Friday

The trilemma of illiterate Aam Aadmi

The day to day life of Aam aadmi is disturbed again by the reopening of tamasha particularly when he is illiterate. Suddenly his village is burst with activities. Everyone call this as Lok Sabha Elections.

The streets are decorated with party flags of all colors. Only few color combinations are left, for any more design of flags, for the benefit of the Leading Actors or the Acting Leaders when they decide to leave the screen for making of the so called revolution.

Aam aadmi is still not aware of any Five year Plan ; he knows only the visits of political leaders once in Five years. Some immature dynastic leaders hailing from royal families, will suddenly enter a dalit hut and have butter milk to be shown from the capital media that he does not practice untouchability. Later in private they will swallow antibiotics and purify by Ganga Jal. They are admirably following the footsteps of their forefathers and foremothers.

If you think that our illiterate Aam Aadmi is in anyway confused about the names of so many political parties, you may be wrong. The television sets have already landed in many hamlet huts where drinking water is scarce. After a hard labor and hot liquor when he looks on TV news with blurred vision , he can somewhat hear the names of all major and minor political parties by the abbreviation, but remember, he cannot read or write any English alphabet.

INC, BJP, BSP, CPI, CPIM, SP, RJD, NCP, TD, TRS, NCP, SS, JDU, RJD, DMK, AIADMK, MDMK, PMK, DMDK, PMK, JMM, SAD, RSP, AITC, AGP, LJSP, MUL, PDP, RPIA, IFDP, MNF, FBL, KEC, NPF, RLD, JKN, SDF, BNP, AIMIM, SJPR, NLP, ETC, ETC.

The major political parties have announced Prime Minister candidates before the preparation and release of election manifesto. Is it right to impose Aam admi with faces of Prime ministers instead of manifestos? Anyway the most our Aam admi understands about election manifesto is “what is available free of cost this time?”

Our Aam Aadmi is one among millions of illiterate population of India . Even after 62 years of independence only 61 % are literate. Should we not take pride on the fact that 1 in 3 of the illiterates of this world is Aam admi? India is ranked at 147 out of 170 countries in the world after achieving this much literacy.

What a great achievement by so many stable governments run by unstable leaders! Instead we should have tried more unstable Governments headed by stable leaders.

From Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru to Professor Manmohan Singh, the policies were not aimed at providing primary education. The selfish citizens in New Delhi are fighting like bungalow dogs and slumdogs for preventing or providing reservation in IIMs, IITs. But the entire block of illiterate Aam aadmis are unqualified and are kept deliberately out of competition in getting their share in any institution let alone elite institutions. No one thinks about the talent and creativity of illiterate Am aadmi, untapped and wasted. This is nothing but backdoor implementation of Merit-by-Birth policy.

Who will teach our Aam admi about Democracy or Accountability or the philosophy called Democratic Accountability? The UPA lead by Congress Party promised for 6.0 % spending for education in its Common Minimum Programme (CMP) of the alliance but allotted poor 2.84%.

Having failed in this field , UPA has also committed fraud on Aam Aadmi by concealing report card taking advantage that Aam aadmi can have no idea of report cards, class rooms etc! Aam aadmi does not understand these percentage calculations too. Only our Leaders and Babus who studied the percentage problems and solutions in their English medium schools know about the business of practicing percentage transactions in their services.

And when our intelligentsia in politics and media have no heart to look back whether the promises of last election regarding Health, Education and employment are fulfilled by the ruling combine UPA, how these can be put in front of this poor illiterate?

Aam aadmi is so innocent but intelligent enough to distinguish the three important alliances staking claims in Lok Sabha polls. He is in a trilemma to choose among the Funda-mentalists, the Sonia-mentalists and Multi-mentalists.

His vision of these three political alliances for the election can be understood if we hear the following folk song he inherited and is preparing to perform loudly in front of the polling booth. Let us hear the song of this voiceless Aam aadmi.

Over the tip of a thorn
I dug three ponds.
Two got silted
The third was waterless.

To the waterless pond
Arrived three potters
Two were handicapped
The third was handless

The handless potter
Made only three pots
Two were un-burnt
The third Left half-burnt

In the half-burnt pot
Of the three rice grains
Two were spoiled
The third Left uncooked

To eat uncooked rice
Came three new guests
Two were not hungry
The third was on fast.

The guest on fast
Got three buffalos
Two were sterile
The third had no calf

The calf-less buffalo
Grazed on three grounds
Two were dry lands
The third had no grass

For the grass-less field
Of the three Rupees tax
Two were counterfeit
The third was rejected

To record this revenue
Came three accountants
Two had no eyes and
The third was blind.

( Translated folk song from the oral literature of Tamil country)

Written by Malarthamil

Malarthamil is a civil engineer and writer-poet inspired by Thirukkural – a classical Tamil poetry that expounds various aspects of life.