It’s that time of the year again.
The time for timeworn cliches, mostly involving good wishes and hope for a better tomorrow, and an even better day-after.
Ring out the old, ring in the new, and all that jazz.
But if the year we are leaving behind is any indication, the only new thing likely to hit us during the new one will probably be a loony terrorist plot or three.
No, it not is age catching up with me, nor those lessons I took in cynicism finally kicking in.
I am sure there will be many new things to look forward to in 2010. New breakthroughs, new horizons and new insights in almost every sphere of human activity. Events and innovations which will change --- some subtly, some dramatically --- the way we live, love and interact with each other and our environment.
But a quick glance at the headlines leaves me somewhat less than optimistic about the year ahead for our nation, and our neighbourhood.
Let’s take the neighbourhood first, starting clockwise from our west.
The situation in Pakistan and Afghanistan, or Af-Pak, as the Americans have labeled it, shows no signs of improvement. Here’s what the Associated Press/Huffington Post said in report December 8, citing the US joint chiefs of staff :
Camp Lejeune, N.C. — The nation's highest-ranking military officer told soldiers and Marines on Monday that the insurgency in Afghanistan has grown in the last three years and he expects casualties to rise next year as additional US troops pour into the war. "This is the most dangerous time I've seen growing up the last four decades in uniform," Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told about 1,000 Marines at Camp Lejeune. "As we deploy more forces, it is going to hit the insurgency right in the face," Mullen added in an interview with the Washington Post. "I think 2010 will be a pretty violent year," he said.
As for Pakistan, one can only quote from the Bible: "They sow the wind and reap the whirlwind. The stalk has no head; it will produce no flour. Were it to yield grain, foreigners would swallow it up.” (Hosea, 8:7)
In other words, things are likely to get a lot worse on our west before they start getting better.
To our north, we have Nepal and China.
Maoists and an increasingly shaky government continue to battle it out on the streets of Nepal, as both China and India maneuver for leverage in the Himalayan kingdom. Chances of enduring stability in the erstwhile Hindu Kingdom over the next year seem bleak at the moment.
In China, the race riots in Xinjiang are but the tip of the iceberg. Beijing is getting increasingly aggressive as it jockeys for resources and real power in a unipolar world, while cracking down even harder on increasing internal dissent. Even as it clocks incredible growth rates, the rich-poor divide continues to widen across the Middle Kingdom. A recent survey by the Zhejiang Academy of Social Sciences cited in the South China Morning Post found that 96 percent of respondents “resent the rich.”
Further east, we have Bhutan, Myanmar, and Bangladesh.
Landlocked Bhutan might rank high on the Gross National Happiness Index, but it is increasingly difficult to remain an island in a shrinking world. The country which had no roads or telephones until 1960 and no television until 1999 is finally about to get its first railway station late in the new year, courtesy Indian Railways. And when the railway comes to town, can the perils and pitfalls of the modern world be far behind?
In Myanmar, the Military Junta and Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Su Kyi seem to be locked in perennial conflict, with no end in sight.
Bangladesh continues to stay on the UN’s list of Least Developing Countries, a label based on three criteria: Gross National Income (GNI) per capita, Human Assets Index, and Economic Vulnerability. This obviously has direct social, economic and political implications.
And finally, on our southern tip, we have Sri Lanka, where the government is basking in the glow of having finally crippled the LTTE. But the scars are still raw, and the underlying causes of the rise of the LTTE in the first place are yet to be fully understood or addressed.
Events in all these nations have a direct impact on India.
But India has its own problems, and cannot really afford to point fingers at others.
Divisive politics based on caste, ethnicity, religion and appeasement continue to deepen and widen the fault lines across our country.
The absence of a credible opposition at the center has emboldened the government to take several major steps without public assent or debate. The home ministry’s “quiet talks” with separatists in Kashmir and its ambiguousness over how to deal with the Maoists has sent out conflicting signals. The pillars of our democracy –Legislature, Executive, Judiciary and the Press—are all showing signs of erosion.
The government’s decision to consider carving out a separate Telangana state from Andhra Pradesh has revived and encouraged many similar demands. Darjeeling wants to quit Bengal, while Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati has recently written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, “urging him to give us clearance for creating independent states of Budelkhand and Harit Pradesh out of a giant-sized and unmanageable Uttar Pradesh.”
Inspired by the assumption that all it takes is a leader on a fast for the government to concede such demands, we can expect several other such attempts, and subsequent friction, over the next year.
I could go on, but I don’t really want to be a wet blanket, particularly on day when Hope rules.
So let me end with the words of a poster I had on my wall during my hostel days.
“As I sat lonely and musing one day,
A little voice said:
Cheer up! Things could be worse!
So I cheered up, and sure enough,
Things got worse!
Have a Great New Year.
Also read: Hey Ram: Let's give away Kashmir | More articles by Ramananda Sengupta | Yearender Special
