Something strange has overtaken life in India. It is as though integrity and decency have been thrown to the winds, with no national leader, from top to bottom and from any political dispensation, willing to stand up and call a spade a spade. Wherever you look, and whichever way you choose to look at what is happening, it is wrong, illegal and illegitimate. In the year of the 60th anniversary of our independence from alien rule, all we have to showcase is criminality, anarchy, corruption and ineptitude of governance.

The sealing of allegedly illegal operations, doing business without the requisite permissions and at venues that are not deemed for commercial use, is by no means a cleansing of corrupt practices. Instead, this exercise has opened many more avenues for making illegitimate and illegal money through bribery and other corruption. Authorities are tied up with land mafias and builders who are in turn controlling the law-enforcement brigades. Political personages are involved as well. This is known and recognized by those in power, across all parties. They are silent. And that ominous silence has endorsed the continuation and enhancement of corruption, victimizing those who are honest and have all the necessary papers.

A recent report of a policeman having sold an illegal property to an unsuspecting person, and the consequences thereof, makes for scary reading. A plea to overrun this illegal transaction — consciously executed by a government servant to dupe an innocent buyer — has allegedly met with stony silence from the top brass of the service. Protection of criminality? This is merely one example of government servants getting caught in nefarious and illegal activities, and being exonerated. This symbol of malafide governance needs immediate correction. To ‘suspend’ such officers who break the rule, would probably reduce the number of people in the service to a handful!

Obscenity abounds

The ‘fake encounter’ that has hogged the headlines this week exposes once again what is well known; but no national leader has addressed the nation to damn this horror with a promise to reduce criminality in our public space. The ‘nexus’ is closing its ranks, only to survive the public onslaught for a short while longer. It is frightening.

Then there is the Richard Gere/Shilpa Shetty saga. Does it make sense to issue an arrest warrant for the ‘offence’ committed by Gere, of kissing a consenting, adult woman in the land of the Kamasutra? Does an act of affection merit this madness? Kissing is obscene, but murder, rape, eve-teasing, physical assault are socially acceptable! Mera Bharat mahaan. Arrest, imprison, harass, torment those who spread love, but allow those who kill and rape, steal and plan fake encounters, to walk free. Satyameva jayate. Colonial laws continue to overwhelm and suffocate free, democratic, secular India and unfortunately, our rulers look on, silent and non-committal.

Is it ‘obscene’ when Indian men unbutton their flies to urinate in full public view on the streets of this nation? Or, is that seen as something pure, clean and fetching? Why have there been no ‘obscenity’ charges against the hundreds of thousands of middle-class men who bare their privates and contaminate the environment that belongs to us all? Where are the authorities supposed to enforce the law? Or do they too use India to pee upon?

And, how about bringing charges of obscenity and issuing arrest warrants on all the stars of Bollywood for their truly obscene gyrations that have no bearing on the storyline of their films? And again, why not book those crude individuals in public life who abuse their political opponents from public rostrums?

The hypocrisy is sick-making, and the silence on these events from the powers that be is even more disturbing.