In an episode of Shark Tank, Piyush Bansal listens to the peach standing before him and says 'Paanch sal main Bharat jo hain na pura badalen hai boss. Yeh to clear kar diya hai'
And hundreds of such examples appear on the Shark Tank stage. Two girls from Bangalore who are not yet 30 years old came to India after their studies in America. And he started a flower business. Worked on increasing the shelf life of flowers, the flowers like marigold, shevanti, rose, etc. which are used for daily pooja in the deoghar start spoiling in 2-3 days, they invented a technique, and showed that the shelf life of flowers was increased up to 15 days. 1 crore in one month and it came with a valuation of 80 crores.
3 guys from Nashik innovated in electric bikes and made an electric bike-cum-walking shop. Two boys from Kerala have created a device to track the health of their farm animals, from which every ten seconds the data about the health of the cows and buffaloes on their farm is sent to the farmer's mobile app. 4-5 children sitting in Dehradun developed ECG-checking devices like thermometers, or oximeters and made it possible to check their heart activity regularly at home. After a friend's accidental death, guys in Bengal created a smart helmet to instantly know that an accident had occurred. It is planned that in the event of an accident, the helmet can send information from your phone, to the last person you spoke to, or to the nearest hospital by sending a message or phone call.
Piyush Bansal's saying 'Bharat pura badalane wala hai boss' may only apply to businesses, innovative ideas, or unicorn companies. But even common people like us who have been walking consciously and carefully for the last 10 years can see this changing picture clearly.
We (so-called a group of like-minded, relatively young thinkers meaning 'us') realized what the situation was when we started observing with our eyes 10 years ago. Anna Hazare started a movement against corruption in 2012, and Ramdev Baba was also in the same movement. Ten years of UPA government with many parties. Narendra Modi was selected as the party's Prime Minister candidate by the Bharatiya Janata Party in September 2013. And the proliferation of active social media about a year or two before that. Before that there was Orkut, and there was Yahoo Messenger. But social media was not powerful enough to influence national politics. It was created in 2011-12. With the saturation of electronic media on TV and the power of social media that people have come to know, the wonderful phenomenon of 'Bhau Torasekar's blog' has emerged. I'm not talking about Bhau's narrative, but you may remember the year 2013 when Bhau's blog peaked in popularity. 3 blogs per day of 900 to 1000 words. At the time, the Bhau stood against the flow of the established narrative. There was no space for Bhau's narrative on TV, but the overwhelming response the blog received and the impact it had on people made Bhau's narrative take notice in all forms of media.
But do you remember what the established narrative was in 2013?
Talking about Hindutva is like going into the wall and knocking it down. Socialist and communist groups were in majority on social media. Not only on social media but also in the minds of everyone including journalists, intellectuals, academics, columnists, professors, and most importantly MLAs-Khasdars sitting in power, hatred of Hindutva, and appreciation of false secularism. You may remember how much uproar there was when our Seshrao More sir became the president of Vishwa Marathi Sahitya Sammelan in 2015. In 2013, Narendra Modi, the 'main man in the Gujarat riots', will now become the prime minister, his mega-aggressive right-hand man like Amit Shah, who suddenly became the national president of the Bharatiya Janata Party. Today, we can clearly remember the tremendous shock it caused to the established system here. I remember there was a discussion in our study class about how democracy is now under threat due to 'Amit Shah' becoming the national president of a political party. There is no need to use the term so-called progressive today, we have made so much progress. Today people can see clearly like a mirror who is this? Even looking at it in black and white is very dangerous. So when a person who seems to be a good person takes a stance against his political land, he suddenly feels like an enemy. This is starting to happen today.
But think about it, taking a stand against Hindutva in public today is scary. Bollywood used to insult Hindus very easily, today it has taken a leap. How short was this journey?
Needless to say, what was the narrative in India in 2013-14. It will be remembered what prestige 'Hindutva' had at the national level. People were afraid to have any kind of discussion about Islam and Muslims. No one dared to speak publicly about the negative aspects of Mughal history. Talking about the idea of 'Hindutva' in four-fourths was like throwing it into the wall, Ram Temple, Article 370, Common Civil Code, etc. seemed like daydreams and seemed far-fetched. It seemed that the possibility of a viable alternative to the all-India might of the Congress was fading. But the elections were held on the 14 BJP got a thumping majority. BJP alone has 282 seats. And the atmosphere began to change. I am not saying that the environment has started to get better or worse. It is not a value judgment that the environment has changed. But the atmosphere changed. A soft-spoken but academically intelligent Prime Minister was gone and come a man who spoke to people every Sunday and whose degree people still don't know exactly. The communal atmosphere of 2013 was also grim. It was muddy. The highest point of the Sambhaji Brigade. The assassination of Sambhaji Raja According to Manusmriti, the real enemies of Shivaraya were the Brahmins. Shiva Raya's history had no prestige. Celebrating Shiv Jayanti was not a sign of prestige. Today in Maharashtra there is a competition over whose Shiv Jayanti is bigger. Around 13-14, this is the period when children here became aware of the sanctity of forts. From village to village, groups of children were formed who voluntarily went to the forts only to carry out cleanliness drives. Then groups were formed to curb the untoward things happening in the forts. The forts became the couple's point, and the forts became the spots to celebrate the 31st of December. Plans for the restoration of forts went from village to village. Someone voluntarily rebuilt the gate of the fort. Someone did the fencing work. Someone cleaned out the silt that had accumulated in the water tanks for years and found historical documents. And so on. In 2013-14 it was a sin to talk about Shivaji Raj's Hindutva. People almost forgot that Shiv Rai was fighting against Islamic power. Shivarai and Sambhaji Maharaj fought mainly against the Brahmins. And secondly, society doubted Shiva Raya's devotion to Brahmins. Today in the Legislative Assembly, Ajit Pawar said that 'Sambhaji Maharaj does not need to be called a religious hero', but the children of the village rallied against Ajit Pawar. A Bahujan Samaj opposing Ajit Pawar's Shivaji-Sambhaji Maharaj stance is visible in Maharashtra today. People who clearly remember the picture from 10 years ago will clearly see the difference. Aurangabad became 'Chhatrapati Sambhaji Nagar', and people hired cranes with their own money to wipe out wherever 'Aurangabad' was mentioned.
80 MPs are elected from Uttar Pradesh in the 2014 Lok Sabha. At that time news was heard that not a single Muslim MP from Uttar Pradesh went to Lok Sabha in 2014 from BJP. I did not believe the news. But in the 2014 Lok Sabha out of 543 members, a total of 23 MPs were Muslims. In the ruling party, out of 282 BJP MPs, there was not a single Muslim. This meant that the Lok Sabha from 2014 to 2019 was entirely in the hands of those who were Hindus by birth and sympathized with the ideology of Hindutva. Our sir had said, Hindu Rashtra is established. What else do you need?
Two capitals of Maharashtra. One is Mumbai and the other is Nagpur. Two at the two ends of Maharashtra. The most developed cities in Maharashtra in the last fifty years are Pune and Mumbai. Mumbai is the port, the capital city. As Pune was historically important, the IT parks of Hinjewadi or Kharadi gave it more energy. But Vidarbha Marathwada was sidelined from this development. There are thousands of reasons. We should not get involved in politics and selfishness, but why did it take fifty years to realize that there should be such an expressway and to build it? Roads are being built in a hurry, Gadkari is telling his numbers in Lok Sabha, the dates of completion of the work, and the work is being completed on time. The Hinjewadiha area at the northwest end of Pune started to develop as IT parks around 2000. But to go to Hinjewadi from Pune Metro had to come 2021-22!
Once again let's stop by talking about one topic of Hindutva. Ten years ago, Hindutva had no prestige. Today, prestige has been achieved. And today Hindutva has gained so much strength that the behavior of Hindus is going to the other extreme to look like mob rule. An ideology that had no respect in society 10 years ago, today seems to be on the way out of hand. Campaigns like 'No Bindi No Business' or 'unreasonable affection for cows' or 'unnecessary pride in our history' and our feeling are hurting very easily.
Ten years ago, we were fighting to bring dignity to Hindutva, today we are fighting to prevent bad things from happening in Hindutva. We have to oppose mob rule like 'No Bindi No Business', we are struggling to say that mentioning Shivaji alone does not mean that Maharaj is insulted. There is more awareness about 'Islam' than 10 years ago. It goes without saying that Islam, like all other religions, has very serious and undesirable aspects. People have guessed it.
India has come a long way in the last 10 years, from start-ups to political roles. Again I am not making a value judgment. To say that India has come forward with development, we need a lot of data, we need details, and we need to check it properly. We have seen the journey of the last ten years, everyone should do the same evaluation in their own way.
But an honest and down-to-earth businessman Piyush Bansal, who has built his own business with a net worth of Rs 600 crores, says that 'Bharat jo hain na pura badalane wala hai boss' means a lot.
