‘…that was the first things most
students tried to do’ quoted a Hindustan Times* report on the free laptops distributed
by the Uttar Pradesh chief minister.
The report was on how the laptops
crashed when the students tried to change the wallpaper that shows the CM
Akhilesh Yadav and his father Mulayam Singh Yadav.
Now whether to refer this act of
the UP government to distribute ‘eligible’ students laptop free of cost as an
act of charity or social responsibility of an elected government or
poll-related or poll-promise related populist sop of a government feeling the
heat of not delivering on law and order and development agenda, may have
separate lines of independent debates, but it tells us one thing very clearly –
nothing (not even every charity) comes free and when the political class of the
day is involved, never even think of it.
The interesting report made the equally interesting
observation: “Efforts to change the in-built tamper-proof wallpaper --
depicting Yadav and his father Mulayam Singh Yadav -- proved disastrous. The
laptops crashed. And when local HP engineers tried to rectify the problem,
Linux, one of the operating systems on the machine, got wiped.”
Brand-building the Indian politics way – imposed, forced, indoctrinated.
Indian politics is full of interesting case studies if one
thinks of doing a series of satirical stories such brand building exercises.
Incidents like politicians
introducing biographical lessons in text books during their term in the office or
the next group of political officer-bearers purging the concerned text book
content and introducing their own or politicians inundating every street and
corner with photographs, placards, hoarding and statues of their own or
politicians naming roads or projects in their names or politicians distributing
populist dole-outs and freebies funded by the taxpayers’ money in their own
name and branding, are numerous. No dearth of them.
Development as an ‘issue at the
level of professional doing’ is absent in every administrative unit of the
Indian government, be it the Union or the
States. At some places, development gets a higher turn-out rate like Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Chhattisgarh, Kerala and some other
Indian states and union territories. But nowhere, it is at the level of
‘professional management’ to ensure maximum efficiency.
States like Uttar Pradesh,
Odisha, West Bengal and some others come in the category where the element of
the ‘professional management’ does not even touches the political functioning
in ‘developing a development paradigm’ and even if touches, it happens as a
random and sometimes, standalone event.
Uttar Pradesh has become worse
than Bihar of Lalu Yadav days. Not only the lawlessness is on full display, but
equally frustrating are the profiles of the ministers entrusted to bring the India’s most
populous state back on the trajectory of development. Many hours of daily power
cuts have become regulars, and are already decades old. Civic infrastructure of
almost every city is crumbling. Except the national highways and privately
managed projects, the road infrastructure is in shambles. Industrial growth is
just limited to the National Capital Region areas and that too, is slowing
down.
The chief-minister in office was
elected to begin the process to undo this all. Yes, it cannot happen in one
year. But there is not even the remote sign of that beginning anywhere in view.
Instead, on full display are the typical brand-building practices of the Indian
politics.
But such practices always have an
element of caution – banking on them heavily costs dearly – Mayawati saw it,
Lalu Yadav saw it, the National Democratic Alliance saw it, the United
Progressive Alliance government will see it.
Hopes built on such a
brand-building have very pertinent possibilities of coming down crashing like
these ‘wallpaper tamper-proof free laptops’ are crashing.
* Removing Akhilesh wallpaper crashes laptops