However, as things are shaping up, we may soon have a Government of the criminals, by the criminals and for the criminals
Those who remember August 15, 1947, and the surge of joy and hope that had swept the country then, cannot be blamed for feeling profoundly sad and without hope when they survey the state of India now. It is not just that the majority is poor and the human development indices abysmal. The chances of things improving appear slim. With the passing of single party rule at the Centre, effective inclusive governance by a heterogeneous coalition, which seemed to promise much during Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee's prime ministership has become faded memory. At the helm at the Centre is a political alliance that is as corrupt as it is incompetent and clueless, and is perhaps the country's worst Union Government ever.
Weakness in dealing with enemies, the latest example of which is the pusillanimous response to the killing of five Indian soldiers on our side of the line of Control by Pakistani troops on August 5, has become one of the two principal characteristics of India's foreign relations. Brave words are spoken to be eaten. Witness the fate of the strident declaration after 26/11 that there would be no talks with Pakistan without action against the perpetrators of the dastardly terrorist attack, and also of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's statement, after Pakistan's beheading of an Indian jawan in January 2013, that henceforth, it could not be business as usual with it. Yet dialogue was resumed.
The other principal characteristic is the betrayal of our friends. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina of Bangladesh has handed over to us key functionaries of the UlFA and has destroyed the bases the secessionist insurgent/terrorist groups of north-eastern India had set up in Bangladesh with support from Begum Khaleda Zia's Bangladesh Nationalist Party. Yet, we failed to sign the Teesta accord because of opposition from West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. This is shocking. If the Centre could clear the legislation permitting foreign direct investment in retail trade despite her opposition, there is no reason why it could not do so regarding Teesta waters. Similarly, India has yet to implement the enclaves' agreement with Bangladesh despite having signed it. Here the BJP needs to support the Constitution amendment Bill which is required to sanction the implementation of the agreement which involves mutual land transfers by both India and Bangladesh.
India's letting down of Ms Hasina on two critical issues as well as its shameful bullying of Bhutan, another steadfast friend, is sending out the signal that it is unwise to help this country. This warrants serious concern, as does the fact that no one in the corridors of power seems to be bothered about it.
Things are crumbling not at the Centre alone. In Uttar Pradesh, the State Government's suspension of an upright young IAS officer, Ms Durga Shakti Nagpal, for taking on the sand mafia highlights the criminalisation of politics and governance in the State, as does the attempt to communalise the issue by falsely accusing her of stoking communal tension by demolishing a wall of a reportedly illegal mosque. In Rajasthan, an IPS officer gets transferred for acting against the history-sheeter father of a ruling party MlA. In Haryana, an honest IAS officer suffers for acting against the interests of Mr Robert Vadra.
In Uttarakhand, the cataclysmic Himalayan Tsunami exposed years of illegal constructions and rape of the environment by politicians, bureaucrats and criminal builders and developers acting in tandem. One can go on citing instances. Worse, not just politicians, bureaucrats and businessmen and manufacturers but increasingly large sections of the people, are also getting de-sensitised to criminality, if not criminalised. It is time people who care asked what has gone wrong and what needs to be done, and then get together and act. It is an enormous task but needs to be undertaken. Otherwise, India will soon have a Government of the criminals, by the criminals and for the criminals. Those who consider such writing alarmist will need to recall that many in the late 1920s and early 1930s had similarly dismissed all talk of Hitler coming to power in a Germany lumpenised and rendered bereft of hope.