improved the performance to some extent of public hospitals without building new hospitals. Kejriwal and Modi stand on the same wave length by supporting the privatisation of health system which is affecting the Corona patients of Delhi today. He must restart public hospitals if he wants to save people of Delhi. As a citizen of Delhi I feel ashamed that the state government of Delhi is unable to provide beds to Corona patients. Last five years the present AAP government has not built one hospital. A hospital under construction from the Congress days still not complete in Dwaraka. Last two months the central government and state government have not taken any step in creating special Corona Hospital as done by Kerala and Odisha government. We are suffering from lack of health facilities as the private clinics exploit the common people of Delhi. The private hospitals could have mobilized under the National Disaster Authority as the Lockdown has been declared under the National Disaster Act. But the government has not taken steps in this direction. Most of the private hospitals are either nonfunctional in the days of Corona one sees them in Delhi.

After listening to the NDTV (9-6-20) on conspiracy dimension of Delhi riots one realized that Modi- Shah has applied a well-designed strategy to confuse the Indian public regarding Delhi riots. They experimented the strategy in a crude manner in Gujarat and got exposed by the media. The Godhra incident in the train was an accident which they blamed the Muslims as a conspiracy against the Hindu Ram bhaktas. Dead bodies were brought to Ahmadabad to flare emotions against the Muslim community. The police force worked in close with the RSS members to create riots of which many of them got punished after a long legal trial. But they have invented the old strategy to apply in the case of Delhi. The anti CAA movement was so popular and created new leaders specifically women activists. While anti CAA movement was going on the BJP leaders were busy in inviting Trump Modi meeting in Ahmadabad. With the end of the meeting the BJP leaders like Kapil Mishra and other cabinet ministers were vocal in threatening the Muslims and after three hours the riots started by the Hindutva forces who came from outside and local party workers helped them.

Then Lock Down got declared where curfew got declared in Delhi and Shaheenbagh protest got dismantled. In the meantime the police started preparing the charge sheets against the activists and arrested some of them. The court is playing hide and seek game with the arrests of these activists and some of them are women activist. But the media exposed this conspiracy angle which cannot stand unto the scrutiny to the court and public actions.

The conflict between Delhi government and Modi government in providing health services is the false as Kejriwal's five years has not built any new hospital and Modi government has not built any AIMS and those were in the pipe line proposed by the UPA government have not got completed because of lack of financial support and the health policy of BJP government that the health needs to be kept by the private players. Today crisis in health sector is self-made by Modi. The health budget of the last general budget is lower than the Bhutan, Nepal and Srilanka, Bangladesh and Pakistan which indicate the priority to health has not given by Modi government. The worst states in provision of health services are BJP ruled states UP and Assam. UP which gives both Modi and Yogi  of the Hindutva faces remain as the ghost province in terms of health services to its citizens. Two years back hundreds of children died in Gorokhapur which is being controlled by Yogi as fiefdom as he was elected MP from the constituency five times. He has arrested a famous pediatrics Professor here and kept him in Jail just because of his Muslim identity. This brings out truth that health policy remains adhoc and handling of COVID 19 is a difficult task for Modi and Kejriwal and Lockdown declared by Modi for political reasons rather than health reasons.

West Indies former Skipper Darren Sammy played for Sunrisers, Hyderabad where his former team mates called him" Kalu' and now he expresses the pains of being called in a racialist language of Kalu in a country where 90 percentages of people are black in colour. This brings to our housing society where the Sweeper from Bihar whose name is Dharmvir being called Kalu and he draws his salary in the name of Kalu not Dharmvir. Are we really racialists and hiding our feelings in a sophisticated word 'educated’? In JNU days there was a Sindhi friend who was doing MA in economics and had a girlfriend and told me," I cannot take my girlfriend to my home in Bombay and they will say that from where you get this girl from the jungles." These are the words of the Economics Professor from NEHU. In odiya poems and stories we find the word ' Kalu' is commonly used to abuse some girl having no wheatish colour. This needs to be discussed in various circles for cleansing our inferior consciousness and racialist consciousness. Once I was sitting in my village and two of my teacher friends sitting at the gate of temple where they saw the priest was coming into the temple. They inquired from me who was this person and I replied them that he was the priest and then from the same village told me ' He cannot be priest as he is having black colour." This explains that on the perception they think that Brahmins are white in their colours. This perception of black and racialism where Dharmavir or Sammy turns into Kalu has been embedded in our consciousness. Colour prejudices are embedded in minds of Americans and Indians as both hate black colour and have a strong racialism. 
This is a poem on racialism written by me.
We live in the same earth
we breath the same air
the death of Floyd has created ripples all over the world
An American artist makes his face into a multi coloured face
Pains have many voices
His black coloured face turned into reddish when the blood oozes into the face
Tears rolled down which has another colour
anger of the policemen is having a different colour
the police officer standing next to him having different colour
the multi coloured face turns into a powerful voice in the world
Here instead of the policeman standing on the neck
The king is standing over his neck
Here the black has turned into a worker
A dalit entering into temple in Amroha
He does not have a name like Floyd
Getting killed by four caste Hindu youths
The king does not have boots like the policemen
He has knees which works like the boots
He is kneeling down over the neck of a worker
The worker is screaming
That he cannot breathe
He does not have food for days
He has no money in his pocket
His hunger is a multi pronged
he carries hunger of his child
he carries hunger of his wife
He carries hunger of his mother
He carried hunger of his father
So much hunger has made him a skeleton
A skeleton under the knees of a powerful strong person
He does not have strength of say a word
In silence he suffers
he dies in the end
Like Floyd died after screaming that
" I cannot breathe"
pains are the same
pains have the same language
the painters have found the voice for the pains
The poets are trying to tell those in words
the story writers will write stories
Novelists will write novels over the pains of workers
I always see a young handsome youth stands in front of the temple
he offers his prayer and coconut
the priest comes out takes the coconut with some money
Money he keeps and he returns the coconut
But there are four gunned men standing at the gate
They fired at the youth who got killed
The coconut fell down from his hands
The flowers fell on the ground
He cannot say Gandhi's Hey Ram
He cannot have a word
his pains are intense
It is a multi coloured face
blood oozes out of his body
Nobody took him to hospital
He is a Dalit
He is surrounded by people
men and women
both look at his death
They have not come out to the streets
They are in thousands in the streets of America
The cities having protests
The days of protests are going in America
Here there is no protest
The king is happy that there are no protests
There was a protest in all cities some time back
Women came forward against the CAA
They are being arrested now
They are in jails on false charges
Here voices are choked
Here faces look black
They are unable to express their pains
The poets are trying to write poems
Sufferings exhibited in the paintings
Auden wrote his famous poem
That sufferings are real
Be it here or in America
the voice of suffering is the same
"I cannot breathe"
Here no food or water
There under the boots of police
Here under the knees of the King
The pains are words themselves.

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Frontier
Jun 14, 2020