A Tribute to Shaheed

23 March, 1931, a black day in the history of Indian Independence movement. Outside Lahore jail, a group of people were shouting slogans,

Inqlaab Zindabaad…!!    Inqlaab Zindabaad…!!

Long Live Revolution…!!

Just few hours before the execution, Sardar Bhagat Singh was informed that his execution has been advanced by 11 hours on 23 March 1931. And as time struck 7:30PM, mother India lost a great son, a revolutionary of the Indian independence movement.

Time itself may regret to be a part of that distress moment. Nature may have shed a tear or two.

 It is said that no magistrate of the time was willing to supervise his hanging and the jail authorities broke rear wall of the jail and secretly cremated the martyr under the cover of darkness. Why Englishmen were so cautious, when they were well established in India? And that too from a young, 24 year old man. It was because he was a revolutionary. A young hot blooded man, whose single minded approach for the freedom struggle, made easy for him to sacrifice all the worldly desires. When his parents were looking for a suitable match for him this is the reply that they got,

 “My life has been dedicated to the noblest cause, that of the freedom of the country. Therefore, there is no rest or worldly desire that can lure me now...”

A true freedom fighter, once in his childhood, while playing in open fields was asked, “What do you do?” and pat come the reply, “I sow guns” and the reason was none other than “To secure freedom for my country.”

The man, who gave a hard time to Englishmen, went on hunger strike for 116 days, fought for freedom with determination and great courage. And this is the longest hunger strike of the world till date.

Here comes 23 March, 2012 and there is a question that needs to be answered.

“Have we forgotten the hero of our freedom struggle?”

The man who sacrificed his life, so that we can live in a free country, have we forgotten him?

Let us don’t blame it on government; Government loves only politicians and their family members. Government has never celebrated his birthday, as they did for others. Neither it consoled, it simply ignored him. Indira Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Rajiv Gandhi, or say other family members are blessed with these celebration and consolation. Bhagat Singh doesn’t need that from government. Celebrations and consolation should be from the people of his beloved country.

He has always been a hero for youth of the country and today India is having highest percentage of youth population. So, we are the decision makers. We are in the right place at the right time and for the right cause. So let us just do it.

It’s a call upon youth of India to rock the virtual world with name of the legend.

On 23 March, 2012 let’s tweet as much as we can, let’s update facebook status, let us change our profile pictures to that of the legend, let us create facebook page, and let’s show the world for what we stand for. Let this year, Writers write about him, painters paint him; Singers sing  for him and artists live in the world of Bhagat Singh.

This is a call for youth of India to wake up from slumber and fight for the hero. If government is busy in giving titles to politicians, so can we, if not officially let’s give the title out of love. The government can only impose some names on us, but let people choose the beloved one. They can only name buildings, airports, roads, etc, but can’t buy respect. Let it be people’s voice to prevail, let it be people of India to decide to whom they want to give their heart to. But before each one of you makes your decision just remember that he was just 24 years old, when they hanged him till death. Just like anyone of us.

As he said, "it takes a loud noise to make the deaf hear", let us make a loud noise in virtual world, so that deaf could hear. Let us pay tribute to Shaheed Bhagat Singh.

Chup khade hain aaj saare bhai mere khaamosh hain
Na karo to kuchh kaho mazhab mera mushkil mein hai

Sarfaroshi ki tamannaa ab hamaare dil mein hai

Dekhanaa hai zor kitnaa baaju-e-qaatil mein hai

Inqlaab Zindabaad…!!    Inqlaab Zindabaad…!! 

Rohit Garg

Murder of a Messiah

“Hey, Punjabi’s you people broke my heart!”

This is what Sardar Manpreet Singh Badal might be saying to himself. The man who sacrificed his well established political career and stood for fighting against the looteras of Punjab. Just fifteen months back he was finance minister of Punjab, life would have been easy for him, but if only he was like other politicians. Little unfortunate for him, it seems he is not the one, who cares much about the power and money. A simple man, he drives his own car. Though it may seem quite normal to many but not to those who are aware of Indian politician’s lifestyle. He neither has any security cover nor does he use red light. He once said: “I am in public life on my own choice and feel no threat to my life from anybody”. How many of Indian politicians you can find these days saying this thing.

When everyone was busy in hoarding money, hunting for power, establishing close contacts with Badals (fate deciders of Shiromani Akali Dal politicians), agreeing to Badals each and every statement, he was the one who stood up and said,“ Hey, they are lying to common man”. And that was his first suicide attempt in terms of a politician’s language. But, he is a man of courage, he stood against the mighty. He has guts to say a liar is a liar and that too, to Chief Minister of the State.

When Prakash Singh Badal was making false claims of debt of Punjab and debt waiver required from center government, he enlightened common man of Punjab with real situation of the so called Khazana. He said that Punjab has small tax base and it cant afford the debt of Rs.70,000 crores. He said that revenue defict of Punjab is much higher, though senior Badal was shouting other way. He also made us aware of a common fact that not all farmers of Punjab need subsidy on power.Though he was not against subsidy on power. He just wanted to rationalize the subsidies for better financial management. He said that he was a rich farmer and he didn’t need subsidy on power, it should be for the poor and needy. Can anybody please tell, what is wrong in these kind of views? They are perfectly fine, but they are not meant for a guy who is in political arena.  

He went on to form a political party, for fighting against corruption, injustice. He fought for common man. Very well aware of the political situation of Punjab and challenges ahead, he took a plunge. In the start he got decent response from various sections of society. Educated youth was well aware of his objectives; they supported him in the virtual world. Media called him, “Man of masses”.  When everything was looking rosy, here we got a shock. We lost it. Yes indeed we lost it. Not even a single seat for his party, PPP.  

Punjab lost a golden opportunity to come out of a messy situation and put an end to family politics. Instead of zero any number would have been his source of courage and dedication for the work for next five years. Unfortunately, we deprived him of even that. Yet another fight for Messiah begins; now not only he has to fight for common man, but  also for his survival in politics.

Signing off

Rohit Garg

Masters Of Coalition Government

As the country is waiting for the outcome of the five state assembly elections results.There is high unpredictability especially in four-cornered contest in Uttar Pradesh.A few hundreds of crores are at stake in satta market predicting winning candidates, coalition governments, President’s rule; number of constituencies won, percentage of vote share and God knows what else. With UP being favorite of bookies, odds are 1:1.1 in favor of President’s rule and 1:1.2 for Congress-Samajwadi Party alliance. But it is shocking to see youth of India predicting Rahul Gandhi to be next Chief Minister of the state.It is well known fact that Rahul baba has been devoting more time for these polls than anything else, with prime focus on UP from eating with poor people to staying in their homes, he has done it all. But interesting thing is not what all he is doing, in fact the reason why is he doing all this, even when congress is well established in center. Why he is not enjoying all the power and smelling dust in fields of UP.  

There are several reasons for this, first and foremost is UP has been contributing major share of MPs for Lok Sabha i.e 80 out of 543.Another fact is out of thirteen Prime Ministers, UP has provided India with eight Prime Ministers, this explains the importance of UP polls. If, Congress wants to improve its overall condition in India, it desperately needs to work on UP part. It seems Congress is no longer comfortable with forming a coalition government at center. Sharing powers at center with smaller players has its own problems and congress might have seen them all. Tough it doesn’t seems that congress will be able to form government on their own at center but still it can shun some stubborn MPs and will be in a position to choose from a lot.

Though, it is highly unlikely that congress will be eyeing first place in UP polls, as that is too far from practicality, but they will be highly satisfied with third place as well. Congress will look forward to increase their vote share, as it may not  be able to  win elections on their own, but still they can manage to win sufficient constituencies so that they can form a coalition government with Samajwadi Party at state level. If that comes true, congress will be in a position to play a master stroke of present Indian politics; they may give support to Samajwadi Party at state level, and in return will ask for support at center. Samajwadi Party with 22 MPs in 15th Lok Sabha, will be a good partner to have. This will give them choice to say good bye to All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) (19 seats) or Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK)(18 seats) and choose SP. Most likely Congress will part ways with AITC, and if that happens Congress will be in better position to pass those pending bills, on which it has been working from many years. AITC, as partner has created more problems for Congress then finding solutions to the problems, be it is FDI’s in retail, Teesta water pact, or NCTC, it is behaving as angry and aggressive wife, who agreed to share bed first but now is having problem with each and every move of Congress. If SP lends support for Congress at center, it cannot afford to be aggressive, as it will be more than happy to rule UP after a long gap and will try to reestablish itself there. Second thing is, Congress forming government in UP, will be outcome of Rahul Baba’s time devotion and will establish him as potential Prime Ministerial candidate and will be much needed relief for Gandhi parivaar. Thirdly, if Congress will be able to pass those pending bills, it will give them edge for next general elections and will give them some agendas to cover the damage done by corruption cases. Fourthly, Congress will be able to find a answer for Mayawati’s social engineering politics.

But Congress is taking each step very consciously, with diggy uncle saying that madam Sonia and rahul baba are congress’s national leader who are not to be blamed for Congress’s bad performance in UP, and rather taking responsibility of any such performance on himself. It’s a situation in which Congress will not let anybody tarnish Rahul’s image at any cost, even if it losses. And, if they win all that will be because of Rahul Baba and we may end up seeing him as next Prime Minister of India.

Rohit Garg