When the fence starts eating the grass!

It is sadly the same story eyerywhere – the fence gobbling the grass!

The IPL scam has taken the nation by storm, but not by surprise. The gullible public was indeed being taken for a ride by the bookies, players and even some of the top brass in the cricketing arena for a considerable time now, but what else can be expected in a nation made porous by a plethora of gates of the 2G, 3G, Chara, Adarsh and Rail varieties. Yet what is indeed remarkable is the ferocity with which a new low is being touched with every new incident that surfaces.

Cricketers have for long remained our most cherished national icons. Watching them fall into disgrace is therefore painful for the followers of this most favorite national pastime. Yet it is a reality that cricketers have also emerged from the same society that has produced the likes of Mahesh Kumar, Raja, Kalmadi  and many others of similar ilk. How the hell can we then expect the cricketers to tread a higher moral ground and that too in the face of attractions that would deter even a saint?

Srinivasan is also treading the expected path of brazen defiance despite his own son in law being caught with his hands in the till. A few days earlier we witnessed a similar spectacle of a minister displaying his brazen defiance despite his nephew having been caught with his pants down. In hindi there is an oft repeated idiom “Chori aur Seenajori”. Unfortunately this has become the norm with the corrupt people in high places riding rough shod over others in almost all matters and brazenly refusing to step down even when implicated almost red handed. The high moral ground that was once talked about and practiced by the top leaders and bureaucrats of this nation has apparently been chopped off and leveled.

In the India of today one finds it difficult to believe that a Minister like Lal Bahadur Shastri also existed who quit his job claiming full moral responsibility over a rail accident. Sadly such variety has ceased to exist and we witness ministers who cling to their seats like leeches, obviously because of the windfall opportunity for self gain that every ministerial seat provides. The bureaucrats are also in there precisely for power, pelf and ill gotten wealth. The nation can go to hell and it sadly is rapidly proceeding in that direction.

What indeed saddened most of us much more than the Mahesh Kumar episode were the blatant attempts by the top brass to get him whatever he wanted, be it the additional charge of the western railway or even slicing off the signaling chunk from the electrical portfolio. It is obvious that the files taken by the CBI would reveal much more than what the tip of the iceberg indicates. Yes it is evident that the custodians who are expected and also paid to protect what they hold in trust were active partners of the conspiracy, obviously out of fear or petty personal gains or simply missing spines. 

The railgate dominated the small screens for a fairly long time, till the match fixing scam took over. This shall continue to dominate the screens till some other major incident surfaces and takes over. Like the Railgate, the IPL imbroglio will also then be forgotten and the players dominating both the fields will be back with renewed vigor to continue their underhand dealings.  

Is this the independence that the father of the nation dreamt of and acquired? I am sure that he would indeed be turning in his grave at the kind of self misrule that this nation is witness to almost every day.

Amen!