A New Government in Uttar Pradesh

After the recently held U.P. State Legislature Assembly elections, Samajwadi Party (SP), a family owned organization of Mulayam Singh Yadav, won with an absolute majority in the new Assembly. This victory was not that of SP but a defeat of erstwhile Chief Minister Mayavati’s Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). Other parties in the fray were Congress - highly defamed for misrule at the Center, and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) – a party of hopefuls without working enough. The combination of BSP, Congress and BJP made SP to win.
 
SP Chief has made his son as the Chief Minister of the state who is the youngest Chief Minister of the state so far, and has no ministerial or administrative experience. So, nothing much can expected from the new government. Mulayam Singh has been famous for using corrupt practices and high handedness in politics. Therefore, corruption and problems of law and order must remain the same if not increase. 


On the first day of taking over charge, the new Chief minister announced three important announcements for the youths –

Electronic garbage

1. Unemployment allowance of Rs 1000 per month will be paid for persons above the age of 35 and with High School education until they get an employment. Practically speaking, no person can afford to be unemployed at the age of 35. Usually, such persons are married and have 3-4 children to take care of. Secondly, anybody above 35 can’t get a government employment. These two realities will make the scheme a farce with a lot of discretion to the administrators to provide this benefit at their whims or conveniences. Naturally, bribing will be the main criteria. Anybody selected for the benefit will keep on getting the benefit for the whole of his life. 
2. For education and marriage of High School pass Muslim girls will get a grant of Rs 30,000 each. This smacks of creating a communal divide in the society and is a purely political move by the SP leaders to remain in power with Muslim support, who often vote en-masses. It is a highly dirty politics of ignoring Hindu majority  many of whom are poor. Muslims are hardworking people but still remain poor for their multiple marriages and production of large number of children by each couple. 
3. A Tablet computer to each High School pass Student, and a Laptop Computer to each Intermediate pass student will be provided by the government with a cost of Rs 3,000 crore. Surprisingly,  estimated rates of purchase of these computers are Rs 1,500 and Rs 13,500 only. Tablet computer manufacturing of the government of India is hanging in balance, and no laptop computer is available in the market at this estimated price. It is obvious that third rate computers shall be handed over to the students making a huge pile of electronic wastes in the country shortly. It is also notable here, that most of the educational institutions of this level in the state under government controls, suffering heavily with shortage of teaching staff and whatever staff members are available, they are highly undisciplined and rarely take their classes. So, students who are not provided their basic needs of education, will get computers for what purpose. Moreover, the state is badly suffering with shortage of electricity, hardly available for 6 hours a day in most of the places, that too with heavy fluctuations in voltage from 50 to 300 for overloaded lines and frequent breakdowns. With such state of electricity supply in the state, how these sophisticated electronic equipment will be useful.   

Thus, by all indications, the new government in the state shall continue with anarchy, corruption and misuse of public resources.      

What U.P. Election and Thereafter

Recently concluded state assembly election results in the state of Uttar Pradesh are astonishing for two reasons –

• Return of Samajwadi Party to power with almost an absolute majority while a coalition government was expected,
• People’s short memory of how the Yadav family as the proprietor of the Samajwadi Party looted the state through corrupt practices in general, and particularly, the youths in recruitments to state employment.

No Option before Voters

In-spite of the disappointment people have with the politicians ruining the country and the public interests for a long time, they have been provided with no option by the Election Commission to move in the right direction to cleanse the polity of the country. Provision of section 17-A to voters to reject all the candidates was not duly publicised and even the Presiding Officers on election duty were not well informed of the provision. Many officials were found to be discouraging and misguiding the voters in using this right.

Though, the elections this time have been peaceful and sober due to strictness of the Election Commission, money still played important role in winning voters support by some candidates. Character and other merit factors regarding the candidates has not been a consideration in the people’s mind for voting. Officially speaking, my representative in the Nation’s Parliament is an illiterate, and that in the State Legislative Assembly is a young-man, just literate and having 3-4 marriages at just 25/26 years of his age. If this is indicative of a trend for the future, days of harems of Islamic rulers and their lieutenants are not far away.

The Future

A closed-circuit of Yadav family is going to attain absolute power on fate of the state and its people for the next five years. As bribes to voters, the family had promised –

1. Free Laptop Computers to all students of secondary students,
2. Rs 30,000 to every girl passing Senior Secondary Examination,
3. Free electricity to farmers with provision of writing off unpaid electricity bills up to Rs 50,000 per farmer, and many more..

The State economy is already in a bad shape with practically no development works in progress, wide-spread unemployment on the rise. Educational institutions in the state under government control are in jeopardy with no regular classes and inadequate faculty members resulting into regularly declining standard of education. How the students getting free laptop computers at public cost will be conducting themselves may be seen through the influence of  mobile phones in hands of the youths - illicit sexual relationships and crimes, marriages against parents’ wishes, violence and crimes against women, honor killings of youths, etc.

Of course, the Yadav family will have a field day out of the huge purchase order for the laptop computers by the government, and that seems to be the ultimate purpose of the freeship.

Since independence, no government has ever tried to enhance incomes of rural families of farmers and labourers to enable them to lead respectable lives standing on their feet. Their exploitation by industrial and political families have been on the rise making poorer as compared to government employees and urban population. For these reasons, rural people still remain uneducated and unemployed by and large. The politicians have been trying to help them through making them beggars mentally through offering free or subsidized things like electricity.

During the past rule of the Yadav family over the state, the state treasury was not having enough funds to pay salaries of government employees, forcing the government with diverting development funds for paying the employees. The same state of affairs is expected to return.  

Religious Sentiments, Government and Public Welfare

I have always been insisting that the masses are conformists and they do usually oppose innovation and creativity. Therefore, many innovations get strangulated under avoidance of hurting sentiments of the masses. In a democracy, since future of a government hangs in balance on support of the masses, the governments, too, work in opposition of innovations thus, harming the whole humanity.  

Government’s working is not only limited to opposing innovations for getting mass support, in many cases, even public welfare is put to stake for pleasing sections of public, sentimentally. Thus, sentiments of a section are given priority over logic or the public welfare. A case of an official action on behalf of the government in India has come to my notice that is largely hurting the public interests in the process of safeguarding religious sentiments of some sections of the public. Thus, sentiments of some are allowed to harm public interests by the government.

Monkey Menace

Monkeys, the most notorious of forms of life on earth, are flourishing in India in huge numbers with concentrations at some particular locations. This animal is considered as representative of an epic character of Hindu mythology – Hanuman, of Ramayan fame. Many devotees of Hanuman feed monkeys on Tuesdays with delicious foods to please their deity with a notion of Tuesday being a day of Hanuman. I wonder why a deity is pleased once a week only and left uncared for on other 6 days of every week. Or, why the monkeys are fed on Tuesdays only leaving them hungry on other days. Clearly, logic does not work in matters of foolish sentiments or religious traditions cultivated by vested interests.

Monkeys increase their population at a considerably fast pace, making their population thick at any place they begin residing at. I have observed in some townships of India, say Fatehabad in Agra district of U.P., the monkey population is so high that children are not allowed to move on streets without adults and all doors of houses are kept closed to prevent monkey’s entry and hence damages to household things.

Until about two decades back, monkeys were exported from India to advanced countries, like USA, for experimentation in medical research, wherein monkeys were used for trying new developments in drugs before making them available to public. In this process of scientific developments for human welfare, some monkeys used to get harmed. Therefore, the exports of monkeys were banned after a Hindu religious outcry of maltreatment to representatives of the Hindu deity. This has removed a throttle on population rise of monkeys in the country.  

On complaints from some such locations, the government has arranged capturing monkeys from thickly populated areas and leaving them where their population is low or nonexistent. My village fell in the latter category and some truckloads of monkeys have been offloaded around the village, totally unprepared to deal with the menace. Thus, a new problem has been added to the life of people in the village by the government officials.

Three days back, a group of monkeys attacked an over 70 year old lone woman in her house and injured her severally all over her body with paws and bites as she fell down in the attack. Monkeys carry rabies virus in their saliva and a person bitten by a monkey may get mad if not treated with anti-rabies injections. The old woman is under medical treatment now which may continue for a month or so for some serious wounds on her body. The same woman was attacked by monkeys earlier also.

Apart from such attacks on individuals, monkeys destroy agricultural crops and fruits in gardens, causing huge losses to the farming community forming a majority of rural population in the country.

Blue Cow Menace

Another wild form of life has been increasing in India for a long time that showed its presence in Rajasthan earlier but now spread to Haryana, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh. This animal is called ‘Neel Gaay’ (Blue Cow). Since, cow is considered holy in Hinduism, though no Hindu wants to keep cows as domestic cattle, killing of this blue cow is also prohibited while there is no scientific evidence of blue cow belonging to the cow of Hindu considerations. It appears close to horses and donkeys.

The blue cow damages agricultural crops to a great extent and the farmers are constrained to keep whole night watch on their fields to save their crops from the blue cow, which has no utility to humanity. It is a fleshy animal and its meat may be eaten by some persons, if allowed by the government.