Khalid Saleem
HOW about starting with the basic question: what is ‘new’ about the New Year? Precious little, one is constrained to remark. In this topsy-turvy world of ours, besotted as it is with such pestilences as globalization, global warming, the ‘war on terror’, not to forget the United (paper-over-the-cracks) Nations, everything appears to be going round and round in circles at a dizzying speed without actually getting anywhere. Every so often, when a perspicacious person has the time and energy to look around, there is an all pervasive feeling of déjà vu. So what else is New?
Harking back to the hullabaloo about the “New” Year, one wonders if the world has decided to shed its handicaps or even made a beginning towards this end, while ‘entering’ this particular Year? Not by a long shot! If anything, life on this blessed planet is becoming more and more complicated by the day. An already confused world is constantly being confronted with a fait accompli that is, if anything, worse confounded. Taken on its merit, the above said would hardly be an irrational complaint given the all-pervasive scenario where, as stated above, everything appears to be going round and round in circles without actually getting anywhere.
It may well be asked, what is then so sacrosanct about a date anyway? Why is every otherwise rational being rushing around to speculate about things touted to “happen” in the New Year? Soothsayers are up to their old tricks once again: predicting the way things will move in 2020! Doomsday merchants are dusting up their old charts and setting fresh revised dates for the Armageddon to come. Nearer home, volumes are being published containing weighty (?) theses about what will happen in the ‘New Year’, while the country is still inextricably entangled in the webs of the knotty affairs of yesteryear that could and should have been unraveled betimes, if only our saviours had exhibited a modicum of savoir faire instead of the game of ‘passing the blame’, as is the prevailing fashion among our blessed elites.
Nearer home, the ongoing battle between the ‘liberal brigades’ and their erstwhile nemesis continues to rage and is far from over. After a lapse of all those years, those who matter are tying themselves up in knots in a well-publicized exercise to ‘revisit’ our relations with our ‘strategic ally’. Relations with our neighbour towards the East are still up in the air. The Indian government seems to be in a tizzy in a determined effort to up the ante. Add to this the threats of a ‘water-war’ and you have a situation that is getting murkier by the day. All this the New Year has inherited, not to talk of the several other ancillaries picked up along the way. So what else is New?
On the economic front, the country’s planners – such as there are – continue to play ducks and drakes with the nation’s requirements of electricity, gas and water resources. The chasm between the ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’ is widening further. Well-endowed and well-fed politicians do not tire of calling for a ‘revolution’; and sinister words like ‘total shut down’ and ‘dharna’ have overtaken ‘tsunami’ in a brand new connotation. Try as he might, the common man does not understand where it is all leading to, if anywhere. All to what end?
The one query that readily comes to the mind of the Common Man remains: what is he expected to do in all this state of man-made confusion? His main concern of keeping body and soul together does not find honorable mention in any political manifesto. The mirage of family planning – on programmes for which countless millions have been expended over decades – has melted away leaving behind the morass of lopsided developmental policies. The national priorities, meanwhile, have gone horribly awry with nary a hope for redemption.
Be that as it may, no one is the least bothered that the ship of state is headed for choppy waters! No wonder then that The Man in the Street is hardly surprised when everyone and his uncle claim to posses the panacea for all ills? Who can blame the Common Man for looking askance at all promises tossed in his direction; while, at the same time, hoping against hope that at least some of these promises will be fulfilled. His experience tells him otherwise, yet he continues to cling on to the shreds of hope since that is his wont. Looking at it from another perspective, that is precisely what has kept him going all this while!
But let us be rational. It would not do to look at just the dark side of things. Some developments do present dim vision of a silver lining of sorts. Two examples: the world, despite its suicidal forays led by the powers that be, appears to be desperately endeavouring to acquire the habit of peaceful protest; hopefully some of it would rub off on this blessed land too! Back home, the cricket eleven of late did give some glimpses of behaving more like a team; less like a motley group of disparate individuals as hitherto. It may not be such a bad idea to resolve to start counting one’s blessings in the New Year. For one thing, how about adopting the edifying habit of reforming oneself rather than pointing accusing fingers at others?
— The writer is a former ambassador and former assistant secretary general of OIC.
