Harjap Singh Aujla

INDIA deserves a very happy new year. Its poor masses deserve food, clothing and shelter. We all deserve an escape from the crippling blows of corruption. Anna Hazare may be a non-glamorous, simple, tactless, unsophisticated and rustic looking fighter for the rights of the people of India. But his fight is not devoid of merit. Sixty four years ago, India was the slave of Imperial Britain. After that now we are the slaves of the powerful political and bureaucratic elite. The White-Sahibs have been replaced by the Brown-Sahibs, period. The problems of the multitudes of hapless Indians are the same and their solutions still are far away on the horizon.

We have been branding Anna Hazare Movement as an anti-Congress struggle, but the Grand Old Party of India is itself to blame for Anna Hazare’s opposition. Almost all the spokesmen of the Congress tried to tarnish Anna Hazare’s image. Some branded him corrupt from top to toe. Efforts were made to start government sponsored investigations against all members of Anna Hazare’s core team. The “Left Front” and the “NDA” have seen merit in Anna Hazare struggle, but the Congress and its newly activated allies like Lalu Yadav and Ram Vilas Paswan have made it a point to derail the process of the passage of a strong Lokpal. The opposition parties are not obstructing Anna Hazare Movement and the people know what is happening in the corridors of power in New Delhi. We can’t always blame the people. There is a logic in the perception of the man on the street that primarily it is the Congress, which is erecting obstacles in the path of the Lokpal. Passage of an effective Lokpal Bill will be the finest new year gift to the people of India.

The potato grower, by sweating out in the dusty fields, produces a bumper crop and the prices crash. In order to be profitable, he needs to be paid at least rupees four per kilogram, but he is getting only rupee one to two per kilogram. Some of such farmers are eventually driven to commit suicide. The same potato is selling at rupees ten per kilogram within the producing state and the prices are much higher in far off states. Can’t the nation ensure a remunerative price for the farm produce? Here I blame the state government too for its inaction. Mid day meals are given in the schools, can’t we supply curried potatos for these lunches. The “Shiromani Gurdwara Prabhandhak Committee” (SGPC) is controlled by the same party, which governs Punjab. The SGPC runs free “Langars” in all the Gurdwaras. They cook “Urad Dal” for the Langars. The Gurus never told their Sikhs not to serve potatoes to the devotees. Can’t the SGPC order its Gurdwaras to serve potatoes in the Langars, instead of costly “Dal” . Can’t the government hire enough number of trucks to export potatoes to the southern and the north-eastern states of the country, where the consumers are still buying potatoes at rupees fifteen to twenty per kilogram. The potato growers of Punjab too deserve a “Happy New Year 2012”.

The citizens of our neighboring country Pakistan deserves top quality potatoes at rupees five per kilogram, at least for some time, when the crop is fresh in East Punjab. Putting hundreds of hours of hard labor and permanently depleting their precious resource of underground water, the farmers produce wheat and rice. These crops deserve scientific storage, but due to paucity of scientific storage, at least ten percent of the staple food is wasted. Can’t we do that?

India will be a happy family, when even the poorest will be able to get three square meals of nourishing food every-day. India will be a happy family, when burgeoning income disparities will be a thing of the past. “Happy New Year to India”.

harjapaujla@gmail.com

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