Jaspal Bhatti's 'Vision Document 2004' - By: Jaspal Bhatti Slogan Every vision manifesto begins with a slogan. My party will bring a new slogan to India saying, “Har garib ka yehi hai nara, Sensex ooncha rahen hamara (Every poor person’s slogan: the Sensex should remain high). Instead of hunting for corny catchlines hoping to appeal to our national instincts and patriotism, money is all-important, India’s new manifesto has to reflect this.
Symbol After the slogan, comes another ‘S’ that stands for symbol. All political parties in India should have two symbols. This is not to confuse the electorate, which is confused enough already. It is simply because if the party splits into two then each faction can have a symbol of their own. There will be no jhagda-jhagdi (fights) about who keeps the symbol My own Feel Good party has two symbols — a smiling cat and a smiling dog expressly for this purpose. They are smiling because of the feel good factor. Besides the party can never die because a cat has nine lives. It might also win because every dog has his day. Ideology No party should have any ideology in this country. This is simply because it makes alliances so much easier when you base the party on nothing. One can have pre-poll alliances (you scratch my back, I scratch yours), mid-poll alliances and after-poll alliances. This is what I call the three-fold path of politics. Foreign factor I do not know why this should be made into an election issue. All foreigners should be welcome to stand as candidates for elections. In fact, the more foreigners, the merrier it will be. The only condition should be that instead of draining the country of funds, they must bring in money. Let all kinds of foreign currency flood the country the stronger the better. Hail the foreign hand that brings in the money! Anyway, I do not understand this carping about foreigners. After all, aren’t politicians’ foreigners? They visit their constituency once in five years, so they are foreigners for their people aren’t they? Education I see an educated India, where all Indians have passed some college examinations or the other. However, I emphasise equality in this respect. Why should some Indians have access to leaked papers and not the others? Everybody should have an opportunity to get their hands on leaked papers. For this I would fly a plane and parachute papers to every part of the country even the remotest corners. Hang papers in bunches from trees so that they can be plucked off on the way to the examination centres. That saves time, money, energy and fuel. I will prove that money may not grow on trees but exam papers certainly do. Unemployment I envisage creating more jobs by having elections and many more parties participating in the process. This will translate into a great many jobs: We will need drivers of poll campaign vehicles, then think of all the printing that needs to be done to print pamphlets of those candidates and their pre-poll hype. Another avenue can be advertisement agencies that will all be looking to grab poll position by getting parties as their clients. Then, all those people needed to build podiums for speeches, clear maidans, hand out leaflets, clean mikes, accompany politicians for yatras… the employment opportunities are endless. So, I will not promise jobs, only elections. Population My manifesto says out with the ‘Hum do, hamare do’ policy. Large families will mean that each family member can fan out to different political parties in the country. The dynasty business can be relegated to the trash heap. Variety is the spice of life and in it lays infinite wisdom. A five-member or six-member family can have each person in a different party, then whichever party wins, the family can be in power. So go forth and: multiply. Finally… Everybody should vote, but my vision says that days to vote should not be dry days. The government should nominate them as ‘wet’ days, as with the caliber of those standing for elections, one needs to be fortified with strong caju feni to be able to vote for them. Let me end it this way: Dry days need a rethink: for our brave electorate needs booze to drink. As told to Hemal Ashar Eddie Verdes Jeddah/KSA ########################################################################## # Send submissions for Goanet to [EMAIL PROTECTED] # # PLEASE remember to stay on-topic (related to Goa), and avoid top-posts # # More details on Goanet at http://joingoanet.shorturl.com/ # # Please keep your discussion/tone polite, to reflect respect to others # ##########################################################################