Just jotting down a few notes, copied from a post I did just now. In a few hours the results will be out. I am unwilling to speculate on what they might be, because every exit poll, in my opinion, is untrustworthy. We can discuss separately what can be the future, when the facts are revealed. Since I am working with the AAP, the future for us is already laid out. It will be the campaign for the Bangalore city corporation elections. We put too much of value on national elections and too less on local elections. However, most of our day to day problems can be solved by good, local administration. My wife called up yesterday from Bangalore to say that we have not had power supply for 32 hours at a stretch. The problem was that a transformer burst, and when that was fixed, a tree fell down, pulling down some wires with it. The police, who allow cars to park illegally in front our house by visitors to a mall (who spend thousands, but will not pay fifty rupees to park their car in the parking lot) did not allow a crane brought by the electricity chaps, to remove the tree. Finally, directions had to come from above. And when it did, the linemen who climbed up to fix the wire were not the actual linemen employed by the BESCOM, but their informally hired outsourced staff, working without gloves, shoes or any protective equipment whatsoever. Solving such problems calls for coordination, professionalism and compliance with standards. It calls for tough administration at the local level. No Prime Minister or central government will be able to address such problems. We people are going to claim India from below. So far, because of an accident of circumstance, the AAP has been faced with elections at the State level and then at the National level. But our manifesto, page 1, speaks about Swaraj. Page 2 speaks of anti-corruption. So we will start the clean up, from below. So let us remember, no prime minister, or political party, will come to power at the centre, wave a magic wand and solve all your problems. They are not the solution, they are part of the problem. Nothing will improve, if you do not take power into your own hands. And the closest one can come to that, in a politically representative sense, is to take charge of your city corporation or village Panchayat, snatching it from the cohorts of these so called leaders.
Posted on: Fri, 16 May 2014 02:06:03 +0000
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