It?s time to call a spade a spade

As usual, the poll tidings for this assembly election differ dramatically. One says it is a 50:50 battle and the other, the ORG one, says it is a clear victory. All pretty absurd. Pollsters do not seem to have learnt any lessons from the disaster of the general elections. How utterly wrong they were and how comic the analysts appeared while covering up for their lack of political and electoral understanding, some even fighting off the reality of the reversal till the last moment. The defeat of the ruling coalition, the phenomenal slide of the BJP itself from 180 plus to 130-odd, was something no pollster, even the most erudite amongst them, had any inkling of.

How fascinating it would be if television channels would probe deeper, ask demanding questions and bring some energy, some contradictions, onto the screen instead of the obvious, childlike queries. When will our young TV reporters get incisive and adopt the mantle of projecting beyond what meets the eye? When will they start doing some homework, research, reading? When will they rise to another level, one of intellectual maturity? The impression is that most of them do not know much about what they are passing judgement on, that there is a superficiality overriding all that is spoken. Faith in the reportage that hits us is fast dwindling.

The Northeast seems to be blowing up in our face. It appears as though no one is calling the shots or is in charge. The impression is one of a lack of coherent policy and position, particularly vis-a-vis the training camps across the border. Everyone concerned here, across the border and overseas, knows the reality, everyone knows the game being played out. We all know where the support for

the present Bangladesh leadership comes from. We know the political position today, under the present regime, towards India. We know our neighbours complete dependence on largesse, across-the-board, of a powerful western nation state! A super state that is eternally fiddling about in countries far away from its shores, walking away, leaving inhuman situations and destruction scattered around the globe. Let us not allow our subcontinent to become the next victim of this neo-imperialism.

All the players in the game are there for their own vested interests, except India. It is time this government asserts itself, sets the agenda, calls a spade a spade, forcing the protector to get its protectorate to lay off or face the possible consequences. Enough is enough. Is this revenge for their liberation? If this is the kind of politics that our neighbours feel they can indulge in because they are being protected and possibly encouraged by a strong and rich power to create instability within our borders, it is time we put a stop to it before we all get embroiled in a situation that could only lead to an uncontrollable escalation of hostilities. It is exactly this that the protector would like to encourage to enable it to get a foothold in the region, a region that is oil and mineral rich! A region they would love to rule and dominate. Having exploited and triggered an unforgivable situation in the Middle East, preserving for posterity their own reserves, this power is on the rampage looking for fresh pastures. We all know their game, their capability to decimate and ravage cultures they cannot comprehend. They have played it out much too often.

It was the Congress government, with Indira Gandhi at its helm, that managed to keep the meddling superpower at bay. It supported dispensations that were malleable. It has never forgiven the Congress because the Congress was never its stooge.