If the police in this country were as efficient in putting murderers behind bars as they are in their treatment of defaulters, life in our public spaces would be safer, more civilized and devoid of ‘shootouts’ and molestations. Children of political parents get away, are in fact ‘honoured’ by the authorities which cringe when confronted by the political masters. Nothing could be more feudal than this present-day reality. Even the erstwhile royals were more fair in their administration. The tragedy in India is that no national political leader makes a statement denouncing this subservience, the genuflection that makes a mockery of all service rules. And when they do, it is after a time lag, thereby reducing the impact of the intervention.

These are syndromes of a soft and flabby state. Our leadership urgently needs to address the degradation of our polity. The fabric of India is in shreds, our values have been bastardized, our ethics have been mutilated, but the bulk of our people remain resilient. State capitals, where political largesse is dispensed, are cesspools of corruption, the breeding ground for law-breakers who operate at the behest of the law-makers.

Honest people are bulldozed, humiliated and cast aside to make way for those who are brazen and undignified. To live a clean life is nearly impossible, which is why the ‘authorities’ can run amuck as they ‘interpret’ the right and the wrong. Till the horrors of India do not afflict the ruling class and their families as well as the administrative class, till government machinery is used to protect them, the slide downhill will continue. This is one of the worst periods in history.

The Diwali gift

If the citizen can clearly see what the truth is, why are democratically elected representatives allowed to betray India? Is that the India they want their children to inherit? Can they not see the damage they are doing? Are illegal bucks the motivation for both the political and the administrative class? Is this ‘reserved’ community entitled to exploit those who had elected it to govern with dignity?

Sixty years of freedom has led to the phenomenal growth of one all-pervasive reality — corruption. Thanks to inept and weak-kneed leaders, men and women who have lost their sense of morality, who cut corners as they manically crave for self-aggrandizement, India has been relegated to the status of a struggling, corrupt fourth world nation. What will be the pledge from the ramparts of the Red Fort on August 15, 2007? Will it be yet another hollow promise, a baseless rhetoric?

How long can this betrayal continue? Will the growing armed rebellion — described as the rise of Naxalism — overwhelm the body politic? And for how much longer will we have to hear our guilty leaders refer to this reality as a law and order problem when we all know that it is the direct result of misgovernance, exploitation, rampant corruption and the high-handedness of failed governments through the decades.

Why has no one tried to change the course of this malaise? Many of us have had conversations with leaders of all hues and intellectual levels who have acknowledged this truth, who have said that corruption needs to be halted for any legitimate and substantial growth, who know what is happening around them, but who do absolutely nothing to change it. Is it because they want to live through their term without rocking the boat, because if they do, they may lose their kursi temporarily, and this they cannot afford to do because of the possible skeletons in their cupboards?

Manmohan Singh should lead the way. Fight for what is right and face the consequences of correct action without compromising with all that is wrong, crooked and corrupt, starting with members of his cabinet. India’s Diwali gift!