As the year 2019 is coming to end, some wild thoughts coming to my mind about what is happening around, which I would like to share with you :
1 So BJP has lost one more state, Jharkhand to the opposition alliance. The media is projecting victory for Congress, in fact here also Congress was Junior partner with Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM). This is 5th big state BJP has lost in last one year, and second after general elections. It looks like voters want Modi as PM at centre but they are rejecting BJP party at state level. So BJP has to do some serious thinking about the strategy for fighting state elections, because national issues like NRC and CAB are not effective for state elections.
2 Looks like Indian voters specially in rural areas are not coming out of freebies being promised by regional parties. What is happening that whatever BJP promised in last elections they have got the benefits of the same, like electricity in every village, Govt benefits in their bank account directly, gas cylinders, crop insurance etc etc. This election BJP did not promise much to the voters, this may be the one of the cause for their losing. What congress and other parties do when they come to power, they never fulfil the promises what ever they have made, they do in small way. Next time in the election, they promise same thing again and again but in different package, and these voters fall prey to the same schemes. Remember Congress’s slogan “ Garibi Hatao”, which crops up in every election in different format.
3 Where the protests against CAA/NRC are leading the country to? There are some leaders like Mamata Banerjee and Congress Party who say they respect Indian constitution, but behave differently. They are very well aware that when any bill which has been passed by both houses of Parliament, becomes law throughout country. Then how come these opposition leaders can say they will not implement CAA in the states ruled by them. Is not this a mockery og the Constitution? Congress is forgetting that during Indira Gandhi’s rule, emergency was proclaimed by Presidential order and later ratified by both house of Parliament majority of opposition members in both houses of Parliament were in jailed. Here at least CAB/CAA was discussed in details in both the houses of parliament and then passed with good majority. Then how can they say they will not implement this is the states ruled by them.
We all know why they are protesting, because they do not want to lose their Muslim vote bank, because there are huge influx of illegal immigrants of this community from Bangladesh and Pakistan, and these parties are evoking sympathies for them from their brothers of Indian Muslim community. For these politicians their vote banks come first and national security means nothing.
3 Now coming to Bollywood, Is Salman Khan losing his charm? The reports of latest release ‘Dabang 3’ have not been encouraging, and the business wise this film of his got worst opening weekend business ever in the last few years. In my opinion in the last one decade Salman is continuing with the formula of comedy, action and little emotion in each and every film of his, and masses are fed up with this kind of repetitive formula in every story of his film. But the problem is he has tied himself with this larger than life image. So he has to reinvent himself to survive in the market. The problem with Khans specially Salman, Saif and Shah Rukh is that they have tied themselves with their image, like Shah Rukh was all the time tied up with his romantic image, Saif with his urban & modern metrosexual male image, and whenever they have tried to do something different from their image, the audience response was not very encouraging for them. For last one year Shah Rukh and Saif had no new movie release. In case of Shah Rukh he has got no new films under production, as he is looking into some scripts by which he can reinvent himself. Saif has recently started acting in Web series, and he has been appreciated for different kind of role in Sacred Games. Only Khan who has not tied himself in any image for last 2 decade is Aamir Khan, he acts in one film every 2/3 years, and every time his role is different and he performs wonderfully. So let us see what future holds for these Khans in coming year.
4 The saddest movement in this year for cricket lover was- That Indian cricket team played so well through out the year whether at home series or away series, but just half an hour when they did not play well made them to exit the ICC World Cup tournament in England. The match was World Cup semi final against New Zealand which was played with reduced overs due to rain stoppage. Otherwise the way they played before semi final match, it looked like no one could stop them, but in the end rain god prevailed.
Awaiting for your views/fed backs/comments.
Anil Malik
Mumbai, India
24th Dec 2019