INDIA - LOST

Derailed! Derailed, but chugging along, no particular destination in mind. Our country is chugging along, totally losing its direction and its purpose. The great vision of men who fought and gave their lives for the freedom of this great country is getting blurred and blurred.  Rampant corruption- pernicious and permeating, starting from the great echelons of power to the lowest clog in the machinery of the government, undisciplined people, chaotic traffic system, interstate rivalry and strife, people killing each other in the name of religion, the caste system, racism, and discrimination based on ethnicity truly characterizes the modern India.  The outer shell, the shell that the politicians, the religious leaders, me and you want to project is that of prosperity, industrialization, military power, suave and savvy. But the cancer, that carves the inside hollow, day by day is being so easily covered up, so easily forgotten, that the danger of this great civilization being blown up into smithereens is a great possibility.

People like you and me has lost the will power to stand up. We are all treading along meek and cowardly, cowering under the label of being the world’s biggest democracy. Nothing could be farther away from the truth. The illusion that we have created for ourselves will not last long. There will be a day when this flimsy bubble might burst. There will be many, who will be astonished on seeing the hollow, the cancer that they have conveniently chosen to ignore.  For decades the corrupt Indian politicians has been successful in covering their tracks, they have been successful in mobilizing the crowd, winning votes for their party thereby vandalizing the sacred altar of Indian democracy. The polity is every bit as responsible as the people whom they have elected. An argument that is often heard is the absence of a viable option. But it is the people of this country who have to work towards making that option a success. Rahul Gandhi gave a shot at this some time back. He elected many youngsters to be the next potential leaders. These candidates had very good education, they were very aware of the political climate, the needs of the common people, and most of these guys came from high salaried jobs to take care of the old, toothless and corrupt administration. “Are these youngsters now on the fore front? “ Yes, some of them probably are, but one would have to presume that the old, senile sexagenarians have got the better of these promises.  We have accepted this fact and have chosen to ignore it. We are sitting behind doing nothing, watching with resignation, the circus lead by one of the most corrupt governments in the history of India.

The Americans had Abraham Lincoln, who famously stood up against the atrocities and then there was Alan Pinkerton, relatively unknown, who roamed around with his buddies, condemning the corrupt and the wrong doers.  Anna Hazare, in patches and rare ejaculations of brilliance exhibited some of these qualities, but other priorities and unwarranted company made him a wet cracker. This crusader who proclaimed he was against the corruption and could amass millions behind him, sadly failed. Though there are repeated threats of hunger strike thrown against the ruling party, the hides of the rulers has become so thick that it will need something real sharp, so sharp that it can pierce through the callous hide and end once and for all the malignant cancer of this arrogant and shameless class.  I remember seeing a particularly hilarious – the director and producer might have wanted it to be serious and path breaking – south Indian masala flick, in which the protagonist has a pernicious tumor in the brain. All the conventional modes of treating it is life threatening, while the villain manages the task quite easily by sending a bullet intended to kill the hero through his head but miraculously taking out the tumor. On those occasions where I wallow deep in despair, when I fell that I am choking with all the corruption, all the atrocities, I almost feel a longing for that villain with his “intended to kill – life saving” bullet, the bullet that can pierce through the thick hides and can take the tumor out once and for ever.

I feel sorry for the democracy, I feel sorry for the capitalist, the communist, and the religious leaders who berate at every opportunity about the way the people should behave, how the country should be ruled, and how the country can become a super power.  These guys are fake and phony, and the notion of becoming a super power is a distant dream. Half of the people do not have access to clean drinking water; most of them go without nutrition. Indians usually boast about their military and the armed prowess.  But what is the reality? The air force flies outdated MIGs which have a habit of regularly breaking down – sadly when air borne and all the way down.  The Indian made light combat aircraft has to depend on engines from foreign countries as the much touted Kaveri engine could not ramp up enough thrust to power the aircraft and the project now sits under wraps. There are many statistics of India becoming super power, some of them outrageous. This country, is now where near becoming a super power, except may be on the number of people that it churns out every day, every single moment.  

There was a time when hearing the national anthem made the patriot in me boil up, I had the feeling that India’s my country, and I will never hesitate to give life for her. I used to proudly sing “Saare jahaan se achaa”, and naively believe in it. I used to paint the tri colour on my note books. I used to chide others for note standing up when national anthem was playing. But down the line, as I grew up, as I saw more of India, as I travelled through its vast expanse, I came to know that what I had believed or made to believe was not true, my India – the supreme power that I believed in, the haven in which I had all my hopes pinned own, showed me a drastically different picture – of poverty, of goonda raj, of misplaced priorities and desperate souls.

I want that India back, the India in which I believed in, for which I was prepared to give my life. I implore all the youths in this country to come forward, to raise your voice, to journey its breadth and lengths like Che Guvera did in South America, to feel the pulse, the feeble pulse and to bring it back to its thriving majesty.