Transcendence

Much has already been published about the infamous rally organised by the Janata Dal (S) on Monday but here are some updates, based on my personal experience of being stranded between Majestic and Sanjaynagar for five hours that evening.

Around 5.50 pm an ambulance rushing an emergency case to hospital was wailing its head off, for all of 20 minutes while it was held up in front of the Indian Institute of Science, unable to move an inch because the road was choked, end to end, kerb to kerb, with a long line of buses festooned with the JD(S) flag. In emergency cases, even three minutes delay makes all the difference between life and death. How much was the life of the patient in that ambulance worth, in terms of votes for your party, Mr Kumaraswamy?

On the bus I finally managed to get on to, after a wait of one and a half hours at Majestic, there were three schoolgirls aged 10-11. They had been waiting since 3.15 pm. At 5.45 pm when the bus was still stranded near Malleswaram 18th cross, unable to move because buses strung with your party flags appropriated all approach roads disregarding traffic rules and signals, one of the girls wet her uniform, unable to control herself. (She had tried to get off the bus and couldn’t make her way to the exit due to the crush of commuters). She began sobbing with embarrassment and distress while a group of young boys sniggered. When you went for village darshans, Mr Kumaraswamy, your minions carried portable toilets for your convenience. One has to be a VIP even to ease oneself without humiliation, in our kind of democracy, right?

You and your father have apologised for the inconvenience caused but have quickly and unrepentantly added that urban citizens do not understand the problems of the rural people who walk farther than what school children had to, during the chaos your meeting caused. You’re right. Shall we say, you should stay in a mud hut without electricity because that is how millions of rural people live?

It was the ineptness of the authorities, not your party that caused the chaos, your father has argued. No Sir, I can vouch for what I saw and experienced personally. At Majestic terminus, when no buses turned up from the north for over an hour, the milling crowd was several hundred strong. As soon as a north-bound bus hove in sight, hordes of lumpen rowdy youth ran alongside and boarded the buses even before they stopped. I saw three elderly men being thrown to the ground in the melee, shoved aside by your supporters. One old man got trampled.

I saw one large bus festooned with your party flag at CNR Rao circle block traffic in all directions by stopping in the middle of the circle while a youth standing by the door of the bus argued with another who was trying to clamber on, causing a 20-minute snarl. Policemen can handle goondas but not goons enjoying political backing. The driver of the bus I was on stopped the vehicle at the Indian Institute of Science signal, jumped off and disappeared because the police could not let him turn right towards BEL road, and the busload of harassed commuters began shouting menacingly when the vehicle was forced to go towards Yeshwantpur.

It was your party buses laden with ‘supporters’ that took the law into their own hands, disregarding traffic signals and right of way norms, forcing public buses to take arbitrary detours, holding the city to ransom. Since when has disruption of citizens’ normal life to this extent, for flexing party muscles — that too, of a party whose leaders claim to be ‘mannina makkalu’ (sons of the soil) been acceptable as part of democratic governance?

In another country, citizens would have claimed hefty compensation from the party for distress and inconvenience caused. I am a senior citizen with a limp but I had to hop off at Yeshwantpur, walk back to the Institute — there was no alternative — and call for a taxi to get home. It took me five hours to cover 14 km, Jayanagar to Sanjaynagar. You can get from Bangalore to Mysore, or Mumbai to Pune in less. One middle aged working woman has an arrangement with an autorickshaw driver who usually waits for her at her office gate every evening. She did not know what to do because the auto driver called her on his mobile to say he could not reach the gate due to traffic blockage. She could not have walked the distance to her home, it was already dark at 6.30 pm, there were no other autos, no taxis, no buses, nothing. She was one of thousands similarly stranded that evening.

I thought political parties are meant to serve the people, not the other way round. Here were people, commandeered instead to serve a party bash. Couldn’t the crores of rupees spent on this show have gone instead on helping the poor in some way? Or, does offering free food and transport for party supporters count as ‘helping the poor?’