GANGA IN VARANASI

What does the Ganga in Varanasi have that it not just pulls the Indians only but also has become a priority centre for the tourists from across the world?

For the face value now, if one takes a tour of the Ganga across its iconic Varanasi ghats, one finds poorly managed ghats littered with garbage dumps, open flow of sewage into the holy river through its landmark ghats and a wide, strip from the ghat steps, of dirty, almost opaque Ganga water choked with pollutants.

Certainly, it leaves a lasting impression, and by now, it is known across. Any discerning tourist is bound to find plenty of news stories and analytical reports on Ganga pollution in Varanasi during his pre-visit preparations.

Yet, the Ganga in Varanasi remains a global attraction.

Why so?

THE MUSIC OF NATURE IN FUSION WITH GANGA

PHOTOGRAPHY

Taking a boat ride down the Varanasi’s Ganga, when the gentler clouds play with the mighty sun and when the beads of the rains are in a flirtatious mood to float along with you, writes a perfect script for a soulful day.

You with your Soul, on a joyride, on a day like this, when the softness of the breeze and the melody of the eternal flow of the Ganga create perfect musical notes of silence and ambience – it’s the bliss needed to take you to ‘you’ – to take you to your Soul..

..come, enjoy the music of nature in fusion with the Ganga..

THE MUSIC OF NATURE IN FUSION WITH GANGA

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©/IPR: Santosh Chaubey - http://severallyalone.blogspot.com/ 

SUCH MOMENTS, THEY INVARIABLY COME..

LIFE - COLORES INFINITUM (38)

They invariably come.

Personified, creating, adding to the spreading gloom..

Positioned, aiding to the fix of the restlessness..

Predisposed, like a forgotten follow up to the ruin of thoughtlessness in thoughts..

Moments that let you down..

Moments, when they let you down..

Moments, when they personify the negatives in your life..

WHY DO WE ROB THEM OF THEIR CHILDHOOD?

CHILDREN OF SEX WORKERS

These idols including the Buddha ones look like immature work of some childhood creativity but when we realize that each of them has been sculpted by the children of the sex workers at an NGO centre run for them in the red-light area where they are under the constant gaze of easy money lure and scavengers feeding on moral values of life, suddenly, these idols start talking to us.

It happened with me during my visit to the Gudia centre at the Shivdaspur red-light area of Varanasi.

These marginalized children who are born without any identity and are treated by the society as pariah are not different from the children in our houses, in my house, in your house, bubbly, smiling, looking for that playful joy in every thing.

Why do we rob them of their childhood then?

Photographs are taken at Gudia centre for sex workers’ children at the red-light area (still) of Shivdaspur locality in Varanasi.

Gudia is a not-for-profit working against human trafficking for forced prostitution.

©/IPR: Santosh Chaubey - http://severallyalone.blogspot.com/  

THE JOY OF CHILDHOOD – THE CLASS LEVELER

A child can make a toy out of anything. Be it the leftovers from the garbage dump or highly sophisticated gazettes that cost a fortune, the attention is immaculate.

Anywhere can be the playground of a child – a leveller, free of class discrimination.

These photographs are artistic expression of collective effort of a group of one of the most marginalized social formations - children of sex workers.

Taken at Gudia centre for sex workers’ children at the red-light area (still) of Shivdaspur locality in Varanasi, these photographs convey this feeling. Untrained children here have created model of a water theme park from waste material after their visit to the water park on the outskirts of the city.  

And the seniors at the Gudia centre say the model is a matching model replica of the water park capturing elements in detail. Such a good work in only possible when it is done with pure joy at heart.

Gudia is a not-for-profit working against human trafficking for forced prostitution. 

©/IPR: Santosh Chaubey - http://severallyalone.blogspot.com/  

GIVE THEM A GENUINE REASON TO SMILE

For some, the horizon looks perpetually lost. 

They do not want to know what is life. 

They could never realize what living is meant to be.

Their existence was killed the day they came to exist in this world.

Make a day for them. 

Give them a genuine reason to smile. 

Give them a hope that at least could sustain for a day. 

Give them the chance to claim the life the way we claim.

Fight for them. 

They need you. They need me. They need us.

....FOR CHILDREN OF SEX WORKERS....

©/IPR: Santosh Chaubey - http://severallyalone.blogspot.com/  

HEIGHT OF MODIPHOBIA: INDIAN PARLIAMENTARIANS WRITE ‘FAKE’ LETTER TO BARACK OBAMA TO DENY NARENDRA MODI US VISA

Silly, isn't it?

This is an Indian parliament that witnesses unholy site of currency notes being waved in the House by some of its Parliamentarians.

This is an Indian Parliament that makes false promise to bring the Lokpal Act and later ducks the massive outrage of the public that had forced it commit on institutionalizing a tough Lokpal in a time-bound manner. This is an Indian Parliament that doesn't know how to honour its ‘Sense of the House’ pledge.  

  

This is an Indian Parliament that is witnessing increasing share of politicians with criminal record – term after term.

This is an Indian Parliament where the last many of the Parliament sessions have seen nothing but unceremonious and heated arguments, walkouts and adjournments.

Some of the parliamentarians who don’t care for the dignity of the Parliament!

And so, this ‘act’ by our parliamentarians, something that puts the country’s image in negative light, is not surprising at all.

It is being hotly debated if some of our parliamentarians have let down the sovereignty of the country by writing to the US President Barack Obama to deny US visa to Narendra Modi.

Certainly they have! No need debating it.

As the reports say, it (this silly act) is brainchild of an Independent Rajya Sabha MP Mohammed Adeeb.

MANMOHANOMICS & MONTEKONOMICS: DO YOU KNOW FOLKS, MILLIONS OF US JUST GOT RICHER?

In a huge, huge achievement, in a trademark Montek Singh Ahluwalia style, packaged and presented in the Manmohan Singh style, yesterday, all of a sudden, we the Indians were told by the economy wizard of the nation that his government had lifted almost 15 per cent of the Indians above the poverty line since 2004-05.

Maybe, we, the Indians, could not assess it given our choked mental faculties that keep working 24/7 to ensure how to handle the daily and monthly expenses with regular price rises, of almost everything of use, from routine items, to the means of absolute necessity.

And like Manmohan Singh has always been very comfortable with the manipulative duplicity of statistics, this time too was no different. Only a week ago, the economist in Manmohan Singh had proclaimed: “The percentage of population below the poverty line declined at 0.75 percentage points per year before our government came to office in 2004-05. It has fallen more than 2 percentage points per year between 2004-05 and 2011-12” – and so be it. Isn’t it?

After all, one of our principal lords says it. After all, he represents the luminous class of the politicians with a parasitic lifestyle enjoying luxuries of life on taxpayers’ money while regularly lecturing the taxpayers to practice austerity.

It is indeed largesse on their part when they give us the lowest possible figure (statistics dear!) for ‘our’ Poverty Lines. It is, in some way, a sort of mechanism to take millions of Indians away from the clutches of the ‘defined’ poverty limits.  

And so, the Montekonomics version of Manmohan’s proclamation is now out.

It is like – see, you are not poor because we say that you are not in the poverty line list. So, celebrate your day with Rs. 33 a day if you are an urban Indian and Rs. 27 if you are from some rural neighbourhood.

A mouth organ sort of tool of our lords, the Planning Commission of India, headed by the Economy Nobel defying wisdom, that we also know as Motekonomics, of Manmohan Singh’s learned deputy Monetk Singh Ahluwalia, has come up with the miraculous statistical manipulation, yet again, to lessen the miseries of ‘we, the Indians’ – by telling us to believe that hundreds of millions of us have become richer by overnight.

THREATENING THE VOICE OF PROTEST: IS THIS THE NEW YOUTH BRIGADE OF RAHUL GANDHI?

It is unacceptable, be it Rahul Gandhi or Narendra Modi at the helms of managing their party affairs, in this case the so-called youth politicians of the Indian National Congress who barged in a Mumbai restaurant, threatened the owners on an innocuous looking bill that simply was merely a tool to vent the anti-government anger in a democratic way.

Rahul Gandhi who claims that the Congress is Mahatma Gandhi’s party and party members should mind on what they speak and do has this training for his youth wing members?

What should we expect from such intolerant youth politicians when they would be given responsibilities to govern us in the future?

Won’t we be inheriting increasing number rowdy elements, the political goons, ready to crush every democratic voice of political dissent, if such elements are sheltered, trained and promoted by the main ruling party of India?

And ironically, such political goons are in almost every political outfit, and more ironically, they are being harboured as our future leaders.

MAYBE, YOUR SILENCE STILL SPEAKS TO ME..

The words and the soul they had

Still sound so meaningful to me

Cannot say why I read them still

Again and again, wishing for more

Words that push the lost person in me

To be found, to become soulful again

The words and the soul they had

Given a life by your presence

Words, now personified by your absence

Cannot say why but they stayed

Maybe, to be with my loneliness

To heal, when I seek nothing but you

Cannot say why I still care for you

Maybe, your silence still speaks to me

©/IPR: Santosh Chaubey - http://severallyalone.blogspot.com/  

SHAKEEL AHMAD (CONGRESS) LEGITIMIZES INDIAN MUJAHIDEEN’S ORIGIN: NARENDRA MODI SCORES ONE MORE POINT

Tricky but interesting political premises:

Congress strategists are feeling they are effectively on the way to polarise the anti-Modi and anti-BJP Muslim votes in their favour and it manifests in party’s silence over Shakeel Ahmad’s tweet on Indian Mujahideen quoting an NIA report blaming BJP, RSS and 2002 Gujarat riots for the terror outfit origin. They would be aided by the premise that a communal Vs secular polarization would help them get over the huge anti-incumbency against the UPA government.

Narendra Modi would be feeling good that the Congress strategists are playing the game he has started exactly as per his designs as the main ruling party’s efforts to polarise the Muslim votes would help his efforts to polarise the Hindu votes in his favour. The polarisation of the divided Hindu votes along with the UPA’s anti-incumbency and Narendra Modi’s pro-development reputation would be a cocktail that several millions of voters would be tempted to try in a country where something like chronic political corruption is still not a decisive issue.

IT TAKES ME TO THE DAYS OF 'US'..

It revives

Like

The persisting rains

Today

After a sultry

Humid spell

It embraces

Like

The rain drops

Quenching

A longing Soul 

As it shall

Reigniting

The never satiated

Thirst again, of

You

Pushing

My restlessness

In thoughts

It wraps

Like

The new green

Leaves discover

Yet again

It radiates

The fragrance

The soil exudes

Yet again

The rain

Today

Takes me

To the days of 'us'

To 'you'

Again..

 ©/IPR: Santosh Chaubey - http://severallyalone.blogspot.com/  

‘MODI’COM

Political communication the Narendra Modi way

Two days, a recorded interview, two meetings, and some scathing remarks with some opportunistic but timed phrases – and Narendra Modi is dictating the terms of the political communication in the country.

This is the phenomenon of the brand Modi and the agenda-setting the Narendra Modi way.

Two days, July 12, when the Reuters interview set the day’s news agenda and July 14, when Narendra Modi addressed two gatherings in Pune, one in a college, addressed to the youngsters by a Narendra Modi clad in white while the other one was addressed to the BJP workers, by a Narendra Modi, clad in saffron.

Such is his pull that his opponents are busy interpreting what he said digging out points where they can attack Modi on what he said, and are responding accordingly. And in their overzealousness, they are interpreting what Modi would not even have thought of – all to the advantage of Narendra Modi.

To be expanded.. 

©/IPR: Santosh Chaubey - http://severallyalone.blogspot.com/  

ARE WE A FAILED DEMOCRACY? ARE WE A FALLING NATION?

Thousands die but their lives are counted for some bucks and the buck is passed to be forgotten conveniently totally ignoring the fact that who died were the fellow human beings!

What sort of idiots we are or what sort of idiots we are made to look like or what sort of idiots we have been made to be fooled around so easily.

And resultantly and not so reluctantly we are forced to think about the question and the prospect, time and again, with an increasing frequency – are we a failed democracy? Are we a falling nation?

It is because ‘they’ have reduced the ordinary Indian to a mere living creature whose life doesn’t matter; the living creature, ‘the ordinary Indian’ who doesn’t figure anywhere on any priority list.

Instead, ‘they’ comfortably prey upon the developments to further their selfish agenda.

And even if ‘they’ look to come into some action, it is because ‘they’ see some political points to score in a particular case.

And who is this ‘they’ who has reduced us, the ordinary Indians, to such a state of human ruin?

MID-DAY MEAL KILLS CHILDREN, RICKSHAW-PULLER KILLS PATIENT –WHY THIS ‘OCCASIONAL’ CRY WHEN SUCH ‘REGULAR’ CRIMES NEED SUSTAINED ATTENTION

Isn't it a conspiracy that the kids who lost their lives after consuming the poisoned mid-day meal in a government school of Bihar become the subjects of the political blame game that soon crosses all the limits of sanity?

And what about this characterized uproar every time whenever many of us, sometimes in thousands, become victims of a man-made systemic political apathy?

Why is it that we look to care for what caused the disaster whenever a disaster takes place and then forget it conveniently until next one happens?

This silence, or to say more aptly, this ignorance, is a criminal negligence on part of all of us who are capable enough to raise the voice.

It was not a long ago, in fact it was in last July only when the nation had seen huge outrage over ward boys and sweepers performing minor surgery, dressing and autopsy, potentially threatening lives of the patients in Bulandshahr, Meerut and Balia cities of Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous but India’s most digressive state.

‘THEY’ & ‘WHAT SORT OF IDIOTS, WE THE INDIANS, ARE’?

What sort of idiots we are or what sort of idiots we are made to look like or what sort of idiots we have been made to be fooled around so easily.

And resultantly and not so reluctantly we are forced to think about the question and the prospect, time and again, with an increasing frequency – are we a failed democracy? Are we a falling nation?

It is because ‘they’ have reduced the ordinary Indian to a mere living creature whose life doesn't matter; the living creature, ‘the ordinary Indian’ who doesn't figure anywhere on any priority list.

THE FRACTURED MAJORITY, THE CONSOLIDATED MINORITY AND THE VOTEBANK POLITICS

Ironically a rueful fact in a democracy – electoral politics in India is dominated by votebank appeasement. This votebank politics has some inherent traits.

Hindus, the majority votebank (80%), are divided and sub-divided along different caste and sub-caste lines and caste is still the major factor in deciding whom to vote for. Though, the widening base of the middle class does act independently (and so positively) of this caste prejudice sometimes, it is still a long way to go before the country can see a democratically healthy electoral process based on issues of human development.

Over the years, to exploit the caste sentiments, politicians have worked overtime to make the fissures go deeper in the fractured Hindu society by promoting caste-based politics.

On the contrary, with the minority votes, the situation is different.

AT LEAST, TO LET ME KNOW..

Where are you, I don’t seek anymore

Why aren’t you, I don’t ask anymore

Why don’t you speak, I don’t question anymore

Why don’t you ask, I don’t think about anymore

Why did you go I could not have asked

What made you go still makes for my thoughts

You said it was, you said it wasn’t

I tried to listen, I tried to follow but couldn’t

I had to but I could not ask why I wasn’t

Why it had to be, what it had not to be

I am still, there, and here, with me, waiting

Would you please, come back, at least, to let me know..

©/IPR: Santosh Chaubey - http://severallyalone.blogspot.com/  

NARENDRA MODI BEGINS: THE EXPECTED KEY ELEMENTS FROM THE FIREWORK THAT IS GOING TO BE ON DISPLAY

It has already begun. The Reuters interview can be treated as the formal announcement – timed and worded the Narendra Modi way!

It is just a matter of time when Narendra Modi is declared the NDA’s prime-ministerial nominee. Anyway, he is already calling the shots. He has started writing the script of BJP’s and NDA’s strategy to approach the upcoming assembly and parliamentary elections.

As expected, it is going to be the reflection of the Narendra Modi style of politics and is going to be based on the experiences gained in Gujarat. And it has to be seen in the light of the growing realization among the majority of the BJP leaders that a wider deviation from the core Hindutva ideology has harmed the party, especially in absence of someone like Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

This would certainly push the party and the coalition strategists to push for a ‘mix’ of religion and politics that could serve the twin purposes of – not looking too deviant on the core Hindutva ideology as well as not sounding communal while wooing the voters on the religious line.

I AM A HINDU NATIONALIST: ELECTION TIME FOLKS - MODI SETS THE BALL ROLLING

“Modi has a poor impression about the Indian people, to be a Hindu nationalist is an oxymoron. Religion can't have nation. It is a very narrow and unsustainable idea to use a religion and treat it as a companion of nationalism” - External Affairs Minister Salmnan Khurshid, Indian National Congress

“It is a very sad, humiliating and very disturbing statement. He is saying Muslims are worse than even puppies? He should immediately apologise to the people of this nation” - SP General Secretary Kamal Farooqui

“Thousands were killed in the riots and in the backdrop, the analogy used by Narendra Modi needs to be strongly condemned. There is no place for such a comparison in civilised India. It is reflective of his perverse mindset. It is totally against the idea of India....We are unable to understand as to what is the intention of raising such things before the elections," - Ajay Maken, Indian National Congress

“No one can change the character of any person. This is just the beginning of unveiling of his character, more will come out in future. Nitish always said Modi is fascist, Modi always treated minority with contempt” - Sabir Ali, JD (U)

“I think Narendra Modi is mentally unstable, his psychoanalysis test should be done” Shivanand Tiwari, JD (U)

“It is utterly shameful that he is justifying the genocide and using inappropriate examples and analogies to trivialise the enormity of it” - Brinda Karat, CPI(M)

“Shouldn't we all be Nationalist Indians rather than Hindu Nationalist or Muslim Nationalist or Sikh Nationalist or Christian Nationalist?” – Digvijay Singh, Indian National Congress

“There is nothing called Hindu or Muslim nationalist, there is only Indian nationalist.” - Rehman Khan, Minority Affairs Minister, Indian National Congress

The supercharged reactions from the ‘other’ political masters, targeted at ‘the one’ among them – that was exactly what Narendra Modi, the four-time and in-office chief minister of Gujarat and Bhartiya Janta Party’s (BJP) 2014 election campaign committee head and the de-facto prime-ministerial nominee of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), would have in mind when he decided to endorse his Hindu nationalist identity yet again, after a gap of some time – unlike what he had been trying in the recent past. 

The Narendra Modi politics of his recent history was focused on adding elements to his persona and so to his identity that could improve his outreach across the ‘categories’ of the voters in a politics that survives on the votebank manipulations. 

One of the most telling examples of this was trying to deliver a message to the Muslim community that he was not anti-Muslim. There were Muslim invitees in his events like in his Sadbhavna rallies in Gujarat. He spoke on his projection as an anti-Muslim politician in interviews trying to clear his bad name in the community’s perception. 

But that wasn’t going to change things for Modi. It wasn’t that Modi was not realizing it. And so, he never disowned his Hindu hardliner image. Instead, he has spoken about it with great emphasis. It was just that he left talking about it for some time. May be he was driven by an experimental urge to try at least to see if he could make some in-roads in the Muslim community, a significantly larger votebank in many parliamentary constituencies. Also, a warring ally (when it was the case) in JD (U) might well have been a factor as the JD (U)’s secular (read pseudo-secular) concerns and Nitish Kumar’s prime-ministerial ambitions were not ready to accomodate a communal Narendra Modi as the NDA’s prime-ministerial nominee. 

I AM BECAUSE..

My reflections on life – in quotes (LVII)

“I am not because I was born.

I am because I know who I am.

I am because I know who I was.

I am because I realize who I need to be.

I am not because I was born.”

©/IPR: Santosh Chaubey - http://severallyalone.blogspot.com/  

IN THE LAP OF GANGA - THE CAREFREE JOYS OF CHILDHOOD

PHOTOGRAPHY

IN THE LAP OF GANGA

THE CAREFREE JOYS OF CHILDHOOD 

(HUMAN EXPRESSIONS) 

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©/IPR: Santosh Chaubey - http://severallyalone.blogspot.com/

TOP COURTS, CIC TAKE ON INDIAN POLITICIANS: THE FOUR LANDMARK DECISIONS

There should be no second thoughts to this observation that, we, the Indians, are living (or forced to live) in a pseudo-democratic set-up in the world’s largest democracy.

It is true democracy doesn’t mean unrestricted freedom. The restricted freedom that it provides with some fundamental rights is intended to maintain a healthy socioeconomic growth in the country and its tenets are uniformly applied (in theory), for the high and mighty as well as for the low and feeble.

But that is not so in India, the world’s largest democracy. The clear divide between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’, between the politicians and the voters and between the bureaucrats and the ordinary men is getting wider.

And that is why some recent developments to restore the true spirit of democracy by pushing and promoting probity and transparency in Indian politics give stimulus to the grey-matter to think positively though there exist the pertinent questions that such developments are not free from the tentacles of the political manipulation. Politicians are already on the job to undo the good for the country (but bad for their convoluted reasons) that these decisions can bring.

EXPRESSIONS (THE HELPLESS FROWN)

PHOTOGRAPHY

THE HELPLESS FROWN

(HUMAN EXPRESSIONS)

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©/IPR: Santosh Chaubey - http://severallyalone.blogspot.com/

WHY POLITICIANS LOVE A NATURAL CALAMITY!

(Politicians and the bureaucracy controlled by them!)

Be it any type of calamity – droughts, floods, earthquakes, tsunamis, landslides, cloudbursts – the scope of corruption gets magnified with the scale of the disaster – bigger a disaster, bigger is the lure for the politicians and the politicians-controlled bureaucracy to earn ‘some’ more quick money – and with changing times, this ‘some’ has changed monumentally, dramatically, to become millions and billions of Rupees.

Such is the scale of corruption in the rehabilitation projects in the aftermath of a huge natural calamity that the Asian Development Bank had to call a meeting of the representatives from the worst hit countries of the Indian Ocean Tsunami of December 26, 2004 to address the issue corruption in relief and rehabilitation efforts. India was one of the countries.

We recently saw the sorry visuals on TV channels of an Uttarakhand government official deputed for the relief exercise loading the relief material in his car for personal use. We also read how some senior ministers and politicians of the state and elsewhere misused the resources (choppers and rescue time) for their disaster-tourism to gain political mileage. Looking for such selfish gains when people are in imminent dander of losing their lives is also an unpardonable act of corruption.

POLITICIANS LOVE A NATURAL CALAMITY: THE COLOSSAL UTTARAKHAND DISASTER AND EQUALLY COLOSSAL GREED OF POLITICAL CORRUPTION

Officially, the rescue operation of the stranded pilgrims and tourists in Uttarakhand is over. Government figures say over 1,00,000 have been evacuated. There is still no official clarity over the death toll. Initially, the government was capping the death toll at around 1000.  Speaker of the Uttarakhand assembly said some 10,000 could be dead while the chief minister of the state said exact number of deaths would never be known. On July 3, the Uttarakhand chief secretary clarified that the ‘official death toll so far’ was 580. Mass cremation of bodies began more than a week ago but still, bodies can been seen all around in the affected areas. Also, digging out bodies from the mud sludge with boulders, almost three metres high, remains an uphill task.

And midst all this, the cry that was always there, desperately looking for a voice, is now finding its listeners, introducing us to yet another horror tale that we all knew, but wasn’t hearing about. Many cities of Uttarakhand stand devastated. With homes gone and connectivity snapped, most of the towns and villages in affected areas wear a deserted, ghost-town like look.

Now into the fourth week, the Uttarakhand disaster, like any other calamity of this scale, has given humanity a pain that will be felt forever.

But, at the same time, the developments in the aftermath of the man-made disaster have also reaffirmed the strengthening perception of the masses about the callousness of politicians and politicians-controlled bureaucratic apparatus in dealing with the concerns of the common men, the proclaimed basic entity of the masses in a democratic (read pseudo-democratic) set-up like India.

Three days before the disaster, to the ultimate devastation of June 16-17, to the aftermath of the cloudburst, glacier-melting and flash floods, and since then, every detail cries out loudly to implicate the political apathy and administrative delinquency.

EVERY POLITICIAN LOVES A NATURAL CALAMITY

Continued from: 

THE COLOSSAL UTTARAKHAND DISASTER: EQUALLY COLOSSAL IS THE GREED OF POLITICAL CORRUPTION (I) 

http://severallyalone.blogspot.in/2013/06/the-colossal-uttarakhand-disaster.html 

THE COLOSSAL UTTARAKHAND DISASTER: EQUALLY COLOSSAL IS THE GREED OF POLITICAL CORRUPTION (II) 

It is unfortunate and one feels sorry about it but it has been the truth and in fact we should say ‘it is the truth’ now after the sustained shameless bravado of Indian politicians that came to the surface once again, so soon after the blame-game over the Uttarakhand disaster that is still ongoing, with the ugly politics over the serial blasts in the Mahabodhi Temple of Bodh Gaya on July 7 morning.

The calamity in Uttarakhand became a sort of disaster-tourism opportunity and the devastated hill state became a tourism zone for the politicians. What else inference can be drawn after witnessing what all that happened. But whatever that happened also reaffirmed the fact strongly that politicians across the parties are similar under the skin – insensitive, inhuman and irresponsible. Who else can do politics over the dead and the dying?

Almost every party was busy taking credits and shifting blames while thousands had died, many were dying and thousands were imminent danger of losing lives.

Choppers were busy ferrying politicians while the people stranded were crying for help. Also, it remains a mystery that why very limited number of choppers were put in rescue efforts in the initial days by a country that claims to be one of the major powers in the globalized world.

After the unforgivable failure of ignoring the warnings before the disaster of June 16-17, more horror was unleashed by the politicians by denying the people precious hours of relief and rescue efforts.

Those responsible for ignoring warnings must be tried for culpable homicide, isn’t it? But that is not going to happen. And those responsible for denying the precious hours when many more lives could have been saved must be sacked from the public life by the public. Even this is not going to happen.

India and Indians need to treat the politicians this way. But when the day would come - the day that would herald the country in a direction to become a true democracy?