IF one picture is worth a thousand words, then one fact can be worth a thousand stories. A Kolkata newspaper reported on April 10 that the Rampurhat Medical College in Birbhum and Mahakuma Hospital in Bolpur had run out of blood. Why? The regular donors were occupied elsewhere. Where? The newspaper did not specify, but here is my guess: they were making more money from political assignments as the frenzy began to bubble. They will go back to selling blood when democracy returns to hibernation.
Persuasive statistics
Frenzy ends up in newsprint, but does it get votes? Exceptions aside, this election, like its predecessors, will be determined by the parameters of governance, not the variables of sentiment. Hard statistics are more persuasive than an astrologer’s calculations or electoral rhetoric. Over the last five years, India’s growth rate has touched 7.7 per cent, the highest in G20; China is next with 5.2 per cent. Real wages have grown at around 5 per cent a year.
Capital expenditure as a percentage of Government revenue has doubled compared with figures for 2010. India has more digital payments than the next four countries combined. Unemployment among youth remains a genuine worry, but even that has improved from the situation in 2019.
The most decisive number is easily available: some 800 million Indians, cutting across every other divide, have been getting basic food. This is the principal motivation of the women’s vote, which will be the most significant influencer in the fortunes of 2024. Indians want a Government that meets the basic, existential needs of the underprivileged; they don’t need instructions on their living philosophy.
Faith in pluralism
India’s heart remains exactly where it has been for countless centuries. In the right place. A CSDS-Lokniti poll published on April 12 is a remarkable snapshot of the Indian mind. Seventy-nine per cent of Indians believe that their country belongs equally to every religion. Eight out of 10 Hindus professed deep faith in pluralism; the percentage was similar among minorities. The figures for villages were 77 per cent and for towns 85 per cent; there was little difference between the “schooled” and the “unschooled”. This is a portrait of a civilisation. This is the philosophy shared by rich and poor, by people of every religion. Indians believe in harmony, and a shared destiny. Those who preach supremacy will soon discover how far they have moved from the heartbeat of India.
Prime Minister Modi ended one artificial debate when he refuted the allegation that his party would change the Constitution if re-elected. I quote his exact words in a speech in Barmer on April 13: “As far as the Constitution is concerned, even if Babasahe b Ambedkar himself comes, he cannot abolish it. The Constitution is the Gita, Ramayana, Mahabharata, Bible and Quran for Government.”
Absolute balderdash
On a brief visit to a semi-distant Singapore, I found yet another of those inexplicable things that defeat common sense. Covid has inflicted some curious casualties. Singapore Airlines, among the best on the international skyway, stopped giving excellent playing cards during Covid using, implicitly, the transition of germs as an excuse. It now offers ‘Ultimate Antiseptic Wipes’ called Zappy. Zappy claims its product has been “tested by UK lab” and guarantees the destruction of “99.99%” of “harmful germs”.
I am now absolutely determined to become acquainted with the 00.01 per cent germs which are resolutely resistant to these wipes, as certified by the surprisingly anonymous ‘UK lab’. These germs must be the toughest minority on the planet. They have survived all efforts at extermination by the mighty ‘UK lab’. For some reason unknown to formal English, this entity describes itself as a lab rather than a laboratory.
My other objective is to meet the scientists working in the ‘UK lab’ if for no other reason than to recommend them for the Nobel Prize in balderdash. Why, and indeed how, do some of the best corporations in the world fall for such bunkum?
