How long will our Chandnis have to dance for food?

'Chandni' means 'moonlight', not the harsh light of the sun which burns our skin and shows up every blemish, but a soft mellow radiance which makes everything look beautiful by hiding the defects. But Chandni seems to be an inauspicious name in India. Chandni bars in Mumbai, where girls from poor families earned amounts of money they could never dream of, were closed down by moral Nazis, forcing the girls into prostitution. Now the story of another Chandni who used to earn a living by performing on the streets of Delhi, until her father died, when she became a ragpicker to feed herself. Now, at the ripe old age of 18 years, she edits a quarterly tabloid called 'Balaknama', which means 'stories of children', stories of children who live in slums and on the streets, a lot of whom have to work in dangerous occupations to relieve their hunger. So what is the big deal? Thousands of children are being born on the streets of Indian cities everyday, where they survive by begging or working, until they die an early death from disease or crime. Why? After 67 years of public distribution of cheap food, reservations and numerous social schemes, which reward the poor for being subservient, why do we have so many Chandnis? Fortunately, we have Mr Rahul Gandhi who is determined to protect the interests of the poor. His party, the Congress, blocked every bill in the monsoon session of the parliament in the Rajya Sabha, where it has a majority. He is adamantly against any modification of the Land Acquisition Bill which has made it impossible to acquire land for industries or for building roads. Which also means that farmers have no escape from a wretched cycle of failing monsoon, loans from moneylenders and ultimate suicide. Increasing the minimum support price only increases food prices, which hurt the poor. He repeatedly accuses the government of being a 'suit, boot ki sarkar', probably wanting everyone to be in 'langotis', which means 'loincloths'. After all MK Gandhi (no relation of Rahul) rejoiced in the epithet of being a " half-naked fakir ". Rahul Gandhi is extremely rich, having lived in palaces all his life so his concern for the poor is touching. Unless of course he is sacrificing our economy to his ambition of becoming prime minister in 2019. He claims to have a M Phil from Cambridge under a disguise of Raul Vinci and apparently claimed to be a British citizen in the past. Power and pelf worth any artifice. Ambition propelled Mr Nitish Kumar, reputed to be an honorable man, to tie up with Mr Lalu Prasad Yadav, out on bail, to win assembly elections in Bihar. Unfortunately, Yadav's RJD party has won more seats than Kumar's JDU. It seems that Kumar's cabinet was chosen by Yadav so how much more of blood money he will have to pay remains to be seen. Chandnis dance for food while politicians dance for power.