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February 08, 2011
Naidu’s Fasting and Business of Politics S. Mohammed Irshad comments on the irony of Chandrababu Naidu's fast for the plight of farmers in AP.

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Indian media is chasing Radia tap and Tata, infact a fine attempt and no way to criticize the intention, yet another high political drama was got less media attention than what required. Former Chief Executive Officer of Andra Pradeh Mr Chandrababu Naidue went to a hunger strike for farmers. This fellow was elevated to the said post by World Bank and other international lending agencies which were someway responsible for making him indefinite fasting. He was selected as one of the influential person by Time Magazine and he was a champion of all liberalization and privatization of Andhra Pradesh. The media was chasing him and were trying to compare Naidu with all other chief ministers of Indian states. Malayamanora one of the Malayalam daily was dare enough to advise then chief minister of Kerala late E K Nayanar to follow the food steps of Mr Naidu.

Mr Naidu would not have thought that he would go for hunger strike for farmers while holding the post as Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh! He as a chief minister is responsible for this current scenario. Farmer’s suicide was rampant in AP while he was decorating the chief minister post. The huge vote turns out for late YSR were heavily from rural Andhra that was an indication of rural distress resulted by Naidu’s development policy. However, when Mr Naidu resorted to indefinite fasting for farmer forces us to suspect what YSR did to rural development. Infact the incident seems to have proved that both of them were wrong, and hence Naidu has no right to go for indefinite fasting.

Naidu’s attempt is an indication of India’s political crisis.  Ideologically Mr Naidu is not among those who for subsidization of agriculture and development, yet for the sake of electoral politics all the right wing political forces opt fasting.  Though he went for fasting he never refereed former development policies, infact what the rural people needed his confession on what he did, and led a movement which ended up with total change in the policy. Mr Naidu and other political forces in the country are not daring enough to think of making such a change in their political activism.

This is infact the most perilous situation, with their political melodrama all these forces are thwarting the people’s movement and completely ignoring the otherside of the policy they are stand for.  Peoples movement may be in the form of a micro level attempt to challenge the local political authorities, however, these forces are primarily aiming at subvert such consciousness. And the larger impact of policy is that it just caught up as populist media report such as health condition of Mr Naidu, daily medical report, his family’s photographs finally when he stop fasting it creates a media hype that ‘issue solved’ .

After the fasting no media report the follow up action if any. Actually apart from the celebration there is no follow up action by government. Mr Naidue’s indefinite fasting would never persuade the Andhra Pradesh government to revoke the policy. Then why this gentleman wasted his business hours? In fact every political leader in the country is in a hurry to make such protest and not for any struggle for change. This business tactics drive the former Chief executive go for fasting. The message this fasting sent to the rural distress population should be taken into consider. Naturally people expect sudden action by the government when a leader like Naidue goes for protest and it is the responsibility of the media to report the follow up actions. There is hardly any report in the media on AP government’s response and instead the media started chasing another upcoming star Jagan Reddy. The public’s right to know has been kept back. Apart from that this fasting has saved the government as well. The whole serious issue of agrarian distress has gone, instead the presence of TDP as party for people got established. This way of political anchoring is the need of the hour; as far as the government and parties are concerned. As a successful business man Naidue did it well.

Posted by collective at February 08, 2011 10:56 AM
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