With India heading towards its 15th General Elections this year mid, the election fever has been at its peak. All the political parties (parties in the opposition and parties in power) are again playing their cards to woo the voters through traditional channels like commercials through television, campaign rallies etc. But this election we also see another way of promotion through the news media.

For instance when MNS created ruckus in whole of Maharashtra, it was something which was something unconstitutional. Similarly the Mangalore Incidents have been anti-social; with the way the women were treated and molested by the activists. Contrarily these activists belong to a party whose agenda was to “protect Indian Culture”, but they were openly molesting them and beating them

These parties know that they can’t make it big because they lack leaders and money that would be required for this kind of propaganda. So they start early and make sure that by the time elections come in the party becomes known to people. Ironically these kinds of publicity campaigns using anti-social means was started by one of the major political parties by bringing in a flavor of religion into it in the 90s. This party not only succeeded in the dastardly act of holding a whole nation at ransom, but also winning a subsequent election and running this country for sometime.

If these small regional parties are guilty of cheap publicity, so are the Media channels which show these pictures repeatedly. Being a news media channel, they should feel responsible as they can be a vehicle for change in the country, but instead they just go about showing the pictures and video clippings of what transpired repeatedly. By showing these, the parties normally achieve their objective of being able to promote themselves and their propaganda free of cost.

The problem with our country is that no government for past two general elections has got an absolute majority and they end up having a coalition with these small regional parties. Hence they are unable to arrive at a consensus in how to handle these kinds of rouge parties that enjoy some kind of support from these bigger regional who are the part of the national government.

If these are not curbed, then in the future most of the parties, which don’t have any mandate or an agenda, would start doing these anti social and anti national activities and successfully win their elections

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After having multiple heated arguments with a friend I really felt like putting this article down for thousands of readers who would actually help me decide what’s right and what’s wrong.

We all have been eagerly following the chain of events since the terrorist attack in Mumbai on 26th November 2008.The government is proud of itself today because out of 10 terrorist they have captured 1 terrorist alive! They think it’s an honor.

How many people think that  way?

A bunch of young boys barely in their teens gun down thousands of people in a metropolitan city and make our defense system dance to their tunes of terror for three days.

Can the capture of a lone terrorist alive be called an achievement or is it the biggest mistake of our government?

Now the response of the government would be 1 -2 months of creating anxiety in the minds of the people by interrogating the lone terrorist (Ajmal) and then probably hanging him. But I personally feel the government will achieve nothing by killing a young boy of barely 20 years. He probably wasn’t aware about the horrendous crime he was committing.

I know many people wouldn’t agree to what I would say but I think instead of killing the boy the government should rather rehabilitate him and make him realize that killing people is not the way to get one’s religion accepted in a society. It is just a fabrication of a religion by a few fanatic people.

This would rather set an example on thousands of youth who get strayed by certain organizations which lead them to believe fake facts. By killing Ajmal or by torturing him, do you think the other terrorist are going to get traumatized or stop committing attacks?

Most of the terrorist attacks in the world are carried with the motive of suicide. These people are fearless and emotionless. They are not scared of death since their motive is to die in the name of religion.

We have killed several terrorists in the past but has terrorism stopped?  If we really want to solve this menace, we probably should try a radical way of dealing with this global issue e.g. reverse psychology.

The young people who are trained for such attacks are kept isolated from the world and what they are shown is the world of hatred. They are rigorously trained they are prepared for death. Some of these youngsters are kidnapped or are just threatened or lured into these activities.

So who should be killed – these youngsters or the cruel people who are behind them?

I think right now the government should focus on getting the leaders and the people behind these attacks rather than torturing mere helpless puppets like Ajmal. By using the reverse psychology and rehabilitating the terrorist, they can help show thousands of youth who are lost in the make believe world of certain groups who work for their self motive rather than any other reason to see light at the end of a dark tunnel that they are in.

I know many people might condemn my thought process but I would really like people to spare a minute or two and ponder over this post and voice your opinion.

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Much has been written by my friends at Indiaspecial on the ongoing split and hate that today divides (or at least tries to) us in the name of politics, religion, region, caste, creed and so much more. It appears that we just about find a way to segregate everything into sets – I guess we owe part of that to our amazing mathematical and scientific abilities.

Of late, I had many an opportunity to observe a set of students (I presume) of African origin who have a small community a little away from my place. Most of them are about the same age as me and my friends.

I love to see them engage in a  game of football – rain, cold, sweltering heat – no matter what, they just love to play in that small ground with four stones marking the goal posts and vividly drawn boundaries – much as any of us did when we were at school. Half the team wear T-shirts and half dont, distinctly marking the two different teams. Expressions of excitement, fun, tension and victory evident in their faces, they were no different from any of us.

But there was a big difference!!!

There was not one Indian in that group. They just didn’t seem to have any Indian friends. None at all.

And I have seen these folks in the gym, at the bakery and in the shopping stores. Again – there is that element missing. It really does strike hard! Its not like they dont talk, maybe, its more like they make aquaintance, but thats when there is something that we have to do to accept them into our community too!

Coming to think of it, many of us have our own cultural bias… Dont trust a Madraasi, A Mallu is always business minded, Dilli walahs are all show, Punjabis eat a lot, Bengalis are shrewd … blah blah… No kidding! I have heard this from too many a place to say this is an individual opinion. If we can differentiate, classify and typecast our own countrymen, its not really a surprise that my African friends are farther than I ever thought!

Mirror, mirror, on the wall,

Who in this land is racist of all?

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