Vishal Bhardwaj: A true gem

I was never a fan of Vishal Bhardwaj, I had not watched many of his films either. The fact that he was among the people who had led “Anti-Modi appeal from Bollywood personalities” had left me with a sour taste. So I was in a fix whether I should watch his latest movie Haider or not. Also since the script was co-written by a Kashmiri separatist, Basharat Peer, I thought it would be on a similar theme. Anyway, I decided to watch the movie, leaving behind my pre-conceptions as it was not about appeasement, but an adaptation of hamlet by Shakespeare.

The movie started with special thanks to the people of J&K, rightly so. The movie starts with father of Haider, an educated man, a doctor, helping terrorists. Please pardon me; they were not terrorists but militants. That’s how they have been referred to in the movie. The doctor was only doing his duty. But some shrewd officer arrested him for doing this act of humanity and also destroyed his house which had the commander of the terrorists group, er militant group. The movie hits the track right at the beginning and we are told about how the Indian Army is responsible for the plight of the Kashmiris. I am so thankful to Vishal Bhardwaj for letting us all know about it, for opening our eyes. We always thought that army was the victim as we lost a large number of soldiers in Kashmir. What I always thought was that their sacrifice was worth it as they have been finally able to restore peace after all this time and for this Kashmiri people too had to be at receiving end at times, but the end result is, that peace has been restored.  But Vishal Bhardwaj could, through this beautifully directed movie, tell us that real culprit was Indian Army and not terrorist insurgency from Pakistan. The movie shows that India has been the reason for plight of Kashmiris and words like Pakistan and Kashmiri Pandits were mentioned for courtesy maybe as an attempt to silence the radicals. But the most prominent reason for their plight was always Indian Army, AFSPA, rightly referred as chutspa (pardon me I don’t remember the exact term).

The movie develops and we are shown that the youth Haider was given a gun and for that reason he was wrongly sent to other parts of India. Later when he is given the gun again, he accepts it and at the end of the movie, chooses the path of peace(?). The movie also shows how Kashmiris live in a terror, when a guy remains outside his home until he is asked for identification (just the way Army does) and let go. The movie shows how the Indian army plays the dirty games and is involved in making innocent Kashmiris fight among themselves. There was one more innocent guy in the movie, whose role was played by Irrfan Khan, who comes as a savior to Haider and unearths all the wrong doings of everyone in the movie. I failed to understand why he was told to be ISI agent, may be to show us that good guys are often on the other side of the border. Also he was neither Sunni, nor Shia, neither pandit, secular self within me was in complete tears listening to this very statement, so touching it was.

AZAADI. We were told how important this term is for our Kashmiri brothers. Thanks to VIshal Bhardwaj we now know how Indian government cheated Kashmir and is still ruling them. Azaadi is the little thing they want, it’s their “janm siddh adhikar” and we are denying so. How cruel we are for not giving them what they want. I always thought that they got maximum subsidy and prime services from the Indian government, which spends thrice as much amount per person in Kashmir compared to rest of the India. I thought they lived a good life as every village in Kashmir has basic amenities like electricity, despite rough topology, unlike rest of the India. But that’s not what they wanted; it’s Azaadi that we have to give them. Let’s all thank Vishal Bhardwaj for making us aware of this simple fact. I stand by Vishal Bhardwaj.

As the movie was about to end, I started thinking that this movie should be made tax-free and that every Indian should watch it. Every person from Kashmir would be able to associate. I thought that in Kashmir the movie should be made free and government should pay for the tickets of the theater, but alas we forget that our brethrens in Kashmir have already demolished all the theaters in the paradise. There’s not even a single screen where the movie can be shown. It pains my heart to think that Kashmiri people might not be able to see how sympathetic our liberals are And How much they feel their pain.

Rolling credits had something different to offer. There were two points that’s I observed. First was appreciation of army for relief work. I wondered what might possibly be the reason to appreciate someone so evil. Probably it’s the reason why we call these artists liberals. Even after all these atrocities, the liberals have forgiven Indian army; forget about random instances when stones are pelted on them. The second point that I noticed was the following line “Principal photography for this film was entirely conducted in Kashmir without any disruption.” I was confused once again. A few days ago I came across a news article in the newspaper which we all know is the most reliable, The Hindu, with title “Kashmir University students disrupt shooting of Vishal Bhardwaj film”. It talked about how our victims got agitated seeing the tri-colour during the shooting of the film. Ultimately the film unit packed up without picking up a clash with the students. But we should remember that it should be seen through the lens of our liberal friends, as it is an act of peace, hence it can’t be called a disruption.

I would request my friends to watch the film in theaters, unlike me, and encourage our liberal artists. They deserve our money; after all they are the only hope. Only these people can enlighten us, the ones who are not aware of the truth. Only because of these liberal friends we get to know about plight of the victims. Please go out and watch the movie, and educate other friends of yours to do the same. Time to become “A lifelong fan of Vishal Bhardwaj.” We only have a few gem like him in India, we all should be proud of him.

Reference:

http://www.ndtv.com/elections/article/election-2014/anti-modi-appeal-from-bollywood-personalities-leaves-film-industry-divided-509616

http://www.firstpost.com/bollywood/writing-a-3d-kashmiri-basharat-peer-on-the-challenges-of-co-scripting-haider-1738665.html

http://www.dailypioneer.com/todays-newspaper/picture-abhi-baki-nahi-hai-mere-dost.html

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/kashmir-university-students-disrupt-shooting-of-vishal-bhardwaj-film/article5387994.ece

AAP and Socialism

During a discussion with some people I came across this article. I have always believed that AAP follows communist ideology. Well, I am quoting the article here. You can read and decide it on your own. If you'll say that article provides a biased view, well you can't deny that in the article author has stated facts, quoting AAP manifesto, and derived logical inferences. Rest you can decide on your own. So here goes the article.

"With much fanfare, Aam Aadmi Party released its vision for India in the form of Election Manifesto or Lok Sabha 2014. Like other parties, there is a lot of rhetoric, a lot of promises, and a lot of utopian dreams of an everlasting life that promise a self rule, the quintessential ram rajya - the Swaraj.

Well, we do not believe in utopian dreams, instead, we are interested in topics, promises that will really move the needle; the things that will uplift the poor and take India towards social and economic stability in coming decades. 

For India, in 2014-19, it is important to focus on a well rounded economic policy thereby creating more opportunity and employment. The additional revenue thus generated has to be put in social causes to uplift the meek and the poor out of misery and poverty. This is no rocket science and most of you who have some common sense understand that government does not have money of its own. It either borrows money from International bodies, earns money by selling mined resources, regulating verticals or generates money via taxes. There is no other way to earn money. If government does not have money, they cannot help the poor. It is as simple as that. Let's look at each one of these avenues before we dive into AAP's economic vision.

The foreign money does not come free. It is always a give and take either in terms of trade, geopolitics or its a loan with interest. You stop Walmart, US will trouble IT companies with work visas. Thats how global trade works, its tit for tat, so crying foul on other countries does not help. 

Mined resources are finite, they do not last forever and India does not have unlimited supply. You can't bank on mined resources to run a large economy like India, unlike Venezuela. 

Regulations is a double edged sword; the more regulations you have the lower is the quality of service, more are the chances of crony capitalism, in other words regulation induces license raj. Imagine if there was no or little regulation on airwaves; there would have been no 2G or 3G scams.

Generating money via taxing its people is government's last resort. Taxation and Subsidies are tools in the hands of politicians to either govern well or defer a country's crisis. If you don't raise money via taxes, you will borrow it and increase the debt on the country and if you continue to do that without growing the economy, you are facing a sure shot collapse, in worst cases disintegration of the country.

Now, that we have set the context, let's see how does Aam Aadmi Party's vision stands against the rationality of debit vs credit and the balance between good governance, growth and subsidies. 

The first line of AAP's economic section in the manifesto is loaded with high sounding keywords that cry out loud ... REGULATION and SOCIALISM. They set the agenda by stating that they want equitable growth, when simplified this means we will tax one section heavily, and subsidize the other section, then distribute the wealth by taking from some and giving to others. 

Equitable means be fair, be unbiased ... and who will decide that? Obviously not the market, it will be utopian AAP government. This means they will centralize and force regulations to create huge number of checks and balances in the system rather than banking on market dynamics to self regulate. Hope they are not confusing the HRD ministry with Finance ministry. An unsolicited advice to AAP members who created this utopian economic (umm ... socialist) vision. First learn economics and understand separation of concerns, talking about benefits is not the same as running an economy by setting policy. Its a known fact, that the best way to run the economy is to get out of the way of private enterprise and assist them with infrastructure development. 

Once you get over the first sub-section of the economic section of Aam Aadmi Party's manifesto, it starts to appear that the people who sat down and drafted this vision are either leftists, environmentalists or communists who sincerely believe that "quality of life" can be improved by giving subsidies, creating a top heavy government and regulating the bureaucracy. Well, here is the news flash my friends: This experiment has been tried in 70 countries and has failed miserably. 

In fact, in one section of the manifesto they talk about SWARAJ and DECENTRALIZATION and their entire ECONOMIC VISION is all about CENTRALIZATION, REGULATION and CONTROL ... and they seem to love this keyword "crony capitalism". It is ironic that the more regulations they induce, the more are the avenues of crony capitalism. Are you getting my point AAPsters or AAPeees or AAPites or whatever you call yourselves? .. ah I remember .. you call yourself the aam aadmi. 

Further, they talk about integrating economic and environmental policies, as if it is a new thing. It is not being done already. Its a white lie, the central and state governments already have myriad policies that deal with environment. Let me give you an example: New Delhi has worked very hard to reduce its pollution footprint by inducing CNG in public transport in last 15 years. Besides that, there are 30 different certifications that have come into effect in 2012 all over the country that are related to environment .. so I must say this is populist bantor, rather than economic vision. It's like a kid in the candy store dreaming ... I will change all the shelves with chocolates, when you ask how? The answer is ... I don't know. I have not figured out the details yet. 

Next, they talk about creation of world class Infrastructure and participation of private enterprise. What a new idea? What a game changer? So you may think. Well, we all know almost all government projects go through tender systems and most projects are done by private enterprise. Have you heard of the term "government contractors"? Who are they? Well, so Aam Aadmi Party is saying that they will run everything via a central politburo and put more and more regulations to ensure that no project can ever take off. We will squeeze the private enterprise to an extent that they don't participate in tenders. What a great plan my friends. 

Then after two lines on populist promises, AAP manifesto turns to providing jobs and lifelong learning. Well, my AAPster friends, thats not an economic topic, its a topic that comes under human resource development. You can argue that job creation is an economic concern, not it is not. It is the result of a good economic policy. In your manifesto where is the economic policy? It is completely missing. Do you take all Indians for fools, that you will tell us that we will get chocolates without any clue on sowing cocoa?

The third subsection turns towards "administrative policy", simplification of rules. Well, once again my AAPster friends are confused, I don't blame them, they added a number of social activists, actors, and celebrities to their fold, its evident that they forgot economists. Well, if you have Prashant Bhushan and Yogendra Yadav write this economic vision, it is but obvious they will find it difficult to hide socialism and the people who understand micro and macro economics will read in-between lines easily. 

The next subsection talks about "unleashing the entrepreneurial energy and the honest business". Well, how do you induce honesty in the business? Well, by creating regulations, checks and balances .. correct? Once again AAPsters contradict themselves, on one side they talk about free enterprise and on the other they use loaded words like "honest business", that means they will be hawk eyed on small businesses and will make sure you don't steal taxes. In short, Mr. Small Business owner, they are already calling you all thieves. Well, some of you may be, but all of you, I don't think so. Then they also talk about creating funds for entrepreneurial capital .. well, I have taken note of this one and I really want to see how do you do this? Where do you get the money for doing this and how many entrepreneurs do you create? And how many of them are your relatives, friends and family ... you get my point girlfriends ... this is an utopian promise. They created subsidy for water and electricity in Delhi and did not allocate funds for it. How do you think they will keep this promise?

Next subsection starts talking about "empowering the poor", it has nothing to do with economics. Enough said.

Next subsection is titled "Rural Economy" and it is funny that it does not have a single sentence that talks about Gram Udyog (village industry). They talk about the socialist order .. the gram sabha. What a new socialist experiment. For those who don't know .. in 1970s and 1980s, India had a concept of cooperatives and laghu-udyogs. It never took off because Rural India specifically survives and thrives on agriculture. Again, its ironic that the manifesto does not say anything about connecting rivers, creating dams, water harvesting. I must say that it does make a populist promise to farmers that AAP will provide them with credit, loans and insurance. Well, this is not a new promise, all political parties repeat this promise every election season. You can't do better than that AAPsters?

Then comes the natural resources: Now this is a joke that AAP will never fulfill. I have no hesitation in saying that they are lying about this one. Can you imagine the coal mine being controlled by the gram sabha next to it? Can you imagine India's thorium reserves being handled by the village next to it? this means Gram Sabhas will regulate production, extraction and selling of natural resources of India. OH MY LORD? Are these socialist jokers crazy? 

Finally, comes the most dangerous section in their economic manifesto: NO CONTRACTUALIZATION of JOBS. This means .. they are asking all enterprises to give full time jobs to all the people they hire. All I can say is SOCIALISM, SOCIALISM, SOCIALISM ... and .. UNIONS, UNIONS and more UNIONS. Anyone who has lived through the communist West Bengal and Kerala can tell you how hard it is to run a business in these two states given their regulations and heavy influence of unions. 

All in all, AAP's manifesto is full of contradictions, confused, lacks depth and gives their core away .. and that core is a socialist leadership leading common man using corruption as a ploy to fool simple and ignorant indian masses. 

Crucify me, vilify me, hate me or love me, it does not matter. I said it the way it is. AAPsters, find some economists to help you out as you need help. You need help to understand the difference between economic policy, human resource development, social policy and environment policy. I don't blame you, I can understand you are still learning ... well, don't you think 2019 would have been a better option rather than getting your behind kicked in 2014 and cheating the real aam aadmi?"

If someone knows about the actual source of the article please let me know, I'll add it to the post.

Do political parties need to follow a "Political Ideology"

India will be witnessing one of the most interesting general elections within next few months. Why are they most interesting? Well, for me personally they are interesting because this is the first time I would be voting in general elections. Also for quite some time now I have been following politics in India. I have voted for assembly elections, for the post of mayor and ward elections but this is the first time I would be voting for a candidate aspiring to be a Member of Parliament. In 2009 too I was eligible to vote, but since I had just turned 18, I could not get my voted ID well in time to vote, more because of the slow process followed that time. However that doesn't mean I wasn't following elections back then. I used to read the discussions that used to take place on online forums. At that time I didn't favor any political party as such, neither was I clear as to what political ideologies are. I was legally eligible to vote, but I don't think I was aware enough to choose wisely back then. But this time I have a voter ID card, hence it is my duty to become aware and vote for the best possible option available.

I have talked to a lot of people about the importance of political ideology for a party.

So what exactly is a political ideology? It's more or less similar to theory of a subject. Over the time scholars have come up with their views. I would present my view as in what I think political ideology actually means. Political ideology can be described as set of beliefs that defines optimum mode of social organization. It's not descriptive; rather it's more or less normative. An ideology proposes view of the world as it should be, irrespective of current or past state set ups. An ideology defines how an ideal government functions. It tells how a government should change or function in general. It presents a subjective view, and hence an ideology can never be acceptable by all. It's impossible to form an objective ideology.

Ideologies can be divided into Statism and anarchy, while Statism believes in establishment of laws, anarchism is based on assumptions that actions by people would be driven by ethics.  In anarchy, an individual is not bound by any laws and rules and it is expected that his ethics would lead to goodwill of all, however that doesn't always happen. Ideologies, because they are subjective need constant refinement. These ideologies are then categorized on political spectrum, defined as left, center, or right wing based on their stance on role of government and individual in the society.

Political ideology for a political party is important at three steps:

• Formation of party
• Compilation of election manifesto
• Implementation of policies once the party comes to power

In India, there are a countless number of political parties. Some are formed to raise voice of a group of people while some are formed on foundation of a single issue. The number of parties existing in India is already significantly high, so we can safely assume that most of the issues concerning with the society are already taken up with same party or the other. Hence when a person works for a cause, there are always plenty of options available. However we see that there are new political parties emerging almost every other day. So what's the reason behind it? The person who forms the new party is either aspiring for a total control of power over the political party, or the person follows a completely new ideology that no other party follows until now.

Often people claim that the party they support doesn't belong to the political spectrum. But that's not true because mere formation of the political party is not the end. A party has to put forward its views and policies, in form of manifesto, and that's exactly where the ideology's role comes into picture. As I defined that ideology is a way an individual thinks that government should work, and while drafting manifesto, that's exactly what a political party does. It lays its plans in front of the people. Mow these plans are more or less outcome of the ideology the party follows. And people associate themselves with the party when they find similarity in ideology of the party and their own views.

When the party finally comes into power, it has to implement the policies. The working of the government is outcome of the ideology followed by the people who are responsible for the running of the government. Every person has its views, generally they are similar to the views of other members of the party, and hence these views translate into the policies of the government. It's safe to say that ideology of the party has the biggest impact on running of the government.

Since a party has to deal with all sorts of issue faced by the state, it has to have an ideology. The stance on all the millions of issues can't be defined separately, there has to be a pattern and that's exactly where the importance of ideology is felt. A party without an ideology cannot have a firm stand. It can't organize a debate at each and every point. Also it's easier to arrive at a common consensus when members of the party follow a similar ideology.

Hence over the time, based on the actions of the party, it can be categorized and placed into the political spectrum. Some parties promote their ideology right from the beginning. The trend is more evident in left liberal parties, where they inherit ideology by some scholar. Most of the parties however can be categorized by their actions.

Now the question arises, do we really need to assign a position in political spectrum to the parties concerned? In my opinion, yes, we cannot be sure of the way a political party would function unless we are clear what their position is on political spectrum. We can always tell the position of party on a small number of issues, but on a larger scale it is difficult to predict in absence of knowledge of ideology of the party. However if we are aware about the ideology a party follows, we can often predict the policies which the party would focus on once in power, and the actions wouldn't come as surprises.

Hence I believe it is important to be aware about the different political ideologies and based on that decide which party you should support. Supporting a cause does not help in long run, supporting the ideology is a safer bet.