Wordsmiths & Newsplumbers

BY R.K.MISRA Society is like a stew. If you don’t stir it scum floats to the top. But those who do so must bear the burden of the stink. Both stirred and shaken, Gujarat is going through turmoil-filled days as it’s affluent and  numerically strong patidar (patel) community mounts a fierce assault for OBC reservation that is straining the fabric of inter-community harmony to it’s tensile limits. Fearful of a Patidar led-Anandiben Patel- government caving in to their demands, a counter-movement against it is building up as well.Two days ahead of the Patel’s biggest ever show of  community strength on August 25, the Other Backward Classes(OBC) mobilized  members from the 146 communities in it’s fold  for a dharna  near the Sabarmati ashram in  Ahmedabad on August 23.The SCs and STs symbolically joined  it  and the tone and tenor were distinctly repudiatory of the  Patels.”Any move by the government or any community to snatch our rights will first ensure  this government’s pack

BY R.K.MISRA The front is on fire and the back is burning. Quite literally. Up in front, the country’s current Parliament session has gone up in smoke-logjam over GST, Land Bill and all. Down under, in the Prime Minister’s backyard,  Gujara,  a Patel ignited prairie fire - akin to the Gujjar  reservation stir in Rajasthan-rages unhindered, threatening to engulf the government of his protégé, Anandiben Patel. If in Delhi, the PMO’s erroneous political assessment has united a disparate opposition and forced the BJP onto the road after a dud monsoon session, in Gujarat, brimming streets overflowing with agitated humans threaten to rip apart the caste constituency assiduously cultivated by the BJP to trounce the Congress over decades. The fallout may prove more detrimental to Narendra Modi than the Delhi election results. What goes round invariably comes round. Many a Parliament session floundered as the BJP led NDA opposition played the bully and ballplayer rolled in one,

BY R.K.MISRA Politicians in power allure by denying and entice by delaying. Dangling bones ensure jumping ‘dogs’ and protean promises make for leaping ‘frogs’. And thereafter you have yoga for the masses, as if they have’nt had enough. Walk the talk has been a popular TV show hosted by a top print media editor, but talking while walking leads to breathlessness.Prime Minister Narendra Modi who is lugging the Gujarat model from his parent state to Delhi -and his government- are both beginning to show acute signs of fatigue while the fabric to develop India sought to be woven from the swadeshi ‘yarn’ is already fraying at the edges. Fables milk the masses well but curdle when facts are added. The ‘shaala praveshotsav’ is a high profile programme initiated by Modi over 13 years ago in Gujarat. It entailed every public servant , in fact the entire government ,going out in the field to ensure child enrolment in school.It was a sarva siksha abhiyan of sorts as the state pulled o