Markandey Katju : The Lok Nayak. Today is the birth anniversary of Jai Prakash Narayan, the so called ‘Lok Nayak’. I know I will be castigated for saying this, but I have a very poor opinion of Jai Prakash Narayan’s intellect. In fact the man had no scientific ideas at all for solving the country’s massive problems. I regard him intellectually as stupid as Gandhi and Anna Hazare..
In 1954 J.P. became a disciple of another idiot, Vinoba Bhave who was being used by the Establishment to create the illusion among landless peasants that they will be given land voluntarily by the big land holders, and so they should not start an armed struggle to get it. No doubt J.P. headed the struggle against the despotic and power crazy Indira Gandhi, but what happened after the Janta Party came to power ? Was poverty, unemployment, malnourishment, etc abolished ? What happened to the much touted ‘ Total Revolution ‘ ? It disappeared into thin air, leaving behind his disciples Lalu Yadav, Nitish Kumar, Sushil Kumar Modi, Ram Bilas Paswan, etc. who have ruined Bihar as his legacy
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Cricket: The Opium of the masses in India. I regard cricket as one of the opiums of the Indian masses, the others being politics ( which has gone down to the lowest level in India ), filmstars, religion, astrology, etc. Evidently one opium is not enough to keep the Indian masses in a state of intoxication, soseveral are required. The Roman Emperors used to say, if you cannot give the people bread, give them circuses. The French Queen Marie Antoinette put it slightly differently. In India it is, if you cannot give the people bread and employment give them cricket ( or the lives of Amitabh Bachchan, Kareena Kapoor, or other film stars ). Keep the people involved in cricket ( or film stars ) so that they forget their socio-economic plight.
The real problems in India are socio-economic—massive poverty and unemployment, large scale malnutrition ( affecting about 50% of Indian children ), almost total absence of healthcare and good education for the poorer section of our people ( who are 75% of our 1250 million population ), farmers’ suicides, discrimination against women, minorities and dalits, etc. Cricket and the other opiums mentioned above divert the attention of our people from these real issues, and attempt to depict non issues like winning a cricket match as the real issue., So the real issue before the the Indian people is not how to abolish poverty, unemployment, malnutrition, etc. The real issue is whether India has beaten New Zealand ( or better still, Pakistan ) in a cricket match. or whether Virat Kohli has scored a century or whether a film star is having an affair. Hari Om!
सुप्रीम कोर्ट के जज और प्रेस काउंसिल आफ इंडिया के चेयरमैन रह चुके चर्चित व बेबाक शख्सियत वाले जस्टिस मार्कंडेय काटजू के फेसबुक वॉल से.
