Demonetization & Narendra Modi - The Failures!

“And in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.” 

-- John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath

Trust, but verify. The first half of this quote, mistakenly attributed to Ronald Reagan, explains India’s success; the second, its failure. This nation trusts. It is too poor and disenfranchised – culturally, socially, politically – to do otherwise. This nation does not verify. It is too preoccupied in eking out an existence – weekly, daily, hourly – to do otherwise. And so it suffers; suffers for five years every five years.

India trusted Narendra Modi. He has failed.

There’s something to be said about Narendra Damodardas Modi. Though he is a photoshopped demagogue, he has been able to dumb down the minds of people who I (mistakenly) thought would be able to have a more discerning sense of what’s going on. What I see now is a shocking case of brain meltdown. These people are not the street ruffians of the VHP. They are also, at least ostensibly not, RSS brown shirts. They are professionally qualified people, with good life skills, and also reasonably honest in what they do with some sense of what constitutes ethical behaviour and practice in their respective professions. What beats me is the way in which these people have swallowed Modi’s hogwash hook, line, and sinker.

They believe, like incredulous infants, that whatever Modi is doing is happening for the first time in this country. From surgical strikes to currency demonetization, everything is descending from the grace of Narendra Modi. The fact that every such action has been done in the past does not cut any ice with them. Take the case of currency demonetization. High value Indian currency has been demonetized twice before, once in 1947-48 and in 1978. While the former doesn't count for this purpose, the latter was done with the specific objective of curbing `black’ money; but it failed. Many subsequent attempts to do so through various other means also failed, or had only a passing effect. Why would demonetization succeed now? For the believers the answer is simple: because Modi says so. And that's unbelievably unsurpassable logic.

The sad fact that those people who have no credit worthiness, and most Indians don't, are now being forced to sell their 500 rupees notes to sharks for 400 rupees or less in various places is also a fall out of the Modi's Demonetization.

Then there is the anger in these people against criticism of the great leader. Criticising Modi for his personality or policies is almost akin to being part of a Pakistan sponsored conspiracy against the nation. Kiran Rijju voiced this when he said that people are developing a bad habit of asking questions from politicians and the armed forces. They conveniently forget the most savage kind of criticism they had unleashed against Manmohan Singh, and the virulent abuses they continuously heap on Arvind Kejriwal, and on the `JNU-type' liberals. When they criticise, it is considered their democratic privilege; but any criticism of Modi is against national interest, and has to be thrown into the dustbin.

Why? Because for them Modi is busy `nation building’ man, and criticising a nation builder is not good. This chills my blood for this is exactly what was said of Hitler by many middle-class, upwardly mobile, Jew-hating Germans in the 1930's; and it is almost the same class of people who are saying the same thing in India now.

Modi is said to be 'nation building’, almost as if this is happening in India for the first time. However, the incontrovertible fact is that the story of India since 1947 is a story of 'nation building’. The basic mortar of this nation, its Constitution, was not the gift of Modi and his ilk, but the honest toil of a legion of liberal-minded, thinking-politicians who consciously tried to make India into an inclusive-secular nation in the face of the toughest opposition from the political lineage to which Modi belongs. The nation that Modi wants to build is an ideological child of that lineage, a Hindutva-inspired, majoritarian illiberalism; and this is what today’s well-heeled are celebrating as 'nation building’. This is not only shocking; it is just plain shameful.

Failure lies not in the absence of great ideas but, rather, in their execution. It is not an intangible, or a whim that can be dismissed, like it is so often, as a stepping stone to wisdom and success. Failure borne out of good intentions and risk, is not the same as one resulting from ill-preparedness and weakness. Make no mistake, Modi’s failure belongs to the latter.

First the ill-preparedness.

Demonetization, announced by Modi on November 8, that made currency denominations of old Rs 500 and 1,000 – Rs 14.1 lakh crore, in circulating cash – illegal tender overnight, is undeniably a good idea, if one believes that citizens and their transactions must incur tax, that is. Only one per cent of Indians pay tax. Black economy makes up as much as 20 per cent of India’s total GDP in PPP terms.

This is not to say that all the black money that is hoarded in India is in Indian currency now made useless; gold, realty, and foreign currency remain the preferred choice of seasoned enthusiasts. While the economists squabble over its benefits – some say it is a damp squib even as others point to a paradigm shift – it cannot be denied that demonetization is a body blow to black money, both hoarded and transacted. It is a welcome idea, a brave idea. It is an idea whose time had come and gone so many times in the recent past that no one thought a leader would have the courage or gumption to pull it by the wrists and bring it to the table again. So what’s the problem?

It is this. Demonetization might not be new to India but the circumstances are. Jaw-droppingly. The denomination made illegal tender in 1978 by Morarji Desai made up just 0.6 per cent of India’s circulating cash. What Narendra Modi has made illegal, on the other hand, is 86 per cent of India’s circulating cash. Yes, it is a no contest – 0.6 per cent versus 86 per cent. Modi says this is his war on corruption. Well, if this is how we fight wars, god save this country.

Did he not see this coming? The impossibly long queues, the futile vigils, the empty ATMs, the exhausted bank employees, the abject misery of millions who live on less than a dollar a day and have to make a choice whether to stand in line for currency or to spend that time earning it instead?

How could the leader of a rising superpower, and in whose hands rests the fate of 1.2 billion people (so patently it is now obvious); how could a leader miss the obvious – that this was going to be nothing short of a real war, that it required the Army and the police reserves and hundreds and thousands of mobile cash vans they would guard and make sure reached the remotest parts of this country?

How? Was it hubris or plain and simple ignorance? What was it? Whatever it was, it managed to unsettle him into resorting to emotional blackmail worthy of fragile men and charlatans. “My life is in danger. They can burn me alive...”.

Demonetization is the single greatest disruptive move made by an Indian leader since Independence, and for it to be implemented so shambolically, so chaotically, describes us so shamefully and so completely. That we trust but never verify. What should have been charted out on Day Zero with military precision now emerges piecemeal every other day – indelible ink is to be used; withdrawals are not to be increased; banks will remain open on Sundays; senior citizens can stand in separate lines; photocopies of ID cards need not be submitted.

Well, it is too late. The war has been lost. Half of the ATMs are out of cash; less than a tenth of them have been recalibrated; proxies are being made to queue up; nowhere near has enough of the new currency been uploaded; and millions are suffering, millions are scared, millions will be jobless in the short-term. What was to be a Six-Day War has now been reclassified as a Fifty-Day War. But remarkably, those who stand in long lines still trust him. They are suffering but they don’t mind. From underwear to railway berths, we have been conditioned to adjust. We survive now, on the promise that we will thrive later. But will Modi hold true to their trust? The answer is a resounding no.

To the weakness, then.

Modi, since he became the Prime Minister, has broken a dozen odd promises, but the cruellest deceit has been the going back on his clarion call that, in very large measure, made many trust him in the first place: “Government has no business to be in business.”

Half his term has flown past and all his government has done is to be in business – the business of running hotels, airlines, insurance companies, coal fields, drug companies, power plants, steel smelters, and banks. Every waking day these businesses make losses, and every waking day Modi throws more money at them. It would be funny if it wasn’t so cruel. But no one can do or say anything, no one can take him to task for reneging on his promise, or on the trust Indians put in him. No political party will challenge him because they want the exact same – for governments to be in business. Modi has history on his side.

On the midnight of July 19, 1969, a few hours before Armstrong took that small step for man, Indira Gandhi made a giant leap for Socialism. Through a single, hurried stroke of her pen, fourteen of India’s largest private banks were nationalised. One man, Rustom Cavasjee Cooper, the founder member of Rajaji’s Swatantra Party, stood alone and fought her tooth and nail. The Supreme Court sided with him. But Mrs Gandhi overturned the historic judgement through the twenty-fifth amendment. Cooper lost. We lost. To this day, it remains one of the most tragic events in Indian history. We haven’t recovered since and Modi will make sure we never do.

To nationalise the banks was to nationalise corruption. Public sector banks are the fountainhead through which gushes untamed wealth, our wealth, on the finger-click of a politician. From slick poonjipatis to sick PSUs everyone loves a public sector bank. In the last four years, these banks have lost as much as Rs 30,000 crore to fraud.

Enter demonetization. According to one estimate, with so much cash pouring into public sector banks (that is, being deposited and not just exchanged), they could see a rise of 20-25 per cent in their quarterly profits, not to mention a helpful restructuring of their loan portfolios. The other windfall from demonetization – that a huge chunk of black money is simply not returned for want of fear and retribution – would mean that the Central Bank could write off its liability towards it. This would make the bank richer by as much as Rs. 30,000 crores. By law the RBI has to transfer this money to the government coffers, although one former Chairman of the RBI cautions the bank against this move. Be that as it may, there is no denying that demonetization is destined to make the government extremely rich.

But what good would being rich do when it continues to run loss-making businesses – hotels, airlines, banks? One man knows the answer but he is afraid to provide it. Because he is weak, and he knows that in him we will continue to trust, but not verify. That man is Modi, Narendra Damodardas Modi, a failure.

P.S. - Not a Congressman, nor a BJP Bhakt, nor an AAPiya, neither a Hindu nor a Muslim, just a responsible Indian Citizen with a conscious and a head over his shoulders which has a brain that thinks.

Kiss Of Love

There is something poisonous about a democracy in which couples are arrested for kissing. This reaction by the Government to the non-violent 'Kiss Of Love' protest proved the protestors point very effectively. Those who attack young people and vandalise cafes will go scot-free, the police will chose to lock up the peaceful protestors. It does not bode well for the 'freedom of expression' in our democracy if intolerant and violent groups are able to leverage Government institutions to prevent other citizens from exercising their rights.

A group called the 'Free Thinkers' organised the 'Kiss Of Love' as a protest against the increasing moral policing. The Facebook page for the site says of the event that - young bloods join their hands together to prove to the society that kiss is the symbol of Love. The protest was announced after Bhartiya Janta Yuva Morcha volunteers vandalised a cafe in Kozhikode claiming that they were prompted to do so by the "immoral activities" that took place in the cafe. Media speculation indicates that this was a reference to the footage of youngsters kissing in the cafe.

The Shiv Sena reportedly declared the protest a new form of  Love Jihad and said that it would cause sexual anarchy. In addition to the Shiv Sena, right wing activists from across the religious lines including the Yuva Morcha, ABVP, Bajrang Dal, Social Democratic Party of India and radical Hindu and Muslim groups were united in their protest against the 'Kiss Of Love'. Although the High Court refused a petition to prohibit the event, the police eventually rounded up and locked away the organisers and supporters of the 'Kiss Of Love'.

It is clear from this that the 'Kiss Of Love' participants were attacked from two different directions. On one hand, there was physical threat posed by the right wing 'anti-kiss' campaigners. On the other, the Police used to disperse the protest because of the law and order problem created by the anti-protest activists.

Situations where speakers are silenced by the Police because an unruly crowd creates pressure through its violence are what American jurist Harry Kalven was trying to describe when he coined the term 'Heckler's Veto' Kalven pointed out that, "if the police can silence, the law in effect acknowledges a veto power in hecklers who can, by being hostile enough, get the law to silence any speaker whom they do not approve."

The 'Kiss Of Love' incident is a classical illustration of this veto at work. There was no good reason why the police should have dispersed this non-violent and utterly reasonable protest. However, the unruly mob succeeded in creating a sufficiently hostile environment to achieve this. This is not the first time that an unruly aggressive mob has effected the fundamental rights of other citizens in India.

The 'Kiss Of Love' incident, therefore, follows Salman Rushdie's aborted appearance at the Jaipur Literary Festival to become a part of the several cases in which extremists are able to stifle expression by threatening violence and disruption.

Restricting speech in the interests of the public order was not permissible under the original text of the Indian Constitution. After the Supreme Court refused to allow the use of 'national security' exception to restrain speech in the interest of law and order, the Nehru government added 'public order' among the reasons for which the right to free expression may be restricted under our Constitution. This resulted in the Supreme Court permitting prior restraint of speech in the interest of maintaining law and order. For example in Babulal Parate v/s State of Maharashtra the court upheld anticipatory restriction of Article 19(1)(1) in the interests of public order, reasoning that 'public order must be maintained in advance in order to ensure it.'

Over time, the judiciary has become conscious as to how law is leveraged to silence speakers. Although the Supreme Court has never actually used the phrase, it has acknowledged the dilemma that is termed as the 'heckler's veto'. This was in S. Rangarajan v/s P. Jagjivan Ram where it said, "freedom of expression cannot be suppressed on account of threat of demonstration and processions or threats of violence. The State cannot plead its inability to handle the hostile audience problem." Saying so, the Supreme Court indirectly signaled that it is the inability of the Police and the Government to curb the violent elements, that they in turn let out their frustration on the non violent citizens and use force on people supporting the rightful cause.

In 2013, a kissing protest was staged in a Turkish metro station in response to a morality campaign by Ankara authorities. The Police tried to prevent protestors from going into the station, and Islamists attacked the demonstrators, resulting in the stabbing of one person. A 'Kiss-in' held in Morocco to protest the arrest of two teenagers for kissing was also attacked by Islamists counter protestors.

It is a matter of concern, how extremists everywhere seem united in their opposition to expressions of affection. Take the Shiv Sena andits terming of the 'Kiss Of Love' event as an instance of 'Love Jihad' <make it a link for the article 'Ground Reality of Love Jihad> oblivious to the fact that extreme Islamist groups also support punishing all displays of public affection. Extremists groups have always been present and will always jockey for leverage. What is critical is that the laws and the State institutions should contain these extremist organisations instead of supporting them while they curtail other citizens democratic rights.

Robert Post, eminent First Amendment scholar and Dean of Yale Law School, wrote that a heckler's veto creates very bad incentives for those who oppose free expression since it permits an angry mob to use the law to silence speakers. This threatens the open public expression that is critical to democracy.

The 'Kiss Of Love' protestors were not the ones causing public disorder. That distinction belongs to the intolerant anti-protest activists who disrespected the protestors' autonomy. When this extremism is facilitated by the Government and Police, through its failure to distinguish between peaceful protestors and thugs who use law and order problems to threaten them, it becomes clear that our laws being used to facilitate heckler's veto, not to protect citizen's rights.

Black Money

"What are you doing?" I asked my niece, who is six years of age, as she took a five hundred rupee note from me and dipped it in black paint.

"Making black money!" she said proudly as she laid it next to other currency around the same denominations. "Once I make enough black money, I will automatically be able to go to Switzerland and bank it. Then immediately our Prime Minister will go there and bring the black money back, and my name will be in all the newspapers!"

"Who told you this, sweetie?"

"Read the newspapers uncle!" replied my niece exparately, "Do you read newspapers?"

"I occasionally write for them!" I told her calmly.

"Then, will you please tell Modi Ji that I am making black money for him?" asked my niece innocently. "I am sure he will be happy to know once you tell him!"

I looked into her little eyes, while the black paint on the currency notes was being dried, "Why would Modi Ji be happy?", I asked.

"Because with Supreme Court asking him for the full list of people having black money in India, he may find that most of his friends also have stashed money in Switzerland and so he needs an escape route!"

"And the escape route is?"

My niece smiled at me expectantly, pulled me by my hand and took me to balcony, where all of her friends were dipping currency notes into black paint.

"Look at the black money we are producing!" she said proudly.

"That's quite a lot!", I said looking at the fluttering notes getting dried of wet paint in the wind.

"And uncle . . ."

"Yes?"

"We think Modi Ji will become one of the most popular Prime Ministers in India!"

"Because he is unearthing the Swiss black money?" I asked

"No, because he will soon show that by default every Indian has black money!"

"Even sweet little girls like you too?" I whispered.

"Even you uncle! Even Modi JI and his party men", she said with utmost confidence of a little girl, "Didn't all your clever black coat friends, saw to it that you paid the least amount of income tax last year?"

I quickly came to my room and realised that every Indian has black money, and only some had it stashed in Switzerland!

From the window of my room, I watched my niece and her friends drying their black currency notes, to save Prime Minister Narendra Modi from embarrassment..!

The Fallen Legend

If Che Guevara is the chosen symbol of resistance, a day will come when Former Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's picture will be used as a symbol of helplessness on T-shirts and coffee mugs.

Indian National Congress stared at a shocking defeat in the Lok Sabha Elections 2014. Although Rahul Gandhi, who puts on an odd smile while addressing media these days, took full responsibility for the defeat, the Gandhi family retainers are struggling hard to shift the blame of the party's defeat away from Mr Gandhi.

Congress leaders keep on saying that they have accepted the people's verdict and that the party would do introspection. Once they reach there, a certain section of party would want to make Manmohan Singh the fall guy.

That is unfair. Afterall, it was party chief Sonia Gandhi, and second in party's hierarchy, Rahul Gandhi who called the shots. Along with their close aides, the two decided everything - from candidature to the campaign strategy. The Congress party chose to fight the election with Rahul Gandhi's face as its emblem.

But Manmohan Singh Cannot fully escape the responsibility, either. It may be unfair to turn him into the fall guy. But he surely fell down, long ago, and then forget to get up. The genius economist is indeed the fallen legend.

In the last few months, the images of a meek looking Manmohan Singh triggered off anger induced acidity among a majority of Indians. And not all of them were necessarily the pro - Hindutva types. They just could not reconcile with the idea of a Prime Minister who found it difficult to even shoot an arrow properly at Ravan's effigy during the Dussehra celebrations at Delhi's Ramlila ground. They felt that he had lost his identity so much that he even begun to speak Hindi like Sonia Gandhi.

Many people hated Narendra Modi when he spoke. He reeked of an arrogance, displaying his alpha - male behaviour. He beamed at the compliments paid to him over his dressing style. When he walked, he puffed like a flashy boy who may have been pumping iron at his neighbourhood gym for a few weeks.

But atleast he talked, he was assertive. People could actually hear him when he made a speech. They felt that Narendra Modi is the man who could set things right. "Sabko seedha kar dega", they would say, while munching on a piece of pizza at a Domino's. They completely forgot that the man who enabled them to have their pizza i none other than the genius economist, Dr Manmohan Singh.

On July 24, 1991, Dr Singh made his debut speech as India's finance minister, ushering in an era of economic liberalisation. His turban had the colour of the clear skies. He invoked the Victor Hugo. "Let the whole world hear it loud and clear. India is now wide awake.", he said.

In a 2005 interview with the British journalist, Mark Tully, Dr Singh recalled how PV Narasimha Rao had sent his Principal Secretary to ask him to join his cabinet and how he didn't take it seriously. He recounted how an angry Rao called him the next day, asking him to get dressed up and come to take oath as Finance Minister. He also remembered his Cambridge days where he was influenced by the economist, Nicholas Kaldor, and his teacher Joan Robinson, who he said, "sought to awaken the inner conscience of her students in a manner that very few others were able to achieve."

While Dr Singh awakened India to a new beginning, he let his inner conscience put to deep sleep induced coma soon after Sonia Gandhi made him the Prime Minister. In December 2004, Narasimha Rao passed away. As he stood next to his mentor's body, Dr Singh could see clearly how the Congress would treat his former Prime Minister. No arrangements had been made to receive Rao's body. Later, it was not even allowed a customary stopover at the Congress headquarters. Mrs Gandhi made sure it was sent to Hyderabad for cremation.

Dr Singh chose to remain passive about the treatment meted out to Rao. It took him nine years to redeem Rao's legacy when he finally spoke about his contributions during his Independence Day speech last year. But by that time, Rao had been extirpated from the collective memory of the Congress party.

The only extra ordinary thing that Dr Singh did against the treatment he got from Sonia and Rahul was during his farewell function in Delhi on the evening of May 14, 2014. Dr Singh was standing next to his wife when the Congress president, Sonia Gandhi, walked in and greeted him. He reciprocated the gesture and left her there to meet his ministers and other Congress leaders. His wife followed him.

Later, there was another photo opportunity where Sonia Gandhi offered Dr Singh and his wife a bouquet of flowers each. Dr Singh received it nonchalantly without even looking at her.

This small gesture is a major leap for Dr Singh. But it has come 10 years late. In fact, there is an undated video in circulation on the social media that has gone viral. It shows Dr Singh, his hands loosely in attention, waiting at some event for Congress Supremo, Sonia Gandhi. She alights from her car behind him and, as Dr Singh turns to greet her, she walks past him without as much as acknowledging his presence.

It was very clear that Mrs Gandhi had carefully chosen Dr Singh in 2004. She was confident that he would keep the throne warm for Rahul Gandhi, and would faithfully step down when asked to. But in the 10 years of his tenure, barring his assertion during the India - US nuclear deal, Dr Singh was quite happy with the tokenism his post offered. Right under his nose, massive scams in his ministries kept blowing up and he simply chose not to do anything about them. He even let his spin doctors argue that he knew nothing about these developments, subjecting himself to further ridicule. He made speeches without communicating anything. His conviction about what he said was so weak, he sought its validation from a TV technician.

In September last year, when the Congress's baby, Rahul Gandhi publically denounced an ordiance while Dr Singh was on a foreign trip, many hoped that atleast then he would take a position and resign. But he remained resigned to his circumstances. The phrase 'Goongi Gudiya' (dumb doll), used once prematurely for Indira Gandhi, never felt as apt as it did for Dr Singh. Many stand up comedians made their career out of jokes on him.

Thankfully, Dr Singh is out of this humiliating situation now. He will hope history will remember him as the man who brought India back from the verge of bankruptcy. And the man, who during his tenure as Prime Minister of India, made India the third largest economy in the world, surpassing that of Japan's and many others.

But there are two kind of histories. One the Cambridge case study types, and the other that the masses write. The second history, sadly, will be rather unkind to the fallen legend and genius economist, Dr Manmohan Singh.

And therein lies a lesson for Mr Modi. The clear mandate given to him is an indication that the majority among the masses is willing to give him a chance to rewrite his history. If he succeeds in taking charge unlike his predecessor and deliver on his promises of development and clean governance, he can secure his history. There, the Photoshop skills of his bhakts, potraying a bus corridor in Bogota as one in Ahmedabad, won't help him. The chapter of 2002 will remain, but it will be then, undeservedly, relegated to the appendix.

Manmohan Singh fell and forgot to get up. Narendra Modi got up and began to fly. It is time for him to sit down.

Mr Modi knows what he will go on to represent, should his face appear someday on T-shirts and coffee mugs, beyond the kinds available in BJP offices. That is why he must wean himself away from such paraphernalia.

The challenge for Dr Singh was to prove that his inner conscience had not slipped into coma. Mr Modi will have to begin by proving that he possesses an inner conscience.

Crorepati Elections - Jammu And Kashmir

Every third candidate in the fray for Lok Sabha Polls in the six seats of Jammu and Kashmir, where polling ended on May 7, 2014, is a 'CROREPATI' with the richest of them having declared property worth nearly 100 crore INR.

Of the 78 candidates who have entered the electoral arena in J&K, 27 are crorepatis, according to the affidavits submitted along with the nomination papers filed for the general election.

Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate from Srinagar Lok Sabha seat, Tariq Hamid Karra, is by far the richest of the lot with assets valued at nearly 100 crore INR.

Party-wise, the BJP has the highest number of crorepati candidates - four, followed by National Conference with three, and PDP and Congress have two each. Apart from these big parties, there are independent candidates also who have declared assets in crores.

Surprisingly the per capita income of Jammu and Kashmir is 4220.83 INR per month. If one compares the per capita income and the income of these crorepatis, then it won't take a genius to figure out that these candidates have blood money in their bank accounts and not just the black money.

The questions that the people of Jammu and Kashmir should ask themselves are. Should these candidates, who haven't seen the plight of common man, be allowed to represent them? Have they ever worked for the welfare of the public or have they worked for their own personal interests only? After getting elected, will they not use their political stature and power to curb more money by exploiting the common man?

It's the selfish and corrupt politicians like these, who force the common man to believe, "GORO SE TO AZAD HO GAYA BHARAT LEKIN KALI CHAMDI WALE NETA AAJ BHI DHEMAK KI TARAH DESH KO KHOKLA KAR RAHE HAIN".

Chinese Incursion - Few Unanswered Questions

In another incursion, Chinese troops intruded into the Chumar sector in Ladakh — the same area which had sparked off tensions in April — and smashed some bunkers besides cutting wires of cameras installed at the border post.

Official sources said that the troops of China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) entered Indian territory in the Chumar sector and started vandalising the observation bunkers, besides cutting the wires which overlook the Chinese territory.

Chumar, located 300 km from Leh, has always been an area of discomfort for the Chinese troops as this is the only area along the Sino-Indian border where they do not have any direct access to the Line of Actual Control (LAC).

Chumar, a remote village on Ladakh-Himachal Pradesh border, is being claimed by China as its own territory. The Chinese side has also reportedly resorted to helicopter incursions too.

Why China is acting like is quite understandable, they are being fuelled by their lust for power and greed for more land. But what's troubling me being a responsible Indian is:

• Why our External Affairs Minister, Salman Khurshid is not doing anything regarding this? Why is he acing like a stupid? why is he behaving so anti-national?

• Why our rubber stamp Prime Minster, Manmohan Singh not doing anything? Is it that his Swiss bank accounts are being filled with dollars at the cost of his silence?

• Why the Indian National Congress supremo, Sonia Gandhi and her son, the next in line to the prime Minister's mantle from congress, Rahul Gandhi, tight lipped on this? Are the rumours true that the last of the Nehru - Gandhi dynasty are anti Indians and are planning to flee India after ruining it?

• Why the self proclaimed Rambo from Bharatiya Janta Party, Narendra Modi not saying anything regarding this? BJP is projecting him as the Prime Minister candidate, and yet he is silent, is it that he is so prejudiced that he will act only if a Gujarati is involved? He is a Gujarati first and Indian at last?

• Why the Chief Minister of Jammu & Kashmir, Omar Abdullah not acting in this regard? It's his territory, Leh is a part of Jammu & Kashmir, so why is he running away from his duties and not defending his land? Is his only responsibility is to update his twitter statuses when some movie portrays Gulmarg as Manali?

I seriously hope that someday, one day, all the Indians will get these answers. And I also hope that, that day will soon come and it won't be too late.