"Desires are unlimited but the means to satisfy them are limited". When people envisaged Free India during the 'Raj', they envisioned such unlimited desires. However, it was not only the rule of economics that means to achieve the ends are limited, which barred them to realise their desires, but also the political imbroglio that followed independence. During the late 60's and throughout the 70's, innumerous locks were put at various places by the people in power and keys were either kept with them or given to a select inner circle members - the so called power group. This not only made a mockery of the fact that India was regarded as the largest democracy but was governed by a fascist regime in the name of democracy. Rather than it being rule of the people, by the people, for the people; the motto was 'TO RULE THE PEOPLE'. The legislation and judiciary was overridden, the orders of courts violated in the almost a masochistic way to govern a country, no - to put it in right words, DICTATE a country which was on the face of it, a democratic country! One such example that comes to mind is when Allahabad High Court gave a judgment indicting Mrs. Indira Gandhi for several offenses under the Indian Penal Code. Mrs. Gandhi then used her powers to clamp Emergency, taking away all powers of the judiciary, giving police virtually unlimited powers to the Police to detain anyone under the National Security Act, imprisoning leaders of all political parties, empowering her son, Sanjay Gandhi, to indiscriminately carry out Human Rights abuses in order to fulfill her "Family Planning" mandate, and her 20-point program. The Indian Constitution, which is the umbrella law of the land, was continually pillaged, pummeled and plundered to the advantage of the privileged few.
Totalitarianism was the policy - the ideology that the state had influences, if not power, over most of its citizens! This policy of government met with a staunch opposition from the supposedly 'ruler' class but actually the 'ruled' class, that is 'the people' and drove the youth into an ideological confrontation, its first after the independence and partition fracas. The India-Pakistan partition fracas was another political tug of war, which deserves a detailed synopsis, which will soon follow. But what happened in during the 70's was done in a way that it was shown to be legally tenable, something which was constitutionally unconstitutional yet constitutional. The youth, then, simply could not bear to see the fruits of freedom struggle being frittered away. What followed was very very bloody indeed with power being used in all its ugly ways when the Licence Raj and Bureaucracy raised its ugly head. The decision were not 'of the people' and still it were the people who had to bear the brunt of what followed and I guess we are still bearing its bitter fruits till date. Granting refuge to The Dalai Lama evoked the wrath of the Chinese resulting in a one sided war with the Chinese in 1962 and helping East Pakistan in its freedom struggle added salt to the wounds of Pakistan after the 1965 war evoking their wrath, something which is still hurting us bad. In fact, it has had a snowball effect, which has just keep mushrooming as the years have passed. We are not discussing the righteousness of the decision but we are discussing whether were these the decisions people really wanted?! Pakistan, even today, just has to send weapons to our country to fight their war and no men. It’s our men who do their job. Likewise, they and the extremist political parties (both islamic and non-islamic) just have to 'light a match' of communal rife and throw it on sensitive 'dry grass' localities to create classes of extremist population who are ready to fire at their own people. Pakistan do it for their sadistic one-up over India and the political parties do it for their vested interest. However, its our country's people who do it for them and it's our country's people who suffer, corporal mortification in a way where fundamentally they are putting their own flesh to death. Also, the influence of Tibet, both commercially and culturally has increasingly jeopardising the interest of Indian populace in various regions. We need a revolution, the sorts of 1857 uprising or atleast the scale of how it was in the 70's to fight for our right to rule ourselves and not to be ruled by others. The recent trust vote justifies why! An ideological movement is needed and called for. But who is to take the first sword in hand? The initiative is missing. The attitude, ‘‘are we really suffering?'' is not helping either.
Although the policies have opened up to a large extent both politically and economically with more transparency for people and realisation of some dreams that seemed 100 years distant just a decade ago. However, looking at the trust vote and its aftermath of bribery accusation at points at fiasco and corruption at the highest level with something as lowly as 'money' being used as magnet to pull Members of Parliament to keep a coalition in power. Add to that, the formation of alliance of politics with the corporate world giving rise to 'POLITI-COS’, which might hurt industry and people alike more than anything. Ofcourse, I was in another world then, but from what i have read and heard, this evoked a sense of the ugly memories people have of the 1970's scenario - that of the Licence Raj, the anti-competitive atmosphere due to MRTP Act which primarily was enacted to prevent monopoly and which, in turn resulted in stunted growth of industries due to imposing closed nature of economy and faulty objectives. It also resulted in nepotism by the bureaucrats towards who can show the bucks or where the heart lied rather than reacting to facts and thereby compromising the greater good! POLITI-COS might give rise to similar circumstances with pro-government corporates taking a dig with anti or even neutral corporates within the industry resulting in south-side report card. The Political-Corporate cartelisation could be the worst form of anti-competitive behaviour. It might even be out of scope of The Competition Commission of India to check this form of cartelisation because proving nexus could pose a problem.
And there are the recent serial bomb blasts, which blaringly shows our vulnerability to terrorism. Who is responsible? Who is to take the blame? The Government might go on a finger-pointing spree rather than take things on hand, while the culprits escape to safe lands. And, people? Well, they don't think it’s their ass in the line unless it really is! Was this stage envisioned when the great leaders of the country were fighting for freedom from the Union Jack? We, a nation of a billion people have to rise to the cause. Sixty-one years after independence, the people seem to have forgotten how it was attained and for what purpose! The very reason was to end the colonial authority of the British and getting our rights - political, social and economic. Water shortage, power cuts, infrastructure bottlenecks, unjustified taxes by greedy Central Government and bereft and corrupt State Governments just to make people shell more from their pockets is institutional black marketing, again with all the legally tenable excuses minus the constitutional rights of the people! Topping it all is the lack of public accountability of the Government and complex and unfriendly legislation and laggard judiciary which tends to create more complexity rather than simplicity, making laws more difficult to comprehend and hence followed instead of making them citizen friendly so that they can be easily followed. Exploitation of laws and regulation by creating, amending, editing and deleting laws and regulations for vested interest of the top brass to fill their pockets is again a muted discussion amongst public at large to not come under the scanner of the dirty political vendors. It's a game of fooling innocent, ignorant and helpless people showing them mirage of benefits and upliftments for their vote. And these are not the only problems but just some drops in an ocean.
Lets us all ask ourselves whether we have successfully achieved what was sought by the freedom fighters. Lets start fulfilling our first thousand desires and then look at dreaming about the next thousand rather than accumulating zillion dreams and desires over time and not capitalising and realising them. It’s now time to find means to fulfill our desires.
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