Samosey mein aloo: why not Laloo?

With the low level of interaction here one can tell why Laloo is so popular in Bihar. Jassi Parja waisa Raja.

People supposedly brought up in the largest democracy of the world don’t have a basic understanding of politics and social factors that bring politicians to the fore.

But first, the very people who support free market and oppose quota would be the first ones to bring Rs.80 tea or coffee up for discussion. Free market means opportunity and people who make good in free market conditions should be admired for spending their wealth for the trickled down effect. I admire every single person who has the ability to make money and then spend it the way they like. Only fcking poor go to dhaba for tea, people who have made it are never found in the horrible joints like that.
They should admire people who have the money to spend and not be jealous of them.

Let’s talk about Laloo.
Middle of the road and moderate politics is all about building coalitions and expanding economic base of the coalition. How many elections ideological groups win?
In India, days of old school Nehruian politics are long gone. If you can’t build a coalition you cannot succeed. It is true for BJP and it is true for Laloo, mayavati and Malyam too. When BJP tries to make an alliance with Dalits and lower caste then they are good. Laloo is successful in doing that, so he is bad.

People quote crime rate numbers as if the politicians have anything to do with them.

90% of the murders are personal matters, 95% of felonies are individual. How in the heck a politician or even a political party can control individual minds? Better economy never brings down individual crimes.

Despite all the tall claims a majority of Indian states are suffering economically. Bihar and UP are the worst. It will take a miracle to change things there and there is no Indian government at any level that is capable of miracles. Economic prosperity is achieved by grinding it out or colonizing other nations, physically or by capturing markets. 1 million IT jobs are not going to change the world for 1000 million people overnite. Laloo can’t do much there. He has to create opportunities for his people lacking that he falsely empowers them. He makes them feel good. This sure is not going to long last but that is opportunity politics.

What about corruption? Politicians have to pay for politics. Elections and political parties cost money to run. Out of a 1000 crore annual budget, a small cut for politics should be legal. Most politicians, especially in India, are from the middleclass. Middleclasses abhor corruption but they do it to pay for the expenses that come with the territory. Make the avenues to collect funds legal and the corruption would be minimized.

Rightwing Indians hate Laloo for being aggressive in his politics. He is a typical village idiot who has made it big in a horrible political system and now he is thumbing his nose at the so-called pillars of moral, social and religious values.

He is no different than any politicians who have emerged from rural backgrounds with support rooted in the rural communities or city slums. He has built his coalition and he will help his coalition. In jobs and in any economic opportunity and that’s what the uppity middleclass hates. He has become a symbol of hate for the Indian rightwing and uppity middleclass because he presents the real India. An India this NRI, pseudo nationalist and Hindutva admirers don’t like to see as their face is clearly ugly in the mirror.

PS
Kulharee there is no comparison between Bihar and Pakistan Punjab. I would recommend you to please read more about bihar.

``. He has become a symbol of hate for the Indian rightwing and uppity middleclass because he presents the real India. An India this NRI, pseudo nationalist and Hindutva admirers don’t like to see as their face is clearly ugly in the mirror.
``

Load of crap. Why are the Jatt politicians of Punjab not villified the same way? Or the Jats of Haryana? Is Om Prakash Chautala a fricking English speaking suit wearing Sahib? And the same ``right wing and uppitty middle class`` that you villify voted for Jayaprakash Narayan, a true man of the soil, against Indira Gandhi. Not a single politician has damaged the socio-political fabric of a state as much as Lallu.

You and Farzana are playing the ``real India`` game. Discounting the urban middle class and pointing to the villagers as the real India simply because it is the Urban Middle class that articulates the tough questions on infrastructure and governance, issues that are harder to provide for compared to chimeras like ``honour`` and ``place in the sun``. The British tried this game for a couple of hundred years, stating that that the Congress middle class was disgruntled but they were here for the welfare of the poor and rural people, ``the real India``, while shafting the real India like it was no one`s business.

You choose to view Indian politics through the prism of Middle Class = Hindutva Bigots = BJP Supporters, therefore all else are good. Good for you, but your perceptions are very far from reality.

Re: # 49

HP Sahib, you should visit Punjab sometime. Putna Shutna bhool jao gay. The underlying dynamics are the same in both places.

Re: # 48

Stuka Ji. You traveled to my part of Punjab? I am very near Choa Saidan Shah…. On the other side of River Jelhum from there. The local village politics in rural Punjab are a way different from Lahore politics. But I see your point. Despite all the negative coverage it gets, I like Bihari politics... very colorful and lively, the way it is meant to be.

#49 noonne disagrees about laloo being a politician..but why is laloo so great while bal thakrey is not?

i think we should explain the title for Pakistani interactors. It comes from a poll slogan of the RJD (Laloo`s party)

Jab tak samose mein rahega aloo
Bihar mein rahega Laloo

HP,
Your understanding of Indian politics is also a bit shaky. Lalu raj is most opposed by the dalits, and under Lalu there has been no alliance between the OBCs and dalits, infact the differences have only increased.

To your info, though you are right about excessive hype given to India growing, at the same time growth is not restricted to IT alone.

bongi #54

thank you for the explanation. ab tak meiN soch rahi thi, ye samosey maiN aloo hona koi buri cheez hai?!

Re: # 54

bongdongs -

Switch to qeema in samosas. It tastes much better than aloo and will also break the spell per your poem.

#57

ha! ha! even the humble mutter and gobi has dissapeared from the Indian samosa over the last few years and you expect qeema godot-mian?

#49 by HP on October 13, 2005 9:27am PT


1 million IT jobs are not going to change the world for 1000 million people overnite. Laloo can’t do much there.


So that`s why Pakiland`s IT exports are a measly 40 million$/yr...IT isn`t going to help poverty, so why bother?

India`s regional politics: No laughing matter
By Sandeep Shenoy

A joke popular among the Indian Internet community reads something like this: During another Indo-Pak summit, a grim Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf asks Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to hand over Kashmir. Vajpayee grins and replies, ``I will give you Kashmir but only if you take Laloo Yadav`s Bihar with it.``

But the deeds of Laloo Yadav are no humor to the millions in one of India`s most backward and poor states, Bihar, who have continued to suffer from the controversial politician`s misrule over the past decade.

But before seeing a monster in Laloo Yadav, one needs to understand the dilemma facing Indian voters come election time. The voter must choose from a bevy of unpalatable candidates, each with a stunning track record of public disservice - everything imaginable, including murder. Given such stark choices, the candidate`s caste, creed or lingual identity becomes more important to the voter than their performance in office.

Laloo`s tenacity to remain at the helm as chief minister in Bihar must be credited to his Yadav caste and his loyal but impoverished Yadav-Muslim-Dalit vote bank which brings him to power no matter what misdeeds he commits.

When one judge of the state`s high court finally threw him in prison on corruption charges, his wife, a mother of eight and equally illiterate, Rabri Devi, took over the helm. Her acceptance speech to an audience of Bihar`s elite was just three words - ``Don`t cause trouble.`` - a curt warning to the opposition to back off. Laloo obviously ran the show from backstage in his VIP prison cell.

When another judge felt obliged to let him out on bail, he went home on a decorated elephant in pomp and gaiety fit for a hero. In the famous ``Fodder Scam`` alone, large funds allocated to feed cattle vanished without a trace, as did the lives of seven witnesses and co-accused. Laloo has proven himself above the law as he bends the judiciary and administration to suit his needs.

His Bihar state, meanwhile, suffers bankruptcy and lawlessness as he and his cronies in one scam after another loot the state`s coffers. More important, though, is the fact that the powers of such regional satraps (petty tyrants) reach as far as Delhi.

laloo jokes


Laloos family planning policy..
``Don`t have more than two children in one year``


After having become the CM of Bihar, Laloo decides to pose for a picture.
To show he is down to earth CM he decides to pose along with a herd of
buffaloes and resting his elbows on the back of the cattle he poses for
the photo. Next day the photo appears front page of a newspaper. GUESS
THE CAPTION ``Laloo, third from left``

Re: # 31

drlokraj

its nice to know that apart from yadavs and muslims in bihar, a punjabi thinks lalu is the best thing to happen to bihar. why don`t you practise what you praech and move to el dorado that bihar is.
just don`t open a practise there (if you are a physician), the other day i heard that doctors from patna are running away as several of them were kidnapped (and a few shoot dead in their own clinic) for ransom.

Stuka,

Why a mention of real India lights so many fires? Does the real India not exist?
I don’t disagree that it is the urban middleclass that actually brings changes in the society and that is not restricted to India alone. While the middleclass is thinking and plotting changes, it has to deal with the real class which far exceeds in numbers and electoral strength.

I hope you understand when I say that democracy is also about imposing wills. Middleclass is supposed to lead the democracy as it is the system for the middleclass. Wherever they dominate the politics and governance, democracy is stable. In India, the Indian middleclass is in a serious conflict with the rural and urban poor and rural small landowners that are basically the backbone of all regional parties laloo included.

The reason India middleclass runs to the right of the center is that it is failing to control the democracy and politics in India. Congress and BJP take turns in controlling a few urban centers but lose out to the regional parties in the Indian heartland. Take AP for example, despite spectacular urban economic success, a small neglect at the real India changed the politics and now the state is scrambling to provide free power and quotas.

The failure in Bihar is non existence of urban centers. Both BJP and Congress lose to Laloo because they don’t have the base in bihar to vote for them. Laloo competes on what is important in the rural life and that is caste, minority and cronyism.

The congress went down in India because it has no base in the rural Indian states such as Bihar and UP anymore. BJP temporarily won because it did attract religious sentiments of the rural areas but that was not going to last long and it did not.
The contrast in India is so much evident. The middleclass instead of providing leadership to the poor and the small landowners is running away from them. While the urban middleclass is falling in love with meat and lamb the real India as Bonga said can’t find mutter and gobi for the samsosa. Sorry! but the NRIs are just parochial elements of the Indian society.

Laloo is the symbol of conflict between the uppity middleclass and the rural poor in India. The conflict is more pronounced in UP and Bihar because they are the most rural states in India.


Vivek,
My premise is not shaky though it does rely on the broad elements in the politics. Sitting here it would be hard to analyze at the smallest level. I used different elements of the coalition and not the exact elements. Again IT is just the prominent area. I know progress is being made in different areas too.

Jang,
Did I say Laloo is great? On the real politick level he is just another side of Thackery.

Neti,
I will take Laloo for Pakistan anytime. Reason: the Pak army needs a bare-knuckle opponent not the mild Manmohans we already have in plenty out there.

Re: # 58

bongdongs -

``even the humble mutter and gobi has dissapeared from the Indian samosa over the last few years and you expect qeema?``

Well said and cleverly put!