He comes from a very privileged background, having an economist father, an anthropologist mother and a maternal grandmother who was a known banker in Hawaii. He had never to face the modern ghettoed life of quite a many African American brethen. But what make so many glue to Mr. Obama? It is not his colour, neither his religion, nor his education, not even just his speaking skills or sheer election management. What makes them so hopeful and inspiring about Mr. Obama is the message of America which he dreams and articulates. It is not about fighting evil in this world or protecting the great nation from nefarious malign ideas which stand in contrariety to perceived freedom, capitalism and Judeo-Christian values. Rather it has only been about an America in the new century which is already nine years past. Its about the new challenges that the great American state faces in the new world without much borders, a world with more liquidity both in men and materal and it is once more that America shows the right way. The nation is set to change, Bush era has to get and it is time for the new educated, enlightened, middle-class-value driven, secularist, immigrant friendly, race-unbiased administration to take over and herald a new promised era to the people of world community.
For most people, it is a party that is begining to begin. Obamania reins from coast to coast, especially among the faithful. Mr Obama endorses the timing of this even more, as believes the best way to serve the community is when it needs the most. Economic, environmental, energy crisis need immidiate attention, any mistake or misjudgement and history will never forgive him. American lives have come to be ever more dependent on imported oil and with oil geting all the more costlier it has started to make a resounding thought in the minds of policy makers at Capitol Hill. Americans of African origin have even more hopes, as they are the most disadvantaged of the many sections of American demographic spectrum. But did Mr. Obama promise his colour-sake ever a carrot. He rather offered his entire countrymen a cake. Never for once has he associated himself with the African American mass. Affirmative action, introduced by Mr. J. F. Kennedy has been around for almost half a century but African Americans are yet to fully climb up the ivy of equality. Mr Obama as now promised them no new jobs or reserved higher education, as Mr. Kennedy's affirmative action envisaged, but he has offered them a vision, personified as the next president. Education and values can transform lives. Marijuana, drug, alcoholism, absentee fathers and crime ridden ghettos are some of the realities that Mr. Obama has never shied away from castigating about the African American community. There have been so many senior African American in the higher notches of American society, academia, industry and entertainment, but none could be leaders of the stature Barack II has managed to become. The message is now clearer than ever - education, family-values and assimilation are the only ways for upliftment of the historically underprivileged.
This has lessons for the world to learn. We in India, have a larger-than-anywhere underprivileged section of our countrymen which is a legacy of our history. A legacy which we cannot afford to salvage. By far and far, majority of India's upper crust and the middle classes are constituted by historically privileged sections of our populance. Muslims which were once the nations aristocracy have been an exception in not been able to be a part of the Indian success story for most of its part. However, it is the section of our countrymen who constitute the Scheduled Castes and Tribes which have remained on the periphery of everything good that has happened in last two decades. Unfortunately this is despite growth of reservation in higher education, a growth in number of Members of Parliament or Members of various Legislative Assemblies hailing from these sections of the society. Our reservation policy as I have always felt is only a candy service for the electorate without much genuine intent. Politicians have flaunted their caste resume and ancestry only as a votecatcher.
All we need today is a person with vision of hope, a dream to excite and a roadmap to lead us all irrespective of caste, class and pedigree towards equity and an industrious future. Reverand Martin Luther King Jr. had a dream for America, if Rosa Parks was the motivation of the dream then Barack Obama Jr. is the child of the dream. His hope may hold the key to unleash plethora of motivation for this larger world across all its time-zones, and why not for this blessed land, India, which gave the Rosa Parks and Montgomery their weapon to fight injustice.
A dream and a hope is the answer to it all. If it can happen in America, then surely someday our day too will come. We too will overcome the caste and religion divide that blights our political landscape.
