Apr

3

Election flowers bring manifesto showers

April 3, 2009 posted by indiatime |

The funniest and saddest thing about India’s uncertainnial election seasons is the party manifestos and promisory documentation that precedes any last minute voting booth strategies. Unlike the other great democracy, Indian voters hardly get enough time to think over the policies, whet out the candidates or even comprehend the offering. There is a dangerous, but implicit understanding that such electioneering is WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get). That simple mantra has often strangled and choked India’s gullible masses into being tricked by the brand-makers and dream-merchants and strategizers sitting in plush air-conditioned offices.

Over the next few weeks, we will take a look at some of the manifestos from the main parties, those that have a chance to become the next bunch that will have the power to ruin this country.

So today, I am looking at one of such documents, the IT strategy for India by one of the opposition parties - the BJP. At first glance, this is a list of a few dozen promises that mainly focuses on equalizing the internet platform, democratizing the internet, and enabling the internet highways to penetrate the deepest darkest corners as well as the government corridors.

Sounds wonderful and one must give due credit to the BJP for having come this far. But here are my issues with this hastily-drafted futuristic document -

1. it doesn’t tell the masses what’s in it for them.

2. it doesn’t tell us where the money to achieve all these wonderful things will come from.

3. one can’t just give away 10 million laptops and hope for the best. If that happens, I bet you, there will be 10 million new surfers of porn (anot not 10 million new wikipedia readers) the next day. In a hot, humid & mendacious country those 10 million laptops can wreak havoc, if there isn’t a strategy to back all this up with better education and better equipped teachers.

4. “….Citizens will have a simple 1-800 Toll Free Number, 24×7x 365 days of the year, to contact their Member of Parliament…” - are you kidding me? are you kidding me? does BJP elite take us for fools? Come on guys, you can do better than that.

5. “….Special focus to bring women, SC/STs, OBCs and other weaker sections of society within the ambit of IT-enabled development...” - of course! additional bandwidth to the downtrodden, better-resolution laptops to kids who haven’t eaten in 6 months, free slumdog Jai Ho downloads for slumdogs.

6. “….Domestic IT hardware industry to be aggressively promoted to minimise dependence on imports….” - please don’t pull a George Fernandes again! Thirty years ago, BJP and its allies drove IBM out of India, right when Bill Gates was assembling his first machines in his hometown. Open source software with closed IT borders can’t be done unless our universities can create students who can write new programming languages and compilers and build googles and microsofts. Let’s not forget, we are not innovators, we are merely the adopters.

7. “….Government spending to be made corruption-free….” - if you buy that, I have a piece of land on the top floor of Mukesh Ambani’s skyscraper that I want to sell to you.

8. “….Video conferencing to be made affordable and universally accessible….” - Within a few years, Craigslist India will be doing more erotic services business than any other website on the planet.

9. “….Direct transfer of welfare funds, preferably to the woman of the house….” - Can BJP guarantee that the husbands will not slap and kick and beat the the hell out of those women and steal that money to buy more liquor?

10. “…National Digital Highway Development Project to create India’s Internet backbone….” - Okay, maybe real highways and a decent transportation infrastructure is a pipe-dream. Let’s turn our attention to internet highways then. As for towns that don’t have electricity yet, no worries. Those laptop backlights can light up an entire house.

In a few days, we will see what the Congress party cool-aid tastes like.


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3 Comments so far

  1. Light on April 3, 2009 11:40 pm

    Manifestos are nothing but parrots are singing a parody. They show much ebulltion for betterment on election time. After elections they will be out of sight. These perfidious creatures can’t bring any happiness. And there is no point in discussing there manifestos when they are not going to fulfill any.

  2. Vinoy on April 4, 2009 6:01 am

    I agree, releasing manifestos is just a routine affair,and as Light has said,like parrots singing parodies.How many people in this country have access to the internet?In a country where the majority of the people are languishing in extreme poverty,ignorance,illeteracy,unenlightement,the very talk of an IT revolution is out of place(not that I deny its importance for the country).None of the parties talks of providing ROTI,KAPDA & MAKAN to the common man.Millions of people do not have access to even clean drinking water and they are condemned to drinking bacteria and protozoa infested water of ponds here and there.About the sanitation,the less said the better.
    Ideology has taken the back seat in Indian politics.These politicians are just liars and thugs.They do politics just for their own sake rather than for the sake of the common man.Alas, we have no choice.We are just condemned to choosing one out of many crooks in the elections!

  3. Priyadevi on April 12, 2009 6:51 am

    Hooray… children who couldn’t afford to eat for days at a time, can now download and view high resolution photographs of any food they choose from anywhere in the world.

    PROBLEM SOLVED! Wise politicians once again make the world better for everyone, especially poor children.

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