Tsunami in a Tea Cup

Ever since our Finance Minister came up with the idea of the austerity drive, there has been enough and more fodder for the print and electronic media. This has in turn produced free entertainment for the reader/viewer and has become the butt for so many jokes. I really wonder if the honourable minister had any clue as to what kind of hornets nest he was stirring. He had only hoped that the extravagant spending culture of our netas would be curtailed thus reducing the strain on the otherwise stretched exchequer. The tamasha began when the said minister travelled in the economy class of an airline from Delhi to Kolkatta. The minister must have done it in all sincerity being a man who believes in simple living and high thinking. However having stirred the otherwise placid waters, it was inevitable that a tsunami followed.
I am sure there were no compulsions from the high command, but then our shrewd ministers must have realised that when the number 2 in the cabinet can make do with economy class travel, they too had to do their bit to earn the said brownie points. Thus the next minister namely the Food and Agriculture Minister decided that he should lead by example and this saw him take another economy class flight from Mumbai to Delhi. He went a step further to issue a statement saying that he would have only travelled economy class but for his big frame. Now what I would like to know is as to how his frame shrunk in a couple of days so as to enable him to travel economy class. The third to do so was the big boss herself. This act of hers sealed the choices for the entire Indian National Congress ministers and Members of Parliament. How could anyone even think of travelling in Business class anymore? Overnight, this class became the pariah much to the chagrin of the airlines whose main source of income came from this category of travelers.
The prince in waiting went a step further and decided that the chair car of the Shatabdi Express was good enough for him to travel. Thus he covered Delhi –Ludhiana-Delhi by train much to the delight of the press and his followers. This provided the right moments for the perfect picture pose as well as a chance to deify the otherwise highly spoken of “youth leader” and strategist. I wonder as to how much of planning would have gone into that short train ride. The security and the railways would have been on tenterhooks till the said journey was over. When this topic came up for discussion in our midst on the very same day, I mentioned that henceforth ordinary citizens could be assured of better service in the trains and on economy class. A friend of mine had another take. She felt that by travelling with such VVIP’s, we were putting our lives in stake. She felt that if the terrorists had the VVIP’s in mind, we too would perish along. How right her words seemed when the same evening the said Shatabdi Express was stoned by miscreants. Would the cost of the repair to the bogies be part of the austerity?
Thus every leader who has a public standing is trying to do his bit to prove to the world that he is an austere person. The funny thing is that most of them may have not even heard about the word until the Finance Minister’s remark and thus are oblivious to its meaning which is rigorously self-disciplined and severely moral; ascetic; abstinent; grave; sober; solemn and serious. Would travelling in economy class change our leaders and make them austere? Is there one leader in this country who fits any aspect of this meaning for austere? Our Prime Minister may be the closest we have to fit the bill, but being the head of the country he has to maintain his status and dignity and thus his life is too precious to be wasted in a chair car ride. Apart from October 2nd and January 30th of every year, we hardly hear the name of the Father of the Nation being mentioned, however with this austerity drive, words like “Gandhian” seem to make it in print. The world respected Gandiji for his austerity and was willing to accept him as “the half naked fakir”. Since our present day leaders lack the austerity otherwise, I do hope that better sense will prevail and that they will not try and emulate him on the dressing front!!

To every flip there is a flop and in this case that has been brought about by the savviest of the ministers in the cabinet. When he was asked to move to humble dwellings from the five star hotel in which he had been staying, he was not a happy man at all. He felt he needed his privacy and his gym. He was vociferous in his protest and thus every follower of his tweets got to know of how exactly he felt. The powers to be let him off for the simple reason that he had paid the bills which mounted to Rs. 40,000/- daily from his own pocket. The said minister has been in the said hotel for three months and thus has spent approximately Rs. 36,00,000/- (take a few lakhs for the days when he is not in the capital) on his stay in the capital. There cannot be a bigger embarrassment than this for the government. Our country ranks 142th in the world when it comes to the per capita income which is less than Rs. 50,000/- annually. The straw that broke the camel’s neck was when the same minister again tweeted that he considers travelling in economy class as being part of a cattle herd. The cattle herd the minister is talking of is the privileged less than 10% of the population who can afford air travel. How did this man ever get to be the minister when he even considers travelling with a privileged group of citizens as being demeaning? Does the fact that he has the money make him in a class of his own? The moneyed class should remain the moneyed class and not enter into the job of serving the people and become politicians. I am at times made to feel that this minister has said in the open what others have had difficulty to pronounce for fears known/unknown. In that manner I appreciate the Minister for his truthfulness. Politics to this elitist may be just an additional feather to his otherwise plumed crown and austerity far from his last thought.

I really wonder what the final outcome of the Finance Minister’s drive is going to be. As I see it nothing will ever change. Austerity would be for that majority of our population who cannot afford the materialistic luxuries. Much as we live in a democracy and have a government which is “of the people, by the people and for the people” and which proclaims “Satyameva Jayathe”, our leaders will remain ignorant of these basics and the tsunami will be curtailed to just the tea cup.