just random thoughts and discussion

The Faithful dogs: A Discussion through facebook

Giriraj Sirohi: Authorities must not behave like dogs, sitting on laps of rich and barking at poor, destitutes and ragpickers..
Anup Tripathi  Poor and unorganized labourers including rag-pickers are an important part of the economy. They are as important as managers, bureaucrats, engineers or professors.

Giriraj Sirohi I agree... but thas not the point....it doesnt matter what u do, authorities are for people.. not for posts... so how imp a person is out of question

Anup Tripathi 

In my opinion, that is an important point to consider before legitimizing authorities. Authorities derive legitimacy from the fact that they are meant to serve the people (at least in principle, in practice it's not happening in most of the countries), which is the fundamental basis of the social contract between people. However, what we miss here is that often these authorities treat people differentially. So, an authorized construction of a shopping mall or unauthorized layouts in posh colonies are spared whereas slums are demolished. A person like Bangaru Laxman (a Dalit) gets sentence of 4 years for accepting a bribe of Rs 1lakh, but accused in the same sting operation who received much higher amounts as bribe like Jaya Jaitley, RK Jain, RK Sharma and many others including army officers are walking free. As long as authorities treat citizens differentially, this problem would remain.

Giriraj Sirohi 

hum itne bade logo ka angle to feel nahi kar pate hai but rah chalte rag picker par bhonkte kutte aur attitude of authorities towards such poor mein jyada fark nazar nahi aata aur dusri taraf wahi kuttey mahngi gadiyo mein amiro ke talwe chat-te nazar aatey hai and yet claim the title of most wafadar animal to the human breed.... Shayad yeh title dene waley ameer hi honge agar usey rag-picker se poochho jiske kaam mein woh roz roda atkata hai...

waise Anup hamein to pata bhi aaj chala ki bangaru SC hai, warna sab ameero ki ek hi jaat nazar aati hai hamein

Anup Tripathi 

Jaat important hai B'saab! Kitna bhi deny kiya jaye. All our social, political and economic relations are founded on the caste system, it's a reality. Caste is not something restricted to rural folks alone. It's as pervasive in the urban sphere as in the villages. "Sab ameeron ki ek jaat hai"- its a half truth. Consider this, in any traditional type of business like trading or manufacturing in India, do you think it's easy to become an entrepreneur in businesses traditionally dominated by certain caste groups? Especially for someone coming from lower caste backgrounds! Do you think that banks (which includes nationalized banks as well) give loans that easily to SC and Muslims as they give to people from other caste? Do you think that upper caste people like to sell their properties to Muslims and Dalits (even if they are paying a higher price)? And these realities are urban and metropolitan, not some rural ignorance!

Giriraj Sirohi I am not denying your point, all i am saying i have not seen it from that angle.. i have seen lots of discrimination on lots ground.. region, religion and caste included  but when comes to rich i have never seen them on other lines... though being rich is no crime but treating others as non-human for sure is

Elite vs Lesser mortals...

"If i remember it right there was one story regarding french queen: that people were on strike for lack of availability of bread and she asked why don't they eat cake."

The very attitude can be observed all around us. I need to cross a road on the way to my coaching. So as good citizen or may be because of fear of mad traffic i wait for light to turn green. Being not very old and some interest in remaining active, i am fit enough and walk at quite nice pace. By the time i am through 3/4th of the road it turns red from green. Mind you straight away red no intermediate phase and by the time i cross rest 2 meters mad traffic is again on move. So imagine for a old lady, i am sure she can not be half way across by the time bloody traffic would be on to her. So our respected planners did not bother that even pedestrians do exist in this world and they also have right to live or go across the road. Same attitude can be seen from missing lanes for cycles( as in India only poor use them so who the hell thinks about providing them infrastructure or care about their right to live).

The attitude is not only limited to people involved in planning or administration but very much visible in general public too. In colonies or on roads in market we are always complaining about street vendors as they make the movement difficult by putting their stuff on the roadside. We are of the view that they have no right to misuse the infrastructure and make others life difficult. But when we are parking the cars in front of our house in colony, we never are of the view that its also misuse of the public infrastructure, we don't have any right to park outside our home and we are also blocking the footpath.

The place in Delhi where i stay right now is a coaching hub for civil services, so may students live here. As we all know there is no dearth of cars in Delhi so they are always parked on both sides of road along the houses. So while you are walking on the sides you can be made to stop and go inside small spaces between the parked cars by high pitched horn honking as at many places there is not enough space for cars and people pass at the same time. The blessed ones sitting in the cars can't wait for few seconds for pedestrian to move ahead, they always expect him to stop and make way for them. How can a blessed one sitting in AC of the car wait for lesser mortal walking on the road. Bigger the car higher the intensity and frequency of horn. If any lesser mortal has such expectations then its pure case of blasphemy. Similar attitude can be found in people moving roads in their cars in rural areas and if some bullock-cart obstruct their way. We feel that they don't pay the road tax why the hell they are obstructing our way.

Similar is the attitude of administrators and visitors in tribal areas. Latest scandal have been the video of a naked jarwa women being made to dance for food by tourists in Andaman. People have very high view of themselves based on materialistic development indicators and consider rest as inferior. Classic case the way we treat the issue of maid taking off for a day or so. But when it come for us going to office we feel working 7 days is not just done but when it comes to maid we forget that she/he is also human being, also feel the same way as we do, also needs break. If maid says she/he was sick, people are always suspicious that its a lie but we forget our case. Hypocrites we are.

I remember an incident, while travelling from my village to Delhi on NH-24 which has bottleneck at river Ganga crossing leading to usual traffic jams. So one such fine day struck in jam, i got down from the roadways bus as it was going to be hours and started roaming. One uncle in his car coming from other side moving criss-cross, making his way out in non-existing spaces and managing somehow, looks at me and says yes youth should take the lead otherwise it will take hours to clear the jam. I was like uncle you are right i should take a big rod and first of should break the glasses of these cars who are never in line and always in hurry and occupy the space if there is any possibility of any movement. Making a slow moving traffic a non moving jam. Uncle did not utter a single word and continued his journey making his way in non existing spaces, may cursing me for absence of manners in young generation or rural people as these "ganwars" don't understand the value of the ELITES' time as they have so much to do, so much to worry of, so much of work that too for development of lesser mortals. Whole of the whitemen's burden has shifted to the elites of the country. Prime example of these developments being the Andaman trunk road in Forests where the naked native are made to dance for food or the roads through rural areas where if a villager comes with his bullock-cart is seen as obstruction to pace of life or traffic lights which deny the existence of pedestrians or footpath which are ok if used to park cars or put put the building material but not if vendors use them for their livelihood.

I remember a few fellow yatris from Jagriti yatra 2011( It's a train journey organised by organisation Jagriti sansthan to inspire them to build new INDIA through entrepreneurship)- one was discussing why the locals oppose the development in their areas as before coming of companies they have nothing but atleast with coming of companies they would have something as companies would be buying their land and paying them, providing them employment, clothes and food. i would just re-quote the incident thought the tourist was giving that Jarwa lady to eat and for sure she was hungry but my dear friend what about dignity which he was taking away with help of administrators and on the very symbol of development, the road or the so called road to prosperity. I also remember a yatri asking a question regarding trainees at barefoot college( A college in village Tilonia, Rajasthan where illiterates are trained to do professional jobs like Solar engineer etc) that how difficult is it to train illiterates. I was really surprised to see people using illiterate and fool as synonymous. The stupid Ganwars must understand the elites' burden and must cooperate as it's all for them only. They are just doing it out of respect to humanity.

Thank you!!

Last time i wrote was like ages ago(3 years) and some how yesterday a friend somehow came to see this piece and asked me is it me. I was like Giri's world yes that sounds familiar and checked to confirm that its me only. I was asked to continue the thread

So here i am again trying to put my thoughts down. For me it has always been really difficult to put thoughts on paper, have always been of the belief that i don't know as poorly as my scores in exams suggested :). Always tried to blame that its the writing skill that fails my thought process and have always tortured some of friends with my blah blah. Prashant, Suyash, Manoj and Gaurav can vouch for that and so can the mess tables of Cautley bhawan and university canteen tables of Roorkee. I hope to continue writing as now friends are not there to listen and the only left to torture them is writing here and making them read. So hopefully from tomorrow i would be putting down some random things here and Thank you for motivating me to write again.