respite for a nation violated

The spate of rapes continues to shame the nation, with the Ulta Pradesh taking the lead but others also not much far behind. The recent incidents at Bangalore made the citizens cry out in unison and our hearts bled, yet there seems to be no respite from this monstrosity.

And how can there be? The Nirbhaya incident of the 16^th of December 2012 jolted the collective conscience of the nation, yet the perpetrators have not paid for the crime that they committed. If this is the state of the case that made everyone – the citizens, the netas, the police and the bureaucrats sit up and take notice, God help us. And therefore the spate of rapes continues undeterred. The absence of swift retribution gives sufficient encouragement to the rapists and the misplaced sense of legal bias for the juvenile encourages him to take in his stride rapes and other criminal activities.

There is a need to cut the rhetoric that we are accustomed to after all such incidents. There is a need and the time for real action, not mere assurances and the new government gives hope. Yet hope shall remain only till such time despair stays away and these recurring incidents with the rapists having a gala time even after the incidents are slowly leading to despair. The situation has nose dived to such levels that some men in power outreach the rhetoric as witnessed from the response and the remarks of the chief minister of Karnataka to ghastly rape incidents in his own capital.

And the so called armchair activists have a field day. The protagonists of the now much maligned juvenile act harp on the advisability of correcting, not punishing the juvenile. I wonder if their response would continue to be the same had some of them faced the trauma of having his or her own daughter violated. What is good for the gander is apparently not good for the geese in this case.

And the response of the rich and the powerful also borders on a sheer lack of concern. After all almost all the beastly incidents are perpetrated on the lower classes, those on the darker side of the financial divide. The tragedy is that those who can make a difference to the system and the society are not affected by the happenings or the surroundings and therefore remain unconcerned. This major  malaise has inflicted the nation in its almost seventy years of independent existence.

Why don’t such incidents happen in Singapore and Dubai. The sheer fear of a deterrent and swift punishment keeps the perpetrators at bay. If small yet highly efficient nations can have a mechanism to deliver swift and sure punishments for crimes committed why cant’ India, a world within the world do so. It is the fear of a heavy and swift punishment that only will keep the rapists away despite what the juvenile supporters profess.

The nation is deeply hurt and aggrieved and would continue to be so till such time our daughters are freely and without fear able to roam on the streets of their own motherland at all times of the day. One lives with the hope that "Acche Din" are not far away.

Touching new milestones in governance

The Karnataka episode is one of the sickest happenings in the national political scenario in recent times. That the governance of a state can be traded for the sheer appeasement of a politician who is regarded as the epitome of corruption and is known for his craftiness is a sad state of affairs. How much deeper is the pit still, is a question doing the rounds in the minds of all those who still have nationalistic feelings. What one really fails to appreciate is the claim of the main opposition to be called a party with a difference. Well if this is what the difference is all about, we citizens have really no alternative and have perhaps reached a dead end.

This blatant victory of corruption has made me sad. It was always sad to witness massive ill gotten gains of those who were regarded as the fountainhead of power and found their way to Tihar, sadder still is to knowingly bow down to corruption and appoint stooges of the masters of corruption to govern a state. While the wide reaching implications of this act of impropriety shall reverberate across the state shaking it to its foundations, the precedence that this one incident has set shall only bring further grief to this battered nation of ours.

The march to Tihar of the pillars of power and pelf that we witnessed with great satisfaction last year has also now reversed. All of them have since then marched out of the holy precincts and would be preparing to get on with the act at the earliest. It is indeed a pity that only a few months of comfortable incarceration in Tihar is the price to be paid for a level of loot that shall sustain generations. Unfortunate it is that the short spells of incarceration would provide sufficient motivation to all those who had always been waiting in the wings for a safe route to mint millions.

The absolute lack of organizational as well as national pride that the nation is witness to in its citizens is the root cause behind such events. The bureaucracy is also not much behind the politicos in its acts of hoisting corrupt and or inept bureaucrats to apex positions. Service by, of and for the self has merged as the mantra of the entire bureaucratic system.

It all boils down to dearth of leadership of the right kind. Unfortunately as the system deteriorates, it becomes increasingly difficult for the right kind of leader to emerge after loosening the vice like grip that a corrupt and inept system tends to possess.

I was speaking to a leading politician today, who called the scenario hopeless and mentioned that while this nation shall never become important, it may only remain relevant because of its huge population. An apt analysis of a nation on the move, rapidly downhill.

Amen!