There is the old adage that barkin dogs seldom bite. Though i don't have courage to test the validity of that adage, i have been picking up clues that seem to suggest it may be true after all. I will be more clear on that after October 18th, when my beautiful state Tamil Nadu's opposition leader, J Jayalalitha addresses a meet in the beautiful temple city, the state's second biggest city, of Madurai. Out of care for my beloved state's peace and well-being I will be happy to see that adage stand firm (though I still may not risk standing in front of an actual barking dog).
As has become a repeated report in our local dailies, Jaya TV, the opposition Party's mouth-piece, has received letters of threat to Jaya's life if she does end up meeting in Madurai, from the local wing of the ruling party. I must confess here that I myself would've had a silent smirk of happiness had the threat letters been for a demand to abolish Jaya news, which I find to be the most intolerable half hour ever in television history. Don't get me started on the Jaya TV English news. Well, jokes apart, this makes me wonder what this business of threats is. How often has actual crime followed a threat? When one kidnaps someone, the ransom call is made later. In more admonishable cases, attacks, it is after the incident that groups rush for a share of the pie. In cases such as this, one can almost surely say, these are publicity stunts from hitherto largely unknown goons to gain notoreity and acceptance in their local wards. Take Iran's Md Ahmedinejad for instance. No one knew who he was, until he started making condemnable and semitic statements and started posing as strongman capable of teaching the US a lesson. Varun Gandhi is another. Threat is just a tool to turn the key in your hand into a wrenchpipe.
What this will end up doing is turn Madurai into a sink for Police Forces, CRPF and other valuable security resources, in a bid to avoid serious commotion if the barking dog did bite. This is indeed sad and doesn't bode well for the overall well-being of the state. I can recall that May last, the Civil, Instrumentation and Electrical Departments of the National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirapalli were ransacked by unidentified elements, with the security to have been on duty being assigned election work. Atleast that's understandable, since safe elections are vital for a thriving democracy such as ours. But what about for cheap stunts such as this? And without doubt there will be a large police contingent there, if the state govt does heed to her Z-plus or whatever crap class security. And going by the strength of the crowd that turned out in Trichy recently for a similar meet, such scale of police security will be needed as the seldom biting adage cannot be taken too literally when thousands of human lives are involved.
So what am I saying, having said that the accumulation of police is bad, only to retract by saying that the police are needed at the meet spot? Im saying that smooth functioning of daily human life across the state is important. That is, the police services are needed uniformly across the districts. The need is to tackle these cheap stunts through the law. But as the law when involving our political parties can be thought of as a bureaucracy, innovation is needed. We have an overseeing body called the election commission that regulates the election as well as campaigns. Just as it bans distribution of money, saris, jewellery etc, it should also ban the issual of threats and if not followed penalties such as disqualification from contesting in the constituency from where threat was issued should be imposed. And there should also be a way to check the rampant misuse of state resources like buses, public spaces like parks, beaches etc. Returning from my convocation last Saturday i was witness to the rampant misuse of state buses just for transporting congress cadre in and out of Trichy. I was able to identify that the passengers were just the party cadre from the fact that (other than banners stuck below the windshield) all inside were comfortably seated, none standing, and no conductor present. I counted no less than 35-40 buses just in a 30 minute journey. And when i tried to get a bus change to go from Chatram Bus Stand to Srirangam at 9.30pm i was dismayed to find i had to wait 15 mins for a bus to come ( I wonder where the private operators went) when usually at that time of the day you can find 2 or 3 buses to Srirangam at the same instant. What bearing this would have had on regular passengers who would be waiting haplessly at various bus stands around Trichy, Salem and Thanjavur, I wonder when such a large fleet of buses is misused. And mind you this is just on the Trichy-Thanjavur route. Guess how many more would have been misused on the various other routes out of Trichy viz towards Madurai, Thuraiyur, Chennai, Salem, Pudukottai etc. But alas here the Election Commission is also a puppet as one of my friends points out to me.
Does care for the state's population just a numbers game to be decided on holding numerous meetings across the state? Should it not be reflected in a true leader, to feel happiness when he/she sees his state going about its daily work smoothly and without hassles?? That's what makes a true leader proud- to see his empire happy and prosperous. It is just that the leaders of the present day are just leader's of a party and not the state or country. Which is i suppose why, parties have internal elections to elect their leader. B'ah! I'd rather see threat letters issued for resource misuse, and hope I dont get threats for posting this.
As has become a repeated report in our local dailies, Jaya TV, the opposition Party's mouth-piece, has received letters of threat to Jaya's life if she does end up meeting in Madurai, from the local wing of the ruling party. I must confess here that I myself would've had a silent smirk of happiness had the threat letters been for a demand to abolish Jaya news, which I find to be the most intolerable half hour ever in television history. Don't get me started on the Jaya TV English news. Well, jokes apart, this makes me wonder what this business of threats is. How often has actual crime followed a threat? When one kidnaps someone, the ransom call is made later. In more admonishable cases, attacks, it is after the incident that groups rush for a share of the pie. In cases such as this, one can almost surely say, these are publicity stunts from hitherto largely unknown goons to gain notoreity and acceptance in their local wards. Take Iran's Md Ahmedinejad for instance. No one knew who he was, until he started making condemnable and semitic statements and started posing as strongman capable of teaching the US a lesson. Varun Gandhi is another. Threat is just a tool to turn the key in your hand into a wrenchpipe.
What this will end up doing is turn Madurai into a sink for Police Forces, CRPF and other valuable security resources, in a bid to avoid serious commotion if the barking dog did bite. This is indeed sad and doesn't bode well for the overall well-being of the state. I can recall that May last, the Civil, Instrumentation and Electrical Departments of the National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirapalli were ransacked by unidentified elements, with the security to have been on duty being assigned election work. Atleast that's understandable, since safe elections are vital for a thriving democracy such as ours. But what about for cheap stunts such as this? And without doubt there will be a large police contingent there, if the state govt does heed to her Z-plus or whatever crap class security. And going by the strength of the crowd that turned out in Trichy recently for a similar meet, such scale of police security will be needed as the seldom biting adage cannot be taken too literally when thousands of human lives are involved.
So what am I saying, having said that the accumulation of police is bad, only to retract by saying that the police are needed at the meet spot? Im saying that smooth functioning of daily human life across the state is important. That is, the police services are needed uniformly across the districts. The need is to tackle these cheap stunts through the law. But as the law when involving our political parties can be thought of as a bureaucracy, innovation is needed. We have an overseeing body called the election commission that regulates the election as well as campaigns. Just as it bans distribution of money, saris, jewellery etc, it should also ban the issual of threats and if not followed penalties such as disqualification from contesting in the constituency from where threat was issued should be imposed. And there should also be a way to check the rampant misuse of state resources like buses, public spaces like parks, beaches etc. Returning from my convocation last Saturday i was witness to the rampant misuse of state buses just for transporting congress cadre in and out of Trichy. I was able to identify that the passengers were just the party cadre from the fact that (other than banners stuck below the windshield) all inside were comfortably seated, none standing, and no conductor present. I counted no less than 35-40 buses just in a 30 minute journey. And when i tried to get a bus change to go from Chatram Bus Stand to Srirangam at 9.30pm i was dismayed to find i had to wait 15 mins for a bus to come ( I wonder where the private operators went) when usually at that time of the day you can find 2 or 3 buses to Srirangam at the same instant. What bearing this would have had on regular passengers who would be waiting haplessly at various bus stands around Trichy, Salem and Thanjavur, I wonder when such a large fleet of buses is misused. And mind you this is just on the Trichy-Thanjavur route. Guess how many more would have been misused on the various other routes out of Trichy viz towards Madurai, Thuraiyur, Chennai, Salem, Pudukottai etc. But alas here the Election Commission is also a puppet as one of my friends points out to me.
Does care for the state's population just a numbers game to be decided on holding numerous meetings across the state? Should it not be reflected in a true leader, to feel happiness when he/she sees his state going about its daily work smoothly and without hassles?? That's what makes a true leader proud- to see his empire happy and prosperous. It is just that the leaders of the present day are just leader's of a party and not the state or country. Which is i suppose why, parties have internal elections to elect their leader. B'ah! I'd rather see threat letters issued for resource misuse, and hope I dont get threats for posting this.
