Queue tips & rumination

Saba Naqvi

When not in a Q or in conversation with people in a Q, I am rereading George Orwell's 1984 and pinching myself that this is not an Orwellian nightmare but contemporary reality. For the uninitiated, 1984 is about a superstate that's in perpetual war, there's surveillance and public manipulation through a process called The Hate. There's The Party that persecutes independent thinking described as ThoughtCrime. The Party is represented by Big Brother who epitomizes the cult of personality but may not even exist. The novel begins in the Ministry of Truth where the slogan of The Party is written in bold letters. 

War is peace 

Freedom is slavery

Ignorance is strength

Currently that slogan appears to be eerily relevant to what is unfolding in India. To those who are certain things will get better soon, I would recommend reading French philosopher Voltaire, one of the great wits of his time. His Candide, published in 1759 and translated into English under various titles including Candide or The Optimist is one of the best satires of those times. 

There's this dialogue when someone asks "Optimism, what is that?" "Alas!" replied Candide, "it is the obstinacy of maintaining that everything is well when it is hell."

Frankly, many of us feel we are in hell in our country ever since we were all parted from our own money and those with little money from their wages and jobs. My mind, I admit, is in overdrive as I stay awake figuring out how to deal with what is being called "the new normal" (sounds like a cute little departure from our otherwise dull lives!). 

Like other patriots I'm either plotting the time to strike at a bank or ATM (five have been cashless in the last 24 hours) as it now requires the precision of a heist. The money I'm trying to part from a bank or ATM is mine but is apparently needed for National Cleansing and Regeneration. This has been explained to us as a need to fix those damned terrorists and hoarders of illicit wealth (although the smart economists who know a thing or two about smart money say their cash is far away in foreign shores or in gold or real estate).    

When the Lies, Damned Lies gets too much I resolve to live One Day At a Time and seek a Higher Purpose. This mostly consists of planning to help those who work for me operate a bank account. (Forgive my seditious nature but I start choking with laughter and tears when I hear people say the poor will soon use plastic) 

Here's the story of the bank account of Bundi Munda who has lived with me since my daughter was born 18 years ago. Yes, she has a bank account but since she cannot read or write, others operate the account and put money into it. A few years ago when she returned to her village in Jharkhand, she panicked when the bank official told her there was no money when there should have been 50 thousand in her account. She made hysterical calls to Delhi and before I began calling up activists in Jharkhand, she gathered a some men from her village and landed up in the bank. The teller miraculously found the money that he had earlier not been able to locate. 

So in this great land that is apparently poised to move from poverty to plastic poverty, the petty bureaucracy is often the worst oppressor. 

Let's presume that under duress people do move to banks and then on to plastic. Less than 20 days before the great November 8 announcement, the financial papers announced that 3.2 million Indian users could have been victims of debit card fraud. Many of us got notices to change our pins and passwords. We could READ. Imagine those who cannot do so (most Indians).  

Suppose they get scammed either during a bank transaction in a rural hamlet or through an electronic transaction?  First, it would take a while to know that the money has gone. Second, imagine the plight of an illiterate man or woman running from pillar to post to recover the money. .

Yes. The banks will be flush with all our cash, and presumably they can again start giving loans to big infrastructure companies who have reneged on repayment (and being compassionate the regime excused 64 such companies last month from paying any interest on their loans). These chaps can then build the nation of Big Brother's dreams, fast lane highways, bullet trains, smart cities et all. 

After all in another classic, Animal Farm, Orwell wrote: All animals are equal but some are more equal than others". He was commenting on the hypocrisy of declaring citizens equal but then enabling only a few. We've just disabled millions.