Log in Mr.Naidu
Nalinaksha Bhattacharyya
http://www.timesofindia.com/today/16edit2.htm
Log in, Mr Naidu
Horrifying reports and heart-wrenching
images are pouring in, significantly not from
a place of devastation in back-of-beyond
Bihar but from upwardly mobile Andhra
Pradesh. Farmers are committing suicide
because the cotton crop has failed; their
widows are being forced to work in the
houses of moneylenders and landlords in lieu
of the uncleared debts. Large parts of the
state are reeling under an unprecedented
drought, the scale and intensity of which has
claimed many lives and condemned several
hundred thousands to a living death. The
victims are so stricken and starved that they
have lost the will and energy to survive; they
cannot summon even the effort required to
hunt for scarce food and instead they are
settling for stuff which cattle won't eat; some
can barely manage to crawl to the nearest
stagnant pond to quench their parched throats;
many have despaired of being able to walk
the miles to the nearest water source, and are
stoically awaiting death. There seems no
hope on the horizon for these cruel victims of
nature's rage because, as reports suggest,
many of them are beyond the pale of
"development" and "administration" in the
absence of roads connecting them to the
district headquarters. There have been
reports of Lambada families in distress
selling their babies; of other families letting
children die, once at birth, rather than die
everyday out of hunger and of child
prostitution which is spreading at an
alarming rate.
This picture would have made sense had it
been about any of the BIMARU states. But it
is about a state headed by India's most
information-savvy chief minister, Mr
Chandrababu Naidu; the same Mr Naidu,
darling of the media, whose SMART
administration is computer and
video-connected with district and taluk
officials. So, tell us Mr Naidu, what is your
information? Are these reports true, even if
exaggerated? Since we haven't heard
otherwise from you, we would like to know
what you are doing to ameliorate the distress
in which lakhs of your Telugu people are
trapped? Is there relief on the way and of
what kind? Are food and water being rushed?
What are you doing to persuade farmers,
particularly cotton farmers, that there is life
after this if they don't commit suicide? What
is being done to prevent parents from selling
their children for a few hundred rupees?
How do you plan to stop children being
driven into prostitution by penury? Beyond
dealing with this emergency, what kind of
vision and mission does your administration
have to ensure water and food security to
those who are vulnerable to the cycle of
famine and floods? Are you prepared with
plans for water harvesting and storage when
the rains come in a few weeks from now?
We are astonished that this should be
reported as happening in Andhra Pradesh,
which supposedly is speeding ahead on the
new IT highways. What is the connectivity
your administration and development plans
have to the millions who are more than a
mouse-click away? Please tell us. Some
`Plain Speaking' -- to quote the title of your
recent book -- from you on these
life-and-death issues would be welcomed.
Particularly by those directly and direly
affected.
--
Nalinaksha Bhattacharyya
http://finance.commerce.ubc.ca/~bhatta
"The lifestyle of the Indian elite is amazing...I've never seen
such opulence even in America"---Noam Chomsky in New Delhi in 1996
Raghu Seshadri
: All this in the land of IT and the CEO CM.
Translation of this post for those readers not familiar
with Nalinaksha's "thought" process:
Naidu is screwing up. Therefore Jyoti Basu
should not be criticized for screwing up.
People in AP are suffering. Therefore people
in Bengal should suffer without complaining,
or should complain about everyone except the
man in charge. Naidu shows several flaws.
Therefore Jyoti Basu need not learn from his
good points.
RS
dakshin gandikota
> Naidu is screwing up. Therefore Jyoti Basu
> should not be criticized for screwing up.
> People in AP are suffering. Therefore people
> in Bengal should suffer without complaining,
> or should complain about everyone except the
> man in charge. Naidu shows several flaws.
> Therefore Jyoti Basu need not learn from his
> good points.
AP & WB share a coast line and a bay (of bengal). So a comparison of
CM's is not an unreasonable task if not intellectually very demanding.
Care to analyze the `thought processes' of TOI people behind the
article?