"Serial blasts kill 60 in Assam, 450 hurt..." – Friday, October 31, 2008
"SGX Nifty opens 8% positive gap on Friday."
What an example of irony..! I've heard about a basic phenomenon – "Anything in abundance is not valued". Has our population hit such an excessive mark, that there is no value to human life in this country anymore?
There has been news every fortnight of a series of blasts taking place in some city / state of the Country and killing tens of people in each event. Be it the eternal J&K issue, Naxalism, attacks on Christians in Orissa, Maoism, Gujjars in Rajasthan or issue of North Indians in Maharashtra, every state of India is facing social unrest. Are we totally lost as a secular democratic country after 60 years since independence?
I agree that serial blasts in a town in one of the 'backward' states of India may not have the magnitude of hampering India's macro economic potential. But aren't we undermining the entire internal security issue while considering the macro economic factors affecting our growth? We have always been talking about the infrastructure opportunity so positively and thousands of crores of rupees to be spent to create and upgrade it. Doesn't it take just a few minutes for the terrorists and these anti-social elements to wreck the buildings, transport systems, bridges created over long gestation period?
Wherever the missing pieces are, we must act fast and put them together. We are in dire need of tougher implementation of anti-terror laws, better access to basic infrastructure including education & healthcare to the economically lower rung sections of the society, these made possible by strong anti-corruption practices. We must figure out how we, as citizens, could be involved in the entire process. And after deep introspection, I feel the entire anti-corruption issue starts from ourselves and from the smallest bribes we pay to get our daily tasks done OR just to save a few minutes of inconvenience OR a few necessary visits to the government office…
If this continues, the day is not far when the famous Jijibhoy Tower or the Dalal Street would have been blown up and still the market would have a positive opening gap on account of rate cut by some foreign bank...
Ashutosh Z
31st October, 2008
(Would appreciate your reaction on what can WE do as our bit...)
1 comment:
It is indeed disturbing - the rate at which we come back to business-as-usual. really disturbing. and I am not talking about just the blasts in assam... even when it comes to mumbai, how much time does it take for the mumbaikars to bounce back from the horrors? and then applaud the spirit of the city which 'refuses to stop or get bogged down' pure BS...
The only question that disturbed people after assam blasts was – if assam can be blown, then any place is not safe!
'There is enuf for everyone's need but not enuf for everyone's greed' said Gandhiji, so true!
Our whole world is based on one fundamental 'growth'..
Growth is the measure of everything, your success in life, ur business, ur growth in wealth shows ur intelligence.. growth...
and people perform on what is measured... and so comes the greed, instead of need...
No one wants to stop. Coz if you stop, there are 1000 others to fill up for you... Yes, i agree with you. The crisis is coz of population.. and the fact that anything in excess is harmful...
the resources have not increased with the population, in fact they have depleted.
Picture this. If you keep putting people in a room, the initial cordial behavior will after some amount of crowding turn into fight for every inch of space.
And how do you control this room full of people from getting into a fight and hurting each other? Have a monitor. Someone who gives a bamboo to anybody who goes beyond his need – for his greed. AND/BUT the monitor has to be non-courrupt! But in a democracy – who shall monitor is the problem...(the politicians??? Very funny aint it?)
Sometimes i wonder if we really can control all these issues by democracy? Are we really worth so much freedom – the freedom that democracy bestows upon us? Is it right to give democracy and freedom to people who do not know how to use it! Who misuse it? When the people who are monitoring are the likes of shivraj patil and lalu prasad yadav?
your question of 'whether we have lost as a secular democracy' makes me think. when the constitution was formed, we had some of the best leaders we have ever had. politicians who had country's best interest in mind. who can replace Sardar Patel and the likes of his? the population then was 350 million - the no of people BPL now. they made a constitution bestowing lots of freedom on every individual... an ideal constitution i would say... freedom to perform, freedom to live... freedom to chose profession - a true democracy...
the mistake they made was miscalculating how hopelessly pathetic indian politician would get and yes they miscalculated the greed too. They miscalculated the patriotism and they also misjudged the moral and ethical value system. The country and people who had stood up to fight against the english rule, people who were ready to give up everything of theirs, including lives were different people from what an average Indian is today. The great leaders of that time made a constitution for Indian of that era...
Do we need a new set of monitors? Someone who has spine in them? Someone with enough hot blood in them? Do we need a different political system? Some people say dictatorship would stop people like raj thackarey and parties like shiv sena? Will it really?Where is the aggression of the common man? Why are we so complacent?
Verghese Kurien of the co-operative movement says ‘The answer for democracy not working is more democracy’. Makes sense to me. Why is our democracy not working? May be because the educated Indian is not really a part of the democratic process. We need a democracy which is more ‘of’ the people than this. We need more participation from the educated class, from the youth today who does not even bother to cast his vote today... a lot needs to change.
Have been thinking a lot since your post.. scares me, depresses me to imagine where will all this end? And worse still, how will all this end?
Post a Comment