Tim de Mello: Your views?Time for a revolution? Response: Tim, 1. kindly refer to my posting at the foll. weblink: http://lists.goanet.org/pipermail/goanet-goanet.org/2013-August/233671.html
2. In my humble opinion, the situation is indeed bad. But what I fear and which Samir Kelekar has too expressed is that 6-9 months down the line things could be so bad that we could reach a point of no return. It is a general feeling that the present government is unlikely to return to power. Neither will the BJP get the required numbers to form a govt. It will then be a toss up among the many regional parties almost all of which are family/ promoter driven who will then hold the trump card. They have no ideology, no vision and no pan India presence. The other alternative is that the BJP may become the largest single party and the regional parties will gravitate towards it in the pursuit of power. This scene too is fraught with danger. The BJP is bereft of ideas and vision and is being led by a fascist leader with blood stained hands. He commands no respect among the people except his die hard supporters and followers. There is a shadow of serious criminal charges hanging over his head and he is at present persona- non- grata in the USA and the western world. 3. the present mess is partly self-created and partly a result of the global meltdown. All the BRICS countries are in some problem or the other including Brazil and China. The Supreme Court of India can also not avoid its share of the blame. It interfered in administrative matters without offering a solution. It cancelled the telecom licences and coal allocations without understanding the economic issues. It suspended iron ore mining without giving a time frame for a solution. The govt introduced retrospective tax 2 years ago eroding the confidence of investors. The opposition party, the BJP has been holding the Parliament to ransom by not allowing it to function. As a result many financial and reform legislations have been held up which could have resulted in job creation and capital infusion. 4. The frightening part is that the well off middle class is totally insensitive to the poor, marginalised and minorities. They are the strongest backers of a dictatorial leader. They do not care for democratic norms and are willing to overlook intransigencies provided their material aspirations are met. 5. With the plummeting rupee, the crash of the stock market, the rising import cost of oil, spiralling inflation, phenomenal rise in prices of vegetables, fruit, onion and other essential commodities and uncertain political future, the nation is at the threshold of anarchy. There is no leader in sight who commands the respect of the nation. I do not like to sound pessimistic. But in my interactions with corporate leaders, intellectuals, and social thinkers, this is the kind of feeling I get. I would like to believe optimistically that this is the bottom and we can only go up from here on. We need to keep our fingers crossed and pray that we come out of this crises without much suffering.as soon as possible. Regards, Marshall
