The Cause

Shri xyz made a long comment on this post. Now the comment deserves a post of its own, however I just wanted to address a remark he made in passing,

"The Great gangetic plains are stirring,they hold out promise,if they are not burdened by overpopulation and jokers like lalu"

No matter how it begins and what course it takes, any conversation on politics of Gangetic belt is guaranteed to conclude by blaming Lalu, Mayawati and Mulayam Singh Yadav. I do admit I find this whole refrain annoying, especially when it comes from middle class inhabitants of Gangetic belt.The truth is simple if uncomfortable, the culprit for the present mess is no one but the people themselves.

It is not as if heartland was a model of good governance prior to Mandal (which marked the beginning of OBC politics). Narayan Dutt Tiwari, was famous for his peccadilloes as was Veer Bahadur Singh. Since independence the heartland has been a fiefdom of Nehru-Gandhi dynasty.

And it is the people who are to be blamed for this. They are to be blamed for believing in the pipe dreams of socialism, opting for fiction of egalitarianism instead of prosaic reality, even as the state suffered due to neglect of infrastructure, education and health. True, the flavours of the slogans kept changing from Nehruvian socialism to Lohiate socialism but the dynamics of politics underneath was always determined by the caste equations and network of personal loyalties reminiscent of feudalism. Hence when the slogans ceased to have the attraction and arouse public passion, it is not surprising that what was earlier mechanism has today become slogan in itself.

The only reason middle class is complaining now is that earlier the caste equations mapped into class equations, with the result that urban section retained control. However the Mandal politics which is nothing but caste without trapping of Utopian fantasy, has ensured marginalization of middle class.

Notwithstanding the middle class anguish, Lalus are the result, not the cause. To repeat what Rohit said, buck stops here.