India today is a very confused country. Indians would rank as the most distressed lot in the world, having no clue as to what is happening around them, be it politics, economy or their own neighbourhood. Even their daily life is in total disarray, what with galloping inflation creating bigger craters in their pockets than what the nuclear blast did in Pokhran, frequent strikes and the prospect of more stirs threatening to throw their fragile daily routines out of gear, and worst of all, the nation itself slipping into a quagmire of an all pervading lawlessness that is casting an ominous shadow over its very existence.
The government which is of the people, for the people and by the people is in reality none of these. Once elected, our members of Parliament are accountable to none, not to their constituencies that elected them, not to the people whom they promised to serve and in this era of coalition politics where only numbers count, not even to the party on whose ticket they contested.
They are free birds, members of an elite club in which parties, ideologies and even personal equations are no barriers when it comes to survival. Secular MPs turn communal and vice-versa, Leftists get ready to look at the right side, Morchas appear suddenly from nowhere, and the members have an open mind on any alignment that offers attractive prospects to them. These frequent realignments of political farces, which is a direct consequence of coalitions, have already taken a heavy toll of the nation, but we prajas never learn. Our rajas, of course, are already beyond reason.
We elect a parliament to govern us, but it has now become clear that we are best governed when parliament is not in session. The bedlam being let loose by the 540-odd gentlemen, and yes, some ladies too who preside over our destiny from that much divided house called parliament, is so appalling that the august precincts of that hallowed premises resembles a veritable madhouse. Governance, obviously is the last of their priorities.
Why then do they talk of common minimum programmes and national agendas for governance, when in reality their only job is to govern? When differences and irreconcilable objectives far outnumber areas of agreement, which is actually zero as we now know, where is the question of consensus, and then action?
There is now little hope, given the character of this Parliament, that anything of consequence could be achieved at all. With the much touted able PM turning out to be the most disabled person in the country, the much trumpeted stability becoming a joke of sorts and the ruling party itself entering into an irrevocable tryst with hara kiri, there is little hope that there is ever going to be a step forward leave alone leaps into the next millennium. No legislation is going to be passed except by default and no progress is going to be made by any conscious action.
For a government which is not in a position to move a single Bill, which has no conviction in its own initiatives, as was demonstrated by the rolling back of several budget proposals umpteen times and which speaks in so many voices that makes even the long dead United Affront look better, governance is indeed a far cry. They are not even able to mind their own business.
As the country finds itself in a state of suspended animation, one cannot help cursing the ineptitude of our politicians who have contrived this disaster on this great nation. It may look to be an exaggerated assessment of the situation obtaining in the country, but all one has to do is to sit back and reflect and the reality is sure to hit you between the eyes.
If the national politics is in a tizzy, thanks to the BJP’s experiments with untruth and its frequent wranglings with its irreconcilable allies, India’s external affairs is at an all time nadir what with nuclear bombs blowing up diplomacy to shreds and Boy Georges on the rampage. Advanis keep talking of building temples little realising that there are going to be fewer and fewer devotees, if the daily massacres of civilians all over the country is any indication.
On the economy front, too there is little cheer, as the stock markets, which behave as crazily as our parliamentarians sometime do, rock back and forth, dependent as they are on a plethora of factors ranging from political stability to a fit of cough by the Finance Minister.
The rupee, of course, is on a free fall ever since we burst crackers in distant Rajasthan, while businesses reel under an unprecedented recession that is threatening to cripple the economy permanently if corrective steps are not initiated forthwith. Yet our politicians are busy, totally oblivious to the perilous state of affairs. Of course they will all be there on August 15 to celebrate the completion of fifty years of independence, that they alone have enjoyed and benefited from.
The anarchy that has gripped the country seems unparalleled with the possible exception of the dark interiors of Africa, where even today heads, limbs and occasionally, even full corpses roll down rivers. It is not that India bears any comparison to those violent lands where sophisticated killing is still a far cry while our terrorists, both Indian made and foreign, would prefer bombs to daggers and machetes for delivering justice. But we have invited a similar chaos in our own way.
We have, through successive elections, served on ourselves an unfailing prescription for disaster. There is no end to our levels of patience and endurance. Our tolerance limit is infinity. The entire country is immune to the machinations of our self-seeking politicians who take the people for granted. Yet we put up with them, because we have little choice, and more owing to the fact that we have all collectively lost our heads.
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