It’s not the violence of few but the silence of many that scares me….Martin Luther King
The elections are round the corner and we see election manifestos being released every other day. If you are wondering how elections are related to what Martin Luther King. Read on… if we’ve just cared to pass a glance onto the manifestos of our nationalist parties they are anything but a manifesto instead these are a collection of populist promises which are reflective of the pertinent myopia that our politicians have been nurturing for ages. We claim ourselves to be moving on a path of development but these things are a poor reflection of our current democratic set up and not even a fraction of the maturity or intelligence expected from a would be superpower.
A look at the congress manifesto and it doles out reservations as if it’s a joke. There definitely is a lot that has to be done for the emancipation of rural people and the underdeveloped class but just wiping out your hands by giving reservations is no answer, its infact the easiest way to do nothing and not being held accountable. The perpetuation of the quota system represents a total political and institutional failure since this should be the last resort to build a level playing field but our politicians always understand otherwise. Rather than measures like strengthening primary and secondary education and other investments to create an enabling environment the political honchos choose the easy and populist route. There is reservation for the muslims- is inequality and poverty community partial?
Beyond this we have the announcements of rice at Rs 3 per kg that would place a burden of 5700Crores on the state. Populism doesn’t stop here- there are attempts at intrusion into India inc’s space, where would all this lead India to, when economy stares at recession we expect the politicians to come up with an intelligent manifesto, apart from the NREGA which again is a highly debatable issue the congress manifesto has been a bouquet of disappointment. How do they plan to bear the fiscal deficit that shall arise as a result of these populist measures? What shall be the source of funding these subsidies?
All this is not important for the Indian voter our politicians understand this. Caste which remains a big trump card has been played to the hilt. But with such things in place the country shall prove to be the ultimate loser. But who cares and perhaps these things don’t garner u votes.
It remains clear that socialist underthemes serve the politicians best- they help them win elections, come with no commitment tags and the whole burden lies with the state exchequer. So whether it was obama’s Wall street vs the main street or India’s omnipresent Garibi hatao=amiri hatao socialist and populist promises send our politicians laughing all the way to Vote bank, but what bothers is that such policies shall continue to weaken the nation beyond repair.
Lets wait for the BJP’s manifesto it won’t be any different. We’ll see populism touching new heights these elections, well as of now I can place my bets on BJP announcing a free or Rs2 per Kg rice …wat is ur take!!!
All I can say is- Here in our country the silence of millions would rather scare the shit out of Martin Luther king...meanwhile the FEW continue to be violent on the Nation itself!!!
Whfff….Stress finally I hope to hear less of it once the sem is over…no doubt never before in my life did I get to hear so much of this word.
“Our motive is to create stress” … “u’ll be stressed even further” well I think people in my college have debated the (il)logic behind this too many times; so perhaps I won’t spend my time on a fruitless exercise. Instead I’d offer my two cents on stress as I see it physiologically.
To begin with I picked up my OB book it gave the following gyan on stress: “A pattern of emotional states and physiological reactions occurring in response to demands from within or outside an organization”.
I take this organization to be the human body, so stress here is any reactions occurring in response to demands from within or outside the body. Day to day stress is what arises from within the body when u walk, eat or when u fall ill. Stress is not all bad…yes we all agree. The basic physiological understanding to this is the concept of allostasis- our body maintains stability in response to day to day change, this imparts some balance against this change.
So when does stress become bad- when this allostatic load turns into an overload. The body has a hormone called the epinephrine better known as the stress hormone or even fright, flight and fight hormone. The other group is the cortisols which again helps the body adapt to stress, the epinephrine offers an immediate adaptability within seconds while cortisol upto an hour, beyond that the studies prove it may have a detrimental effect on the brain.
All this just proves that the human physiology is best designed to be exposed to small stresses and that too for short periods of time, as was required by the primitive hunter n survivor but in no way is the physiology so designed to take you continuously without sleep, with the load of deadlines and targets. The worst part is The Hippocampus bears a major part of this brunt, the part responsible for your new memories and your emotions. No doubt such illogical stress may turn off ur emotions and may turn u into nothing less than a target seeking deadline meeting machine.
Or the worse may happen u end up being a hedonistic doesn’t give a damn attitude loser. Any ways the loss is urs- the stressed outs’ and not of the stressor….so where do we draw the line, when life becomes synonymous with stress and my cortisol refuses to be my partner beyond few hours, all I can do to prevent being bowled over by stress is to look for a stress buster- today it was writing …I did that. After all I need to save my hippocampus or else “My Hippocampal Vehemence” may all go for a toss …….