Telangana XI: Cut the crap, the verdict is out!

“…a message appears to have gone to the people that we are not taking the by-elections seriously”. – Hypocrite #1 on losing his face in the elections

“…..not in the by-election race as the atmosphere is not conducive to spread our thought-provoking ideology that takes care of the interests of all.” – Hypocrite#2 who had no face to even think about contesting

What a tight slap it is! Yet politics is such a drama. Even if there is no audience (say forfeiting election deposits), the show has no go on. So one hypocrite insists it is his party that didn’t take the election (which means voters) seriously and that it’s not the other way round! The second hypocrite boasts that a full 7 months after the December agitation, atmosphere is still not ‘conducive’ for its ‘thought-provoking ideology that takes care of the interests of all’. It is just his hollowness. It is hard to miss the patronizing and condescending tone of these hypocrites. They are not just downplaying the thunderous verdict in favor of demerger of Telangana but are brazenly displaying what has been their line of thinking all these years – that what the Telangana voter aspires for does not matter. They would continue to oppose the demerger and so would the many stooges of the political setup spawn by Andhra plutocrats.

It is amusing to see the response to the by-election results where all legislators who resigned in favor of creation of Telangana got re-elected. Some say the vote is out of sympathy for the legislators who voluntarily resigned. A sympathy that costed the TDP candidates their election deposits in all 12 constituencies they contested!? Then maybe it is more than just sympathy. And why were the TDP and Congress contesting when they thought there is this ‘sympathy’ for JAC backed candidates? It is clear all these claims are a way to find a way out of this spectacular debacle without conceding that demerger is what the Telanganites demand. Period.

If we cut the crap about these losers, the figures speak deafeningly. TDP won 39 out of the 57 seats it contested in Telangana hardly an year ago in alliance with TRS. Now in these by-polls, it loses all 10 seats TRS won then with TDP’s support. And it loses it own Vemulawada seat too. It is well known that it’s is the congress and TDP who have well-oiled local grassroots level party machinery. To override all this and to win all seats on it’s own with huge margins ranging from 50,000 to nearly 100,000 votes means getting support of voters across caste and religion. Not surprisingly, Muslims voted for a JAC-backed BJP candidate who is by all means a minnow against the state congress president. The TDP’s much boasted BC vote-bank is either history or myth. It lost deposit in all 12 constituencies. Worse, it ended 3^rd or 4^th in 10 seats. Notwithstanding the many mistakes TRS did in the past, the voter gave it a second chance to work for a political solution for the demerger. Employees in government and private sectors, lawyers, teachers, students, artists, poets voluntarily campaigned for the JAC-backed candidates and have reminded the voters to support those who work for Telangana.

The Telangana by-polls and results themselves are momentous in our democracy, just like the peaceful agitation in the last few months. After demonstrating their desire and will for the demerger in several democratic, peaceful and novel ways, the Telangana voter handed a numbing defeat to the anti-telangana forces in the political process of elections. It helped that the by-polls had a single agenda of statehood. And so the opposition found it hard to confuse the voter. And importantly, the voter was well-informed by the events and dram in last few months on the sincerity of the Congress and the TDP on the demerger. There are now just 2 parties – the JAC-backed candidates and those outside it. And rightly all those myths about TDP vote-banks and Congress vote-banks got busted. It is a matter of time before the grassroots level party workers realign themselves in these 2 camps. Now the writing is so clear on the wall even for an idiot to miss it.

Notwithstanding the dramabazi of Naidu in last few days, TDP suffered a death-blow in the by-polls. For all those who underestimate the voter’s intelligence, this is an eye-opener. Similarly, despite spending huge amounts on buying the voters, ambitious congress candidates got humiliatingly defeated. A congress candidate seems to have spent more than 10 crore in his constituency. That would amount to several thousand for buying a single voter! The lesson is that elections have not completely become a number game as some would want us to believe. It is about credibility and intent. These elections could be a rare example in modern India where the students, intelligentsia, the opinion-makers overcame tremendous money power to assert their desire and remind the traditional political parties, however big they are, that they amount to nothing if they don’t listen to the man on the street. It has reminded the parties that they cannot have their own agendas and that the public agenda should be their agenda. It is demerger Telangana that wants and it’s what any party which has to survive there has to work on, genuinely. No babli type dramabazi or patronizing sermons.

Otherwise all parties would have more post-poll review meetings like these (as deported by DC) -

At one stage Mr Naidu was stunned and asked the party leaders, “when there are 7,500 active members enrolled in party in Nizamabad town, how the party nominee got only 1,793 votes.” Similarly, in Warangal West Assembly segment, in Division No 38, which is held by the party corporator, Mr Dasaradharama Rao, only one vote was polled in favour of the TD candidate, Mr V. Narender Reddy. “Even assuming he and his family members have four votes, if only one vote was polled means there seems to be something wrong,” Mr Naidu observed.

My posts on Telangana:

TELANGANA X: The Good, Bad & Ugly of National Media Coverage
TELANGANA IX: EPW goes on the Telangana trail
TELANGANA VIII: My letter to Sri Krishna Committee (SKC) - A case for demerger of Telangana
TELANGANA VII: Grossly discriminated against: Prof Bhalchandra Mungekar
TELANGANA VI: Why Telugu news channels bar coverage?
TELANGANA V: Plutocrats unleash terror over OU students
TELANGANA IV: Shri Krishna committee a crude joke
TELANGANA III: A case of Tyranny of Majority
TELANGANA II: Statehood at Midnight
TELANGANA I: Telangana Movement and the Plutocracy: The Gathering Storm

The Germans are coming!

Call it the German precision. Thank it for letting Maradona keep his clothes on! The clinical demolition of the England superstars (soon after treating the Aussies) was a precursor. Truly, as Andy Johnson's world war II novel about the invincible German war machine said, the Germans are coming. And today it's Maradona's Argentina's turn. Just like their Engish star cousins, Argentines dominated the ball possession, tried showing their wares in true Latin American flair - the artistic game, but the Germans persisted and when they got the ball made the most, in a flash gave a top-flight finish doing excellent passes. The Germans played like a team. The coordination is flawless. The losers played their individual games.They looked like the IPL stars in Indian cricket team! When they attacked, they looked like gatecrashers getting shooed out. When Germans attacked, it was blitzkrieg. The passes were sharp, the players composed. The opposition gasped. It was beauty. They all looked like surgeons!

The German team, with an average age of 25 is spirited and plays real team game. The team reminds us of the 1998's multicultural French team. At least 8 in the squad are said to be of immigrant origin including a Turkish origin Mesut Oezil and polish origin Lukas Podolski and Miroslav Klose. Obviously this requires the team to be far more disciplined to handle itself on and off the field. And the team seems to have delivered. And how! The incredible finishes at the goal-post, got to catch them again..

Image courtesy: REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach

Raavan reminds me of Kamal Hassan's 'Guna'

After my experience of 'Raavan', I was wondering what Maniratnam possibly could have attempted before ending up with this product. It is not unusual for serious filmmakers to envision something on paper and end up failing to convey the same on the celluloid. But as far as I know, this is first such case for MR. After all he is supposed to be a dictator on the sets while shooting who wouldn't just let unless he gets the desired sequence and frame to the T. So what possibly did MR attempt?

I am now reminded about the yesteryear Kamal Hassan starred 'Guna' in a odd way. The protagonist there was mentally unsound. He kidnaps a lady to the hills of Kodaikanal and the lady who initially finds him repelling later knowing him changes and even gets married to him. The police who were in search of the lady with all their good intentions play spoiler for the couple and end up harming them. I still remember watching that movie and in the end feeling something deep inside. An irony that a socially unacceptable guy melts our hearts with his emotions while the police with their brute power and our mandate are unfit to comprehend the emotions and play anti-hero. This concept I guess served as a sub-plot in quite a few movies. Here, I guess MR planned to make something like this a main plot on a lavish scale with the Bachchans, AR Rahman's score.

As said in my previous post, I thought MR started with a backdrop of anti-government forces like the so-called Maoists in the the jungles. He could have possibly thought of personifying the deep jungles and its Beera analogically with Lanka and Raavan of the mythology. Beera was supposed to evoke fear. AB Jr didn't.

The Ram-like character Dev is supposed to be strict law-enforcing officer. His uniform itself was supposed to imply his Ram-like characteristics and his actions are supposed to add grey shades. But this didn't translate and he ended up a card board character in RayBans.

Raavan is a very ambitious project and it is such a tragedy that it does not even remotely look like one now. This is in the series of project like Kannathil Muthamittal, Ayutha Ezuthu, Guru and as an idea clearly reflected Maniratnam's ambition. This is what I think is Maniratnam's second innings and I am yet to see him score.