“If you only have a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail
: Abraham Maslow
As a management teacher I observe – with pain though – that today journalists and amateur writers have changed their writing instruments. A hammer has replaced the pen and I would like to quote another apt slogan of the Parker Retro 51 pen—”Life is too short to carry an ugly pen!”, least a hammer.
As criticizers of PM Modi run out of ideas, they are desperately trying for helicopter shots in vain. Even if you want to fly a helicopter in the rarified atmosphere it will not take off, you can keep revving your engine and you will never even take off because rarefied air does not allow you to create the desired pressure. The journalists and opposition are trying to fly in a rarified atmosphere. Without realising it, they call it a stifling atmosphere.
They would sometimes talk of fundamental rights, jobs, economy, and freedom of speech and sometimes use lofty English to say nothing; like someone would say the idea of doing all these is to keep the pot boiling – keeping the masses distracted. Everybody is scared today. But distracted from what? Scared of what?
We have very recently surpassed the economy of our Lords of the Kings in the UK and produced our own indigenous Aircraft carrier, the largest in our fleet today (not named INS MODI but INS VIKRANT). We are heading to be the third largest economy. There is food on the table, no power shortages, inflation well under control, over 200 crores vaccination jabs, Ayushman Bharat gives health coverage to poor people, and by September 2022, India is home to 107 unicorns with a total valuation of $ 340.79 Bn.
India’s foreign exchange reserves stand at a healthy $553.11 billion as of the week ended September 2. Over 23,000 Indian students, including some foreign nationals, were evacuated under the direct supervision of four union ministers from war-torn Ukraine. Our foreign policy is on the course, no one can bully us, and we are respected by the world. We are keeping a safe driving distance from the so-called big boys in the game. Is the government trying to hide all this? If yes, then you may be closer to the truth. Hammerwalas are using sniffer dogs to unearth a scam where there is none.
We are gagged they say, yet on every TV channel they keep abusing the government, they write whatever they want with their hammer and tongs on every news portal.
As a management teacher and an author, I always told my students that management and leadership are ‘just common sense’.
Tell me why for heaven’s sake we could not get an International Yoga Day earlier. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in his UN address in 2014, had suggested the date of June 21, as it is the longest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere and shares a special significance in many parts of the world. This is common sense in action– we got it so many decades later! United Nations made 21 June International Yoga Day—this was nothing short of a game changer—not a penny spent by us and we were catapulted into the international arena.
All the ‘hammerwalas’ must have thought ‘Why the hell it didn’t strike us? Modi baazi maar gaya re!’ Har Ghar Tiranga is also just an idea. It worked! Of course, other nations have been doing it for decades ago. ‘Par nakal ke liye bhee akaal chahiye’- ‘Oops! We missed this one too,’ they would have miserably pondered.
As George C. Marshall, former U.S. Army General, noted, “Morale is a state of mind. It is steadfastness and courage and hope. It is elan and determination.” And right now, the morale and hope of Modi detractors seem to be at their absolute nadir, which is why they are angling for outrage on seemingly benign issues.
Now, you have a problem with ‘Kartavyapath’. For god’s sake stop asking for only rights, have we ever spoken of our fundamental duties, which are eleven in number? Are these only meant for the armed forces and not every citizen including ‘Hammerwalas’.
The popular green spot for the public has been given a complete facelift with sandstone fixtures in this effort.
Don’t do hair-splitting, you will lose all your hair. OK, Rajpath was a literal translation of Kingsway, but couldn’t we connect it to something more meaningful, more actionable rather than a literal translation? Nah—you need common sense for that too.
A couple of more important landmarks created in recent years. As part of the Central Vista redevelopment project, over 7,000 employees of the Ministry of Defense now move to new office complexes. A senior defence official said ‘Since Independence, many of our employees have been working in dilapidated hutments. For the first time, they will move into proper offices. Some of the hutments are over 75 years old and some were stables back then. The existing hutments are spread over 50 acres as against 13 acres for the new modern complexes. The War memorial that was long overdue has also come in this integrated effort. The new parliament has a 150 per cent higher seating capacity and is built to last for 150 years. This is called killing four birds with one stone—common sense.
India Gate has not been named Modi gate or Rajpath as Shahpath or Modipath whereas Connaught place is now Rajiv Chowk where there was no objection. Every college, road, university, and hospital has only five great names—Nehru, Indira, Rajiv and not to miss, Sanjay—where Gandhi was a necessary appendix and not an annexure. We have not seen anything extraordinary named after V.P. Singh, Lal Bahadur Shastri or Narsimha Rao—not even a bus stop for Manmohan Singh as per my knowledge.
Of course, Mayawati has dozens of elephant statues and her own life-size statue in Lucknow. But that was done during her reign in Uttar Pradesh. She probably was acutely aware that given the propensity of Congress to adulate over only the Nehru-Gandhi family, she might as well create statues for herself and her party for posterity to know there existed a leader besides the ubiquitous presence of Gandhi family members.
I feel like humming the song sung by Paul and Mary and later by Trini Lopez.
‘If I had a hammer
I’d hammer in the morning
I’d hammer in the evening
All over this land’
Good luck to you Hammerwalas, but don’t hammer your own thumb in your exuberance- it hurts badly.
