Jobelessness, No Poverty

INDIA THAT IS BHARAT

“Look, Boss ! The Roman Catholic rate of growth! They are saying that for 15 years….” Sorry, sorry, Rahulji, Satiricus just could not resist the temptation of mimicking your famous first words—“Boss, the Hindu rate of growth ! They have been saying that for 3000 years.” Not that this moronic mimickry puts silly Satiricus on the same level as erudite Rahulji. Rather, while that eminent historian does not need to name his “they” who are saying what he is saying, this cussed columnist must identify his sacrilegious sources. Of course the first among them are the boors of the BJP, who had condemned the Budget presented not long back by your (mom’s) government that pretends to be led by an economist. That was to be expected, for what else can you expect of this abominably anti-secular opposition to your gloriously secular Rome-Rajya? But thou too, oh secular media? Look at what the economic columnist of India’s biggest daily which daily wears its journalism of secular courage on its sleeve said just the other day—“15 years, and what have you wrought? A polity in despair, a country in rot.”Satiricus is shocked. How rotten of an Indian to perniciously pinpoint this period of 15 years! But if this is bad, what some Americans say is worse. Take this Heritage Foundation, thoughtlessly thought to be an important think-tank in the US of A. It has descended to the depth of declaring that India is heading straight for economic failure, thanks to the new budget. It even goes into dastardly details and callously comments, “The proposal for this year is a triumph of hope over courage : Spending is to increase by 17 per cent, yet the deficit is to fall to 4.8 per cent of GDP. This won’t happen.”In other words, year no. 16 will be the same as the first 15. This is clear calumny. For it means our Roman rulers are budgeting for a continuing rate of the growth of poverty. Secular Satiricus, a devotee of the divine dynasty, finds this an unbelievable, Hindu heresy. Unfortunately, the World Bank does not. In a very recent and very wretched estimate the World Bank says India accounts for one-third of the world’s poor, who are living on about a single dollar a day. Oh, well, perhaps a single dollar stands for a singular rate of growth, for now even the government of the United Progressive Mom-and-Son Alliance has acknowledged that there has been, as a newspaper so learnedly put it, “jobless growth” during UPA-I. But is joblessness the same as poverty? Not necessarily. Does Rahul Gandhi have a job? No. Then is he poor? No. There you are!

Essential Qualities

Some Indian politicians have really weird ideas about Indian politicians. Take this Indian politician in power, foreign minister Salman Khurshid. The other day he said it is difficult to find good politicians in India. What nonsense ! Even a non-political nincompoop like Satiricus knows that it is not only difficult but impossible to find a good politician, for the simple reason that a creature by that name just does not exist. In fact he fails to see any connection between being a good person and being a good politician. Take Satiricus. Like all normal people everywhere, he is a normally good person. But would that not automatically make him an abnormally bad politician? The fell fact of the matter is that he completely lacks the rich range of qualities required to succeed in Indian politics. Take cheatery, for starters. The other day Mulayam said the Congress is a cheat. Returning the compliment Beni Prasad said Mulayam is a cheat. So we have two cheats, one on a central ministerial throne, the other behind a chief ministerial throne. Can Satiricus compete with them? Then sometime back columnist Pritish Nandy had written that the UPA government is a gallery of rogues, rascals and robbers. Does Satiricus have this triple qualification to ascend the political ladder and reach ministerial heights? Forget becoming a minister, can Satiricus become even a member of Parliament? How can he, when he does not have even a single of the qualities that aam aadmi Kejriwal says hundreds of current MPs proudly possess? He says many of them have murder charges to their credit, while many others have a rich range of scams in their name. Does Satiricus have the acumen for an economic scam or the gutsy mindset for a murder? Alas, he is too dull for the former and too timid for the latter.

Finally, is Satiricus accomplished in the art of making millions out of politics? Can he emulate the Gandhis in this? Brothers Sanjay and Rajiv were middlemen for international aviation companies. Rahul has no means of income but, according to newspapers, has billions of dollars in a Swiss stash. And poor Sonia Gandhi is so poor that she consumed electricity worth more than Rs 7 lakh in the last 3-4 years but could pay only Rs 9000 for it. And the oh-so-poor lady does not seem to have even a bank balance, for her affidavit stated that she borrowed money from her daughter. So? Can Satiricus become a politician so that he could become so fabulously poor?