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Why 50 years of Haryana is no cause for celebration

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Damayanti Datta
Damayanti DattaNov 01, 2016 | 20:09

Why 50 years of Haryana is no cause for celebration

“Fifty years of Haryana.” So what’s that to me? Sorry for being rude, but have you seen the papers today?

Every newspaper worth its name has pages and pages of massive display ads of ministers smiling at us with obscure messages of hope.

There is Haryana celebrating its golden jubilee. Chhattisgarh unveiling a statue of Deendayal Upadhyaya (among other things) in its new spic-and-span capital, Naya Raipur. Kerala announcing its diamond jubilee. Ministry of Health & Family Welfare arranging a conference on tobacco epidemic. The Central Board of Excise & Customs kicking off a Vigilance Awareness Week against corruption. Again, Kerala announcing its historic achievement in sanitation.

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Haryana has one of the worst child sex ratios in India, with 903 girls for 1000 boys. Credit: Reuters

A full-page ad can cost anything between Rs 1.5 lakh to Rs 1.5 crore per page. If these are package-deals (as some celebrations are year-long), things will surely be to the tune of multiple, double-digit crores. Whew!

Could those crores be used elsewhere? I would brim with happiness if in course of one year, say, chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar, could improve the state’s abysmal child sex ratio, its notorious record of female foeticide, rape and honour killing. Or, at least, make all the water-logging, traffic snarls, power cuts, road craters disappear from Gurugram.

By the way

In some of those ads, prime minister Modi is calling Haryana the “land of Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan”. Yes, we know that the state has a strong clout in the Army (think, VK Singh and Dalbir Singh Suhag — the Indian Army's former and current chiefs, respectively).

But, wasn’t that phrase coined by Lal Bahadur Shastri in 1965, as a war between India and Pakistan left our jawans bleeding, while massive droughts left kisans with no food on their platter?

Last updated: November 02, 2016 | 11:58
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