I spoke to a Jat yesterday who came to meet me in my flat in Noida. He belongs to the western UP, and I asked him for whom Jats are likely to vote for in the present parliamentary elections. His reply was simplicity itself. He said: ''We will vote for the Jat candidate, to whichever party he may belong.”
I then asked for whom will they vote if there were several Jat candidates in a particular constituency.
''We will then vote for the most prominent Jat among them,” came the reply.
This conversation expresses and sums up the mindsets of not just Jats, but maybe 90 per cent of Indians. Their mindsets are largely feudal, full of casteism, communalism, and superstitions. When they go to vote, most Indians do not see the merit of the candidate, whether he is a good man or bad, educated or uneducated, having criminal antecedents or not (that is why there are so many members in our legislatures with criminal antecedents), but only see his caste or creed (or the caste and creed his/her party claims to represent). They vote in droves like sheep and cattle, skilfully manipulated by our political leaders who are experts in vote bank politics, polarisation of society, and inciting and spreading caste and communal hatred.
As long as this situation and such feudal mindsets in the vast majority of our people remain, I do not see how India can progress.
Is there a remedy for this? I believe there is, and that is a hard hit on the backsides of our people with a thick danda, which will awaken them, and bring them to their senses. Let me explain by givng some historical examples.
There were revolutions in France in 1789, in Russia in 1917, and in China in 1949, which destroyed the feudal regimes in those countries, and brought those countries into the modern age. These revolutions could never have happened without people in those countries getting the danda, as they were steeped in medieval obscurantism and religion.
In France, this danda was the acute financial crisis and shortage of bread in Paris and other cities, which made lives unbearable for the people. In Russia, it was World War I which resulted in the deaths of millions of Russian soldiers, and huge sufferings by the civilian people causing bread riots. In China, it was the Japanese invasion of 1937 that resulted in massacres in Nanjing, Shanghai and elsewhere, and a huge suffering of the Chinese people.
These dandas woke up these people and brought them to their senses. Without them, they would never have woken up.
Something similar happened in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (which Pakistanis call Azad Kashmir). Most people living there are Muslims, and earlier they were all Pakistan supporters since Pakistan was an Islamic state. But in the huge public demonstrations and agitations going on, these Kashmiri Muslims were heard (on YouTube) condemning and abusing Pakistan and hoisting the Indian flag (although India is mostly Hindu.)
One needs food to eat, but with food and electricity prices skyrocketing, life for not just Kashmiris but people all over the Indian subcontinent has all but become unbearable. It is this economic danda which is waking up people in our entire subcontinent, and bringing them into touch with realities.
I get no pleasure in anyone getting a danda. But sometimes, like bitter medicine, it is a cruel necessity.
