Dear Sir,
I am writing this letter to bring a message from my fellow Indians to your attention. It is mainly related to what they have been expecting since they voted Congress (and you) back to power with much clear majority. Last time they were not so sure but looking at what you managed to achieve even with left problems, they decided to relieve you of that problem and keeping in mind the global crisis they felt you are the best choice to do something progressive as you earlier did (or appeared to) in 1991.
We have already taken note of Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi's sacrifice of position. We know that Sonia Gandhi would never like to be in a position of direct power and that she is doing whatever she is doing so as to create a good situation for Rahul to succeed. There is time for this to happen and the Indian population will wait for that. But meanwhile we are expecting little more than just holding the seat for Rahul from you. In the last 8-9 months we have noticed that you had allowed ministers to be chosen not on merit but on a spoils-sharing agreement within Congress and with other parties. But then you are still the Prime Minister.
We have given you enough time to test the pitch and play defensive for quite a bit of time and if you are thinking you can play out the next 4 years like Dhoni tried to and failed to in the test against South Africa, let us know immediately. It is better to act retired hurt and sit in the pavilion rather than being out there and wasting precious time. As the Prime Minister of a country with 1.2 billion Indians, every minute you waste is equivalent to 33 lifetimes and I request you to keep this in mind whenever you chose to waste a minute.
More important message I would like to bring from my co-countrymen is that we have expectations other than those Sonia Gandhi, Congress, allies of Congress etc have from you. We want to lead a peaceful, harmonious, simple life. Majority of we Indians aspire for few simple things and are ready to live with many imperfections.
First of all, we need to have good food. It is good that Agriculture's contribution has shrunk to less than 20% from a high of 60% earlier but the food still forms the major portion of our consumption, at least 40% to 80% of daily spending by an average Indian would be on food. If you now see the way food prices are growing, whether it is the making of Mr. Pawar or it is because middle class Indians started eating more as former US President Bush said, it is becoming increasingly difficult to have two square meals without feeling sad about the amount of money that has been spent on them. How can a average Indian come out the poverty or below average life cycle if he is constantly grappling with the challenge of increasing food prices. All his increase in productivity, innovation, hard work is getting sucked by the spiraling food prices. Please think about this. As the Prime Minister, you have access to all the intelligent brains of the country in various bureaucratic, political and academic positions, brains that were nurtured over a long period of time and brains that keep writing excellent theories for newspapers and if you can put the best brains together, we are sure that you can come up with a pareto solution, which will address one of the basic responsibilities of modern society - opportunity to live.
Second, please stop thinking in terms of stock market rallies or dips and the macro GDP numbers for sometime. If you ensure that all the entrepreneurs are facilitated to achieve their goals in fair means, they will push the GDP enough. Simplify the regulations and taxation and ensure that you don't have provisions through large fish can escape but the small are caught. Treat everyone equitably. Tax income of every individual and organization and ask no more. Don't entertain smart Chidambarams, who come up ideas such as tax a honest man who wants to withdraw his money from the bank. Be fair and try to see if you can keep Gandhi's words in mind while doing this. Mr. Gandhi, if I remember rightly, said that an individual should earn only as much as he needs in his lifetime. Every individual needs food throughout this life, needs a shelter over his head, would like to educate his children, would like to have some entertainment in the form of TV, music, cinema, arts and other cultural activities, would like to help his fellow human beings in need of it. Few may want other goals, let them do it but don't let them lock in the resources in the form of money to such extent that other human beings are starving as they have no opportunity to earn their bread for the day.
Lastly, it would be great if you can keep asking representatives from different sections, representatives who truly represent their section not those who claim to be representing, what is that one thing if changed would impact them in a positive way, not from financial dimension but from societal and economical dimension. Ask the young kids from different regions, ask the bread-earners, ask the bread-makers, ask the mothers, ask the honest, ask the corrupt, ask the responsible, ask the laggards, ask the MBAs, ask illiterates, ask the roadsider, what I mean to say is develop a feeler network. The objective of our democratic society is not to achieve a high GDP growth or a certain level of per capita income or to ensure that the stock market goes up or to ensure that the interests of few are served, it is to eliminate the "might is right" and other similar brutal forces and help human and other living beings leadn a civilised and collaborative life in which there is always a give and take between living and non-living beings.
May be I wrote a little too lengthy letter but I am sure you would have got the message. Please think about this and do something about it. We have high hopes from you.
Regards
A Indian Citizen
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