So many of the Indigo flights yesterday were delayed 9 hours or so only to eventually get cancelled. Imagine being at airport for all those hours plus two hours more for all the unnecessary checking.
Many complained how they were not even offered water to drink.
This is not the first time nor will it be the last time.
Problem is two pronged. One of course is the government end of it where we do not have laws or rules for these situations. All laws from banking to mobile networks to air travel are for safekeeping the companies. For every small mistake there's law to punish the customer. Low balance? Fine. Flight date change? Pay due. You can't even receive calls now when your data pack ends. There are no plans without data just to receive messages or calls. But is there a law to punish companies for never working ATMs? Flight delays? Cancelations at last time? Bad seats? Food? No network or bad connections? No no no.
Other is market part of it. Usually if there's competition in market then companies fear bad service and so they do their job well for fear of losing customers. But Modi govt since it arrived has been favoring just select corporate houses killing competitors one by one. Imagine the number of mobile operators during Congress time? They're all gone. This govt even killed BSNL to favor jio. Same story with airlines and with banks in name of nationalization they've killed many local banks like Syndicate bank etc.
This is same Hindi, Hindu, Hindustan one nation one everything policy because less diversity makes for easy control. India's strength lies in more diversity. Less diverse we get, more prone to all kinds of anti-people attacks.
Clock has long ticked for meaningful reset. But as Arundhati Roy said, 'We be many and they be few. They need us more than we need them.'
There's still hope provided we agree that there's a problem, ailment, disease to cure.
Our strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness – and our ability to tell our own stories. Stories that are different from the ones we’re being brainwashed to believe.
The corporate revolution will collapse if we refuse to buy what they are selling – their ideas, their version of history, their wars, their weapons, their notion of inevitability.
Remember this: We be many and they be few. They need us more than we need them.
Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.
