Thursday 28th, March 2024
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AN OPEN LETTER TO MODI JI By Dr. Valson Thampu

Published On : 15 Dec 2016


Dear and most respected Modi ji,

We rarely muster the courage, being poor and insignificant, to address important people. We are rarely heard, much less thought of. So, it is with fear and trembling that we address you.

We hope you’ll read his humble letter. We are your fellow citizens. More importantly, we are the people who voted you in.

We were fired by your promises and assurances. We were swept off our feet by your speeches. We put our trust in you. We voted for you, even though we are not RSS votaries or BJP camp-followers.

Most of us are politically neutral. We have our own woes to mind. We live burdened by the struggles of our daily life. Politics is, even in the worst of times, only a vague part of our life. We have neither the time nor the energy for it.

Yes, we are affected by politics. Corruption, crime and communalism (which is what we understand by politics) hurt us. So when you promised to put an end to corruption and to shift the focus of politics from communalism to development, we rejoiced. We believed you, eagerly.

We write this letter because now we are utterly confused. Please allow us to tell you why. And do include the following concerns in the next edition of your Man ki baath.

Can we whisper, if you don’t mind, a little thing into your busy ears? People say you speak so well that you think that speaking is all. They sense a gulf between your words and your deeds. When you speak, we wish you won’t stop. But when we see what happens after that, we wish you won’t speak. This quarrel between words and deeds, dear Prime Minister, could turn your great asset –your gift of the gab- into a liability. Life is more than podiums, microphones and media bytes. When we return, from your meetings, to the nuts and bolts of our lives, we see our problems unmitigated. We cannot eat words. Sir, here is a serious problem that you need to mind.

We have waited in vain these many months to see you redeem the promises you made. Now we are alarmed that you have begun to change your promises.

We give just one example. It was you who promised, we said not a word on the matter, that the mountain of black money parked in overseas tax havens will be brought back, making each of us richer by 15 lakhs.

In your recent Goa speech you changed the script altogether! Now you say we asked you attack domestic black money. We did nothing of the sort. Of course, we want black money of every kind eradicated. But domestic black money did not figure in your pre-election speeches. The promise you made pertained only to overseas black money.

Now you say not a word about it. Instead, you attribute something to us we never said. So, if you ask us, “Didn't you ask me to wage a war against domestic black money, our plain answer is, “Sir, we didn’t. On the contrary, you promised us that the mountains of black money stashed abroad will be brought back within hundred days of your assuming office. You haven't.

Now we are befuddled. Please clear this confusion. Did we ask you to fight domestic black money, or did you promise us that you would bring back overseas black money at once?

You say that you have demonetized 86% of the currency in circulation out of love for poor people like us. Thank you. But you never tell us how this works. The reality is different. We feel as though we have nearly lost what little we had.

We now live almost like paupers. Knocked about here and there. Driven from ATM to ATM like cattle. Made to stand, wiggle, faint or perish in long, long queues. More than a month! We find it difficult to believe, being such ordinary folks, that this is for our good. If it is, please tell us how.

Sir, we cannot help asking-

How can this one step alone be so pro-poor, when you have done nothing to improve our plight these two years, whereas you have done much to fatten the rich and to inflate the coffers of the corporates? Frankly, bitter disappointments have made us so cynical over the decades that it is impossible for us to believe that any government would do any good to us, if it can be helped.

Yes, you came up with the Jan Dhan Yojana. But how has that helped us? It only took from us what little we had and put it at the disposal, via the banks, of the greedy rich. Or, so it seems. Surely, you don’t mean to slight us by calling it a pro-poor revolution?

Now you instigate us to misappropriate the black money deposited in our Jan Dhan accounts by the corrupt who thrive on the system that you don’t change. We firmly believe that as long as the present system remains corruption and black money will stay and multiply.

Please tell us how our refusing to return the money deposited stealthily in our accounts amounts to your helping us? The truth is that we allowed our accounts to be misused because many of us could not help it. You don’t seem to know our plight.

We are in no position to say ‘no’ to the big-wigs at whose mercy we live. We live in near-slavery. Poverty, sir, is a form of slavery. You talk as if we are colluders and collaborators with these anti-social bandicoots and are partners in crime with them in the current wheedle-doodle-dom. We feel insulted.

Our powerful masters, who trespassed into our Jan Dhan accounts, told us clearly that we would have to return their moneys as and when we are ordered to. (They have the whole system, goons and police alike, at their beck and call.) We had to agree. We did.

Please don’t mind our asking, “If we could not have helped our accounts being misused then, how can we help the money shat into it –which is not our money, but their money- being taken back by those we cannot resist, except at peril of our life? How does getting killed help us?

Suppose, in the best-case scenario, we invoke your name and scare them off. What then? Don’t we also become cheats and criminals? How can you ask us to do this, as if we have no dignity or self respect, just because we are poor? How does our dishonesty help to eradicate corruption?

Sir, we are confused. Please help!

We would have believed your stated good intentions towards us, had there been any policy indication of it in the last couple of years. We can’t remember any. From our point of view the situation looks as follows.

Suppose we plant a mango tree. This involves, in your words, short-term pain. Fine. We endure this, even without anyone exhorting us, because we know there is, again in your lingo, long-term gain. We’ll get mangoes in due season. But please note this. From day number one we know we are planting a mango tree and not a tree which yields poisonous fruits.

If we are asked to plant a poisonous tree and then told to wait in hope for long-term gain, we would have to laugh it off. As of today, we do not know what plant this demonetization is. Please tell us if this demonetization is a mango tree or a poisonous tree. And, if it is a mango tree, if we are made to grow it only for others to pluck the fruits, while we stand on the sidelines and salivate? We beg of you not to keep us in the limbo of false hopes!

So, for God's sake tell us: Are you the one we thought who would give us some respite? Or, have we been taken, yet again, for a ride?

We wish you well, all the same. We shall wait a while longer. Then, when the chaff separates from the grain, we shall accept our lot, whatever it turns out to be.

This much we know: the poor are doomed to stay poor. They shall have no friend in the corridors of power.

Don’t worry about us. From a distance, we shall continue to watch you shine and burgeon, like forlorn siblings who watch the ways of a prodigal brother, who has forgotten them, blinded by the glitter and gloss of a new world he has gained for himself. A small world in which there is space only for himself.

With respectful greetings and good wishes,

Your own,
Fellow citizens and collateral victims of your crusade against what only you can tell.

 







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