This is an imaginary manifesto of an imaginary Angoor Aadmi Party. It is meant as a satire and I mean no offence to any section of my country. I do not intend to mock AAP, they mean well. I was wondering about what a manifesto would look like if political parties stated the truth so I decided to become a party (I have used ‘we’ to denote myself). It is not a political campaign and I am not looking for votes.
Angoor Aadmi Party
-We won’t lie, just squeeze you dry.
This is the concluding part of the manifesto which sincerely
hopes to dent your aspirations, deny you opportunities and make you wish that:
“Had I voted wisely, things might have been different (they wouldn’t have been
but what’s wrong in wishing?).”
So here we deal with the other half of the 10 point program.
Five policies that’ll change your world.
Education: the first scheme is called ‘Tez Aandhi Padhai
Likhai Yojana (TAPLY)’. Here we aim to wipe away all funding on education
system like the cyclone that wiped your home. You see it is really difficult to
govern a well educated country. Citizens keep asking for better quality
services, file plenty of RTIs, question the values of the government; basically
embarrass us at every step with well thought out arguments based on the figures
that we provide them (freaking amazing!). We don’t want that. We don’t want
debates, discussions or any questions being raised about us. You expect us to
teach all of you (Bah!) and then you turn around to question us? Surely you see
the point, surely you understand. Besides what’s the use? One of you with
exceptional education will come up with some radical idea which will offend a
lot of people, they’ll ask for your head and you will die an untimely death. So
why bother? We also intend to repeal the right to education, those kids want to
play not study and later they can join their proud parents in raising another
generation as theirs. And higher education…Hahaha!!...see if you can find lower
first.
Health: People, you have no safety, you have no money, you
have no food, and we won’t provide you any education: Why the hell would you
want to live? But anyways, since we need votes we must have a scheme for health
and welfare (makes us look caring!). We have been very secular and called it
‘Uparwaala bachaye yojana (UBY)’. Since you are already familiar with the
concept we won’t have to do much here. We’ll lease all the government hospitals
to private practitioners who’ll treat you as they wish (most of them have
genuine degrees, we believe). But don’t worry just so it doesn’t seem unfair
we’ll increase their taxes by 1% (there, Happy?). Sanitation department would
stop installing toilets at your houses so that you are with nature, when nature
calls. Besides, it’ll be easier to relieve yourself as the fright of the
incoming train would ease the process. Going outside for morning duties also
becomes an opportunity for getting acquainted with neighbours; you can find a
whole panchayat shitting together!! (Don’t tell us we are not promoting
panchayati raj, we so are!) Infant mortality rate, maternal mortality rate,
female foeticide are all just numbers put up by the opposition, don’t believe
in them. Most of you really don’t care about the disabled and the old anyways
so we’ll make sure we don’t either (after all we are your representatives). We
stand for inclusive governance, we’ll include all in our misgovernance.
Foreign affairs: This marks the corner-stone policy for
every government. We too intend to have a lot of affairs in foreign countries
but besides that we are clueless as to how to proceed. All we know is this:
With Pakistan half of you want war, half of you want peace; we can’t provide
either. With China: well you don’t trust China, we don’t trust you and hence
the conundrum. With Nepal and Bhutan… well what is up with them? We’ll consider
them neutrals. With Sri Lanka and Bangladesh: we really can’t say, our regional
partners might divorce us. With America: We’ll keep batting our eyelashes to
catch their attention and regardless of the manner in which they treat our
officials, we’ll try our best to ensure that the romance remains alive. With
Russia: well we really admire the macho figure of Putin openly defying America
(so Dharmendra-esque) and the fact that they provide us with so many planes,
guns etc. etc. We will too, be close to Russia. That’s the whole world right?
(who goes to Africa?, nobody really cares about Latin America which somehow
pops up from time to time; And Europe is our favourite holiday destination so
we really hope they do well. Australia, we don’t know what to do there apart
from playing cricket). We will however continue our ‘educational tours abroad
and visit all those countries which are below us in terms of human development
(there won’t be a lot we presume). How the hell are they beating us to the last
spot?
The IT industry: Ah! Our favourite. Most of our close allies
are in IT industry so we cannot really screw them over, or can we? Let’s see:
you complain that you work for peanuts. We assure you that on assumption of
power we’ll make sure that it is literally true; senior employees would however
get better peanuts from Haldiram. We are working on a program named ‘Suffer Till
you Die In Office of Heart-attack (STDIO.H) Yojana’. We also know that you hate
working on Mondays so we will declare mandatory holiday on Mondays but Sunday
would obviously be an 18 hour work day(Cheers all around, eh!). We look at you
and are reminded of Boxer from the Orwellian farm. You, dear friends, are the
work horse of our economy. You bring in a lot of dollars and work day and night
to appease your western employers. And what do you want; to watch good movies
on the weekend. To go to a fine restaurant or a pub to let off steam. To escape
into nature (BTW who are you escaping from?). To be a part of the emerging
India (Shiny, is it?). Well, haha! The entertainment taxes would be raised, and
don’t you dare venture into an ac restaurant; the tax would be more than your
bill. As far as your salaries are concerned, as one of our friend put it quite succinctly,
“What’ll come around will go around per month”.
The Aam aadmi: Guys
Guys Guys!!! Did you read the entire manifesto? And you still want to know what
we have in store for you? We are impressed by your resilience. We applaud you
for being part of our practical jokes election after election. We salute you
for the courage you show when you defy the old adage ‘Pray! Strike on the back
and not on the stomach’. We truly are you fans…Blah! Blah! Blah! We have
nothing for you, we never did. We are exploiters and we ravage but what can we
do with you? Our audacity is limited by your conditions. We have played with
your lives and that is what we cannot do anymore (Screw all that… that’s just
the manifesto talking, we’ll do worse).
Do vote for us.
We are looking for an election symbol, a bottle of really
expensive wine seems obvious choice but suggestions are welcome (We value you
opinion (sniggering uncontrollably)).
We will exploit you but trust us; we will not lie to you.
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