When you disempower the millions of minions who tyrannise India

How to imbue an ancient land and an ancient society (cellular core of our nationhood) with a conviction of belonging; how to imbue that ‘‘Spirit of India’’ with the conviction that it truly is a synonym of ‘‘India that is Bharat’’ that is ‘‘Hindustan.’’ And as ‘‘Hindustan’’ is hamara, then it just cannot be that India is also the sole proprietary concern of just one family. That empowerment of the spirit of our land is yet to be attained, that first freedom from bondage we have yet to achieve. We submit too easily, readily in fact to videshi vilayats. This is not a political, it is a spiritual point. If our spirit be not free and if the ‘‘Soul of India’’ remains in bondage then what possibly can just external ‘‘empowerments’’ do? In substance they amount to a nothing—also not of much use then all this wealth of India, real or potential.

I do not then know how familiar we are with that old vernacular saying: Uttam Kheti, madhyam baan; adham chaakri bheek nidaan. Freely translated it counsels that cultivating the land is the best occupation, commerce is a middling option, to accept servitude (chaakri is almost impossible to translate) is condemnable, and begging of course, forbidden.

We have in practice, turned this sage counsel on its head.

Most of our citizens now want sarkari naukri and readily ‘‘beg the State’’ for any and everything that has to be done. In consequence, we have now become a political system riven with the arzi-navees (perpetual supplicants), required to beg, and that, too, always in duplicate, in triplicate, in quintuplicate!

Free our land of this bondage; there is no empowerment without this freedom.

Fear stalks our land, fear of disorder, fear of the ‘‘Lawlessness of our Law,’’ fear of the petty, daily tyranny of our systems; the millions and millions and millions of the minions of the system that proliferate, like insects during monsoon, whose only function is to bite the citizen, to extract blood, to tyrannise, to dis-empower India.

Can you instead dis-empower the million minions please? No, not through yet more politically exploitative legislation. A certain will, a mindset is needed. That will surely lead us to empowerment.

Empower India then by ridding India of corruption of all hues, of all kinds, but above all this ‘‘corruption of our spirit.’’ It is this empowerment alone which can rid us of the crippling disempowerment of an ever spreading, constantly proliferating, (in geometric proportions) ‘‘money corruption.’’

I am paralysed by shame when I look around and see how widespread it is now, how without exception, how blatant and unchecked, how totally uniform in its spread—all political parties, all instruments of governance, private and non-government too, in fact, every where, in the Centre and the States alike.

How can you empower India when you start by shackling all our citizens in this life-long bondage? India will be empowered only when we rid its fertile soil (spirit) of all polluting chemicals (corruption), when we water its soil with a sense of plenitude (Hindustan Hamara!). Only then will roots sink deep, a healthy plant then grow to be a young sapling (our young); to them provide the sustenance of health, nutrition and true learning, true education, and for all. (Not please on competitive political lines). Witness then the sap of life flow in an India empowered.