Brazenness Glorified

Karan Kharb

 

In the recent history, Mahatma Gandhi was undoubtedly the true representative of India’s culture of high ethics and morality in public life.  He practised and preached virtuous conduct by leaders and set personal example by leading a frugal life wholly dedicated to national-social Cause. He personified virtues like Truth, Ahimsa, Satyagraha, Abstinence and Self-sacrifice to such a degree that if you removed these from his persona, there would be no Gandhi. Always more concerned about the masses, he never distinguished his kith and kin from them. He bequeathed to them no real estate, no coalmines nor any succession decrees to perpetuate his dynastic hold. All they could inherit was his legacy of simplicity, truth, dedication to serve the lowest and willingness to sacrifice. In material terms, he lived like a hermit and died a pauper.

Is Bapu really dead and gone? The reality is he never died and continues to live forever – but only at Rajgaht and in the hearts of the poor and the exploited Indians. Only those who proclaim to be his followers and encash him every five years raising slogans in his name hack him daily. There is none in our political spectrum today who practises even a fraction of Bapu’s teachings.  Nevertheless, sunk in luxury and allegations, they all shamelessly swear by Gandhi’s name and invoke it from time to time for personal safety and gain.  

Politically, we have come a full circle since 15 August 1947. The clan of politicians he thought would be ‘servants of the people’ have evolved into a gang of self-serving masters. Since their tryst with Destiny on that day, they have systematically decimated value systems and assumed absolute control of our destinies and fortunes. Khadi, then a symbol of simplicity, now symbolises power and arrogance. Bapu fought to demolish the age-old walls of untouchability and communal divide. They now fight to raise walls and dig trenches to divide India along caste and communal lines to own assured territories where they grow votes irrigated by blood and fertilised by mutual animosity.  The principle of ‘Divide and Rule’ was never practised better. The British need to take lessons from modern India! Ministers then accepted ‘moral responsibility’ for failures or misdeeds of their subordinates and submitted themselves before law voluntarily.  Today, they laugh away morals and seek shelter of law. Some are so brazen that they defend their misconduct by advancing arguments like, ‘….forget about morals and ethics, tell me how it is illegal!’

Writing in ‘The Hindu’ AG Noorani once said, “We have moved far from the early days of independence when Rajaji described the tribe (politicians) as gentlemen without any ostensible means of livelihood who can be rounded up by any magistrate on a charge of vagrancy.” Those were the days when politics was not a ‘career’ but ‘a challenge, a mission, a resolve to renounce and serve.’ Today, the politicians are already a majestic class to make magistrates jump from their seats and salute them instead. Politics is undoubtedly the most lucrative career in India today.

The data compiled by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) on 1370 re-elected MLAs and 200 re-elected MPs shows that “the average income and assets of India’s 100 richest legislators grew by 745% between two consecutive elections or five years. The hike in personal wealth for legislators in this category ranges from two to 25 times.” (Aon Hewitt’s annual salary increase survey says the salary of CEOs of India’s top 87 multi-national companies increased by about 20% in 2012). While public welfare and reform bills linger in the Parliament from session to session, bills concerning MPs’ own welfare like salary and benefits are enacted without debate within three days doling out more than three-fold enhancements to themselves even as soldiers fighting treacherous climate and enemy wait for their legitimate dues.

Is this what ‘WE, THE PEOPLE OF INDIA’ had resolved to constitute India into? The question is real and craves for an answer. Sixty-seven years since FREEDOM, independence has not yet crossed over eastern bank of the Yamuna where in the wake of the river’s raging fury an uncomplaining Raju and his neighbours just wrap up whatever is left of their jhuggi and rags and shift to a higher garbage mound.  Nor has the 21^st Century touched ground in Dandakaranya in Chhatisgarh,  Gunupur in Odisha, Pulpur in J&K or Gunnur in Andhra Pradesh.

For the poor, justice delivery was faster in pre-independence India.  For the rich, justice delivery – slower the better – is now more responsive to money. The callous, corrupt and inefficient government officials had tough time in the olden days.  Now, it is the honest and efficient who have a tough time facing wrath of their Indian lords. People then died of starvation only in times of famine or epidemic.  Today, they still die of starvation even as mountains food grain rots in gross neglect under rains. New-born babies and patients today die not for want of facility but because of criminal neglect like malfunctioning equipment, unhygienic wards and, more horrifically, sweepers officiating for doctors in Government hospitals. Even in Somalia, we don’t find such examples of neglect and impunity. Free India has strayed in a strange morass where the exploiters have a free run while the law-abiding, sincere and efficient have to wade through heavy odds. Institutions and systems of governance have become utterly dysfunctional.  How far will we allow this to go on?

Numerous CAG reports made headlines in the recent years in exposing corruption and inefficiency that are proliferating unabated in all government departments. But the crescendo soon dies and the delinquent system resumes. The CAG report on the State Disaster Management Authority of Uttarakhand submitted in April this year exposed the criminal neglect of the Authority and the Administration that has only added to the loss of life and material in the recent Uttarakhand calamity. Agreed we cannot prevent natural calamities but the human toll and misery could have been greatly reduced by responding to the disaster in a professional way. That the authorities were caught napping is unpardonable particularly when the past history of floods, cloudbursts and landslides in the region suggested anticipation and preparedness. But who cares?

From the days of Fodder scam to Raja, Kalmadi, Coalgate and now the Uttarakhand Floodgate, we should have seen many heads rolling. What we have witnessed instead are only suspensions and transfers – a method that has come to be known as a protective arrangement for the brazenness of official delinquency rather than anything punitive in it. Fast track courts, commissions, oversight departments and institutions have only added yet another layer to the already unwieldy bureaucracy. Most such creations have already become lucrative sinecures for the retiring bureaucrats, judges and politicians.  There is neither action nor speed in the right direction.

There is a need – stronger and more urgent that ever – for sensitising everyone within our reach to abhor considerations like caste, community, quota, reservation and all parochial narrow consideration.  India must hunt for a new leadership with proven credentials: sincerity, honesty, vision and resolve to cure the malaise by ruthless action.

(Note: I must admit that I have an ambivalent view about Gandhi. Undoubtedly the most selfless of all Congressmen, he would be hard put to answer many serious questions, were he alive today! India's biggest loss in the final stages of Freedom Struggle was the sudden disappearance of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose from the scene. - Karan Kharb)