The dismal picture - India not shining

The self congratulatory mood of the present day politicians, elites, and more strikingly the youth who see themselves as independent in the lifeless brick jungles of the major corporate centers, is going to push India into a muddled state in near future. 'Super power' is not what we set out to become after getting independence back in 1947 from the exploitatory regime of the imperial British empire. We were determined to uproot poverty and bring about an overall growth which would be such that the poorest of the poor will get the benefits from it. At present all we have is 1. a handful of joyous (and at the same time stressed) employees of the service sector, 2. unconcerned(and sadly in many instances incompetent as well. This may be because the government has failed in making teaching a profitable and lucrative profession) teachers/professors at the major universities (having minimal interest in their own students as education is not needed to get job these days in India, its degree that one needs to enter any organization after that communication skills and aptitude does the honors), 3. politicians with hardly any public appeal, and 4. banners of India shinning. 

  There is wide spread deprivation, poverty and unemployment (more sadly unemployable youth). We talk about increase in urbanization. I am threatened, where will our rural turned urban people fit in once that happens. In Gurgaon for instance, the next generations of landless farmers have turned into auto-ricksaw drivers and laborers. Does that mean that the governmental policies of last 25 years successful in creating profitable employment for the poor through the development in the region, which they keep reminding the nation in every speech made here and there? I don’t think so. Yes, there are farmers who got the benefits due to the fact that with the coming for foreign companies in the region and the boom in the real-estate market. But they were already affluent farmers with vast stretches of land, which they profitably sold to the DLF and UNITECH builders. Such growth is un-rully and not very useful for the country as a whole. The rich have become richer and the poor are sidelined and left to die at the fringes of the country. 

One good thing that has happened as a blessing in disguise is the fact that the reservations for the scheduled castes and tribes became an electoral issue for almost all the political parties. This made leaders like Mayawati the chief minister of state like Uttar Pradesh numerous times, thereby subliming the anger of the down trodden by some extent in the region. Otherwise, there could have been a movement in the region just like the Maoist activities in some areas of the country. The poor are silent probably because they have now got 50% reservations in various areas. Though there are people with a view point that crucial services should have not have any reservation as that threatens the country's strength in the long run. The argument that professions like medical too should not have reservations also sounds logical. But those points are debatable. Reservation has helped in silencing a major portion of the population cannot be denied. 

But where are we headed? Anna Hazare and his team has been digging their own grave by turning the ‘India against corruption’ movement into ‘India against Congress’ and I have very little hope from their movement. The corporate houses seem to have become the real power in today’s India. The politicians have been mischievous, no doubt, but more than that they seem to be helpless. I do not think that any politician will have any standing in the political arena. He/she cannot take a messianic stand for safeguarding the Indian political freedom and exercise his/her powers in building the nation in the present scenario, where the corporate powers are always ready to do the arm twisting and have can at the same time keep itself away from media. People have no one to blame except their political leaders.
The present day governments hardly spend anytime in trying and building up new democratic institutions. They are busy with reading and reviewing the “degrading” facebook “images and messages”. They are busy talking bullshit. Pratibha Devi Singh Patil ji spent Rs. 206 crore (which I guess is just and understatement of her dis concern for the country’s poor, published by the concerned authorities on the RTIs filed three years back). The governmental authorities took hours to prove the Kejriwal had been involved in some corrupt acts, when their IAC movement was brewing few months back and took three years to publish the report on presidential expenditures incurred by the country during her majesty’s foreign trips. The current allegations of the army General of India on the defense  ministry are even more disturbing for the nation. That the picture is dismal, is very clear, but what remains to be seen is that what kind of crisis India is destined to witness in the nest 30 years. Whether it will be economic, social, political or the worst of all kinds – an all in one package of a crippled nation by its own sons.

India is a Nation in building and I see ample scope of improvement in various constitutional bodies of the nation. We shall overcome, if only we first accept that we are in perils right now.