Opinion Thank God its over
When seen with the eyes of a political columnist,the only good thing that can be said about 2010 is thank God its over.
When seen with the eyes of a political columnist,the only good thing that can be said about 2010 is thank God its over. It has been a horrible year for India both politically and economically and please do not be fooled by the sense of false security induced by 9 per cent GDP growth and the visits we saw from the leaders of the richest and most powerful countries in the world. Beneath this illusion of success there is a dangerous unravelling in progress that manifested itself in the scandals that beset us in the last months of 2010 and in the inability of our political class to deal with them. What the scandals indicate is a monumental crisis in all our democratic institutions and because we do not know for sure who Indias leader is at the moment,there is nobody who can articulate a strategy to deal with the crisis.
Should it be the Prime Minister to whom we turn? Should it be Sonia Gandhi? Should it be young Rahul? Until the Bihar disaster it was clear that Rahul was being allowed to do some on the job training in political organisation and policy making. While this exercise was underway,the Prime Minister seemed to become a figurehead and Rahuls indulgent Mummy moved into the background. When the results from Bihar showed that the Dynastys vaunted charisma was seriously on the wane,Sonia Gandhi reappeared to make one of her rare political comments on national television. She admitted that the Congress Party would have to be rebuilt in Bihar from scratch and then launched into a diatribe against the BJP for attacking the Prime Minister. It was despicable she repeated at the Congress Partys recent convention. This seems to indicate that Dr Manmohan Singh is back at the helm but for most of 2010 it was as if the Government of India was on autopilot.
Leaderless governments leave themselves open for attack and so we saw the Opposition parties paralyse the last session of Parliament over what seems to most Indians (including this one) a silly demand. Where was the need to make such a fuss over having a joint parliamentary committee examine corruption in the sale of air waves? Would it not have been more productive to discuss this in Parliament while the iron is hot? Who is going to be bothered with what a JPC may discover about 2G Spectrum if its discovery becomes public only in the distant future?
If our Opposition parties had any real concern for the larger crisis that confronts us,what they should be making a racket about is the inability of our justice system to get its act together. If our courts were able to deliver justice in time,we would automatically have less corruption because it would be easier to throw crooks into jail. If our Opposition parties had any real concern for India,they would be making more fuss about real issues like the manner in which the licence raj seems to have crept back into our lives through the return of statist ministers who have so vitiated the investment climate that some of our most eminent businessmen have been forced to speak out against what is happening. Who will invest in India if major projects can be stopped after thousands of crore rupees have been invested in them?
The year just ended had in its genetic makeup such a genie of corruption that it affected even us in the Fourth Estate. Without boring you with repetition of what I wrote in this column last week,I want to say only how ashamed I have been to see the media manipulated by the governments investigative agencies through strategically leaked misinformation. This has resulted in media trials that are truly despicable. It should have been the medias role to investigate why information was being leaked in the first place. It should have been the role of the media to investigate why agencies like the CBI were proving so laughably inadequate in case after case,but this did not happen.
On the whole,2010 was so bad a year for India that we need to welcome 2011 with open arms. There is no guarantee that it will be better but at least a new beginning brings with it a measure of hope. Who knows we might even find ourselves a political leader some day soon who will inspire us with a real dream of what India can be if it wants. If not a big dream then at least a small dream of every child having enough to eat,a decent school to go to and the hope of a job that will earn him enough money to provide a decent roof over his head. In 2010,we did nothing but waste time.
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