DOCTOR’S DEATH-WISH

SUNNY THOMAS

The story is told of a terminally ill patient, who was in a coma but came out to find himself being carried by four men.

‘Where are you taking me?’ 

‘To the grave yard,’ they replied him.

‘But I am alive,’ he protested.

‘Shut up! The Doctor knows better than you,’ they silenced the fragile living cop.

Dr Manmohan Singh got the prime ministership on a platter, like P V Narasimha Rao, who found himself at the right spot at the right time. Rao was all packed up to go to Hyderabad after his tenure in New Delhi. Once in office, Rao turned Congress into an anti-poor, anti-secular party that it lost for ever the traditional votary of the poor and middle class, upon which it had been winning election after election since Independence.

Gunnar Myrdal begins his Asian Drama quite dramatically: The tears would come out of our eyes if you see Asian poverty … People who have never known the pangs of hunger are planning for the poor. … Starve the planners for two weeks and ask them to plan …    

Singh will take his government to precisely where Rao took it in the 90s, the political no-man’s land. Today even his own once-ardent supporters are disenchanted with him, and those who voted Congress to power are unlikely to do so next time, unless there is a leadership change.   

The disenchantment began with the Commonwealth Games, which displayed the leader’s inability to be in command. The leader being led (read misled) speaks volumes about the quality of leadership that he offers. The 2-G scam is a repeat of C’wealth Games; only the actors are different. Adarsh episode is no better. Singh’s Press Conference without the Press, so to speak, without Journalists of stature or reputation, was only a comedy show. And the worst bungling of all was the handling of Anna Hzare, who emerged as a national hero with a halo around his head!  

And now come the unkindest cut of all: the fourth hike in petrol prices in a year! One more hike in petrol prices, and Congress should be ready to sit in the opposition for five years since 2014. Economics is not all about GDPs and Moody’s rating; it is about people, it is about people’s welfare, it is about removing poverty and providing food and shelter, for which governments are elected.

Allowing corporate greed to play havoc with the lives of the poor and middle class is bad economics. The astronomical sums squandered on C’wealth Games would have been enough to save the lives of hundreds of farmers! It is futile for RBI to raise the interest rates and for Fin Min top brass to resort to fire-fighting when petrol prices that affect the prices of all other commodities are wantonly allowed to rise. That energy, cement and steel prices need to be controlled to keep inflation rates at tolerable levels is common sense.  

The necrophilic passion with which the petrol prices are hiked dashes the very hope of the heavily indebted farmer, who postpones committing suicide by a day hoping the government would rescue him out. The ghost of the farmers will visit the ballot box in 2014, and see who will have the last laugh!