Mera Bharat Mahaan

“Politics is the last refuge of all scoundrels” is the statement made by none other than a noted politician himself. Who else know better about a person than himself? In India, there is no dearth of such opportunities to prove this statement. Every activity of one politician or other from time and again proves this point.

If it was the turn of Raj Thackrey a month back to confuse and trouble people on regionalism, it is the turn of Karnataka & Tamilnadu this time. The core of the issue is water again but this time it is not Cauvery but Hogenekkal.

Come Elections and politicians are on the hunt of issues to create a sentimental euphoria amongst the people that can garner votes. As we all are aware, Indians are notorious for allowing their decisions to be ruled by heart and not by brain, politicians literally abuse this weakness and makes a mockery of the country’s conditions.

Cauvery is a different issue altogether that needs a separate blog to discuss and this is a small issue but can take the magnitude of Cauvery if left as it is. Hogenekkal drinking water project is not a new one but discussed almost a decade ago among these two states. As we are familiar, in India, it takes a decade for a project to commence and two or three more decades to get completed. By this time, the project becomes useless as the demands grew in multiple folds by then. Be it road, or phone connections or pipe laying for drinking water, it is the same story.

Way back in 1998, both the state governments along with the Central Govt had mutually agreed that Hogenekkal drinking water supply scheme will not be objected by the Karnataka govt as long as the water consumed is from the share of Tamilnadu. Mr. J H Patel, the then chief minister immediately sought an agreement from Tamilnadu that it should not object Karnataka consuming water from Cauvery for Bangalore drinking water supply (political ploy). Tamilnadu agreed to this that as long as Karnataka consumes this water from its own share.

Now Karnataka is objecting to this. This is wrong. Neither they want to share the Cauvery water with Tamilnadu nor want Tamilnadu use the water of Hogenekkal for drinking water scheme which earlier they had agreed. Cauvery and Hogenekkal both are the gifts of nature and none can claim possession of the same. In the matter of Cauvery, perhaps, Tamilnadu is greedier in terms of the quantity they demand (as the days go, the demand increases for Karnataka also) but what Karnataka does is also not fair.

Every common citizen of India who follows its politics understands that this issue is raised now because Karnataka will be facing elections in the recent future. The parties are running of out issues. Facing fears of betrayal and washed out from elections, parties now clung to the cheap issue of regionalism. Water knows neither languages nor territories. All that it knows is only to flow in the direction it wants.

The way our brethren behave in these two parts of the country makes one head fall down in shame. One side of the country is blacking out the TV channels of one particular language and ransack the “Daily” office that language. The other part retaliate by ransacking the hotels run by them (here vandalism is done by so-called-educated-lawyers – who fight for the justice and they indulge in law-violating activities).

No party has come out in public and objected to these activities. Elections are near and they do not want to be labeled as traitor of their mother tongue. When all these jingoism is displayed, why don’t they object to the female actors from other states who act in Kannada films? According to them, flesh has not regionalism.

All these problems started with the blunder made by Earlier Governments – to divide this country by languages. This had created a political divide of our country. British did not do this. Potti Sriramulu was the man who was pivotal in separating a state for Telugu speaking people from Madras Presidency and this was followed in all parts. We divided our country on the basis of languages but claimed hypocritically that we had “Unity in Diversity”.

Now, the so-called rulers themselves create a divide among people in the name of caste, creed, religion, language, regionalism while the common man has forgotten it long ago. However, these politicians become successful in gathering a portion of the population with them and create a chaos in the country.

It is the high time that all the natural resources should be with the Central Government. The Election commission should ban those parties who create a divide among the country on language, regional, caste, religion basis. It should also condemn those parties who remain silent (as it indirectly encourages those who violates). The Justice department should ban all those lawyers who indulge in violence for their life time and the loss should be recovered from them.

I wish all this happen. “sou mein se nabbe beimaan, phir bhi mera Bharat Mahaan”