Response to some comments on JP of Loksatta on Facebook.

A video of Dr. Jayaprakash Narayan of Loksatta is being circulated where he apparently says he doesn’t care about the Telengana issue. Looks like a few people have been offended by it for no reason. They call it a very sensitive issue and are calling JP un-intellectual for calling it a non issue. Telengana is clearly not a sensitive issue. It has been made sensitive by the political parties to stoke up emotions and use them to their advantage. There are far more sensitive issues in the state ranging from the hardships of the farmers to the lack of proper resources in schools across the state. Have we ever seen someone agitating so fervently for the utter lack of proper medical care in our society? Please understand that I am not against the formation of a separate state. On the contrary, I want Telengana to be formed but based on well meaning and sensible arguments and the only one that comes to mind is the ease of governance. Any other reason is totally baseless and cooked-up. After a generation of bad governance and abysmally poor democratic practices, we finally have a leader who bases his arguments on proper reason and is fighting for equality and development in the fractious society.

As for the video, the person asking the question has a serious issue with his comprehension capabilities and is so deeply rooted in his ideology and in his quest for proving the other person wrong, that he fails to recognize that there could be some issues that don’t have a ‘yes or no’ answer.  As JP always says, if there is a ‘moderation in the language used’ and the emotions are toned down, there would clearly be a solution, to which all the parties agree. Only, each party should be able to sacrifice some of its demands. This guy reminds me of ‘Joe the Plumber’ who asked a question to Barack Obama during his election and became a hero for the republicans. Finally here is what JP’s opinion is on the Telengana issue: The formation or not of a separate state, Telengana, in itself will not have any bearing on the people on either side. Neither will it cause prosperity in Telengana nor will it cause doom in the rest of the state. Unless, offcourse, some fundamental policies are changed in both regions in areas such as education, health care, skills development, decentralization of power and access to proper employment. Show me another politician who is willing to stand in front of some citizen and patiently answer his questions for as long as JP did without getting frustrated even though the person asking the question is clearly ideologically-driven and not progress-driven.