Message from India

By Ravi

The country's future and the political scenario is a different matter...bad shape, and bleak prospects to boot. I don’t see any light at the end of the tunnel. If not for the fortuitous good things that happen to all countries and peoples...we'll be suffocated with all the bad governance here.

Actually, it's not the bad governance that is so galling. It's the political culture here that has utter lack of concern for anything beyond personal profit. Nothing even remotely related to 'governance' or 'public good' or 'improving the nation' is ever discussed. They have even stopped PRENTEDING to discuss these things.

Approximately one-fourth of the country's MPs (equivalent to senators) have criminal histories...many of them with active convictions and on bail. The only thing that is discussed at parliament (= Capitol Hill) everyday is trading charges between parties and individuals. Mind you, not trading charges on lofty issues like political principles and alternate approaches to building a nation...but trading charges on much more distressing, nay, sickening issues. The auditor general (independent audit authority like the supreme court) finds out that the Defense ministry has taken money for signing defense contracts, skirting procedures under the guise of emergency procurement for the border war. The opposition promptly takes that up to demand the defense minister's dismissal, bringing all parliamentary activities to a halt. And the government's classic response, 'you guys in opposition have no right to complain about corruption issues, weren't you caught in so many scams yourself'?

Terrorists bomb the assembly. And the government accuses Pakistan within minutes of the event, even before any shred of evidence could have possibly been collected. It's another matter whether the allegation was true or not...but since it was done before any evidence, it's obviously propaganda for the gullible like me.

Everything is done for votes, and India is a living example of how extreme this can become, where democracy is subverted by this depraved pursuit of votes at any cost. The majority of people are kept uneducated, and during election week there is no manifesto or ideology that vies for votes, nothing so fancy and superfluous. The political candidates simply promise 1000 rupees to each individual provided they win the election. And they take double precaution by bribing them with gifts and currency before the polls too. It's a win-win right? The poor get the money to feed their starving children for at least a few weeks...and the parties don't lose any real money because the money was anyway siphoned off from the public fund in the first place.

Some 40% of public money...precious money collected by raising burdening taxes, and money collected by desisting from spending on poverty-alleviation and education...a full 40% of that money disappears into the pockets of those who govern, right from the cabinet ministers and the senators to the local office clerk who demands money for giving you a driver's license or your phone connection. Infrastructure like roads are paid for in full, but since 60% of the money goes to the pockets of everyone from the guy who gives the contract to the guy who lays the road to everyone in between, what do u get? Roads that get done with half-clay and which get washed away by the next month's rain, leaving highways that look like dirt strips. Result? It costs more to transport 2 containers 600 miles inside the country than it takes to ship them around the globe from Bombay to London. And how will costs decrease?

Recently a newspaper did a covert operation, sending journalists posing as employees of a foreign arms firm to talk to the top-brass in the military and related ministries about selling military equipment to India. They were equipped with hidden video cameras to record all their meetings.

Over a few months they talked to the high and mighty and recorded explicit meetings where they are asked to deposit sundry millions of dollars into personal accounts, if they were to get the contract. And of course nobody even bothers to check if the purported sellers really had a company or made any useful equipment at all.

The newspaper triumphantly released the video tapes to the entire nation, exposing corruption of despicable standards; how the rulers compromise even the safety of the soldiers who guard us. And you know what happened? The usual, the opposition makes a big hue and cry and the government says the tapes are doctored and after 4 months the whole thing is forgotten. The irony is, the editor of the newspaper is now being arrested and pursued in courts for illegally video-taping stuff !!!

Anyway, I realize that it's useless to just keep complaining. I am seriously thinking about starting a political movement of some sort. I'm sure there are hundreds of millions in this country, who are as fed up as me. Since there is no clean alternative for the people today...why not start one?

And moving outside India I perfectly agree, there is insanity in the world. The US has a right to act against its attackers...yes, please go ahead and do it. But hey Mr. Bush, please don’t kill innocents by the thousands to quench your thirst and please don't preach to the world from your moral high-horse. You were the one who created the Taliban by funding them and arming them and training them for so long a few years ago. As you sow, so you reap. Stop your interventions into every region in the world. Since it's human that every super-power cannot but impose it's will on others, go ahead and do so. But don’t tell everyone that you are doing it for their own good.

The trouble with the American foreign policy/ attitude is this: America believes and so self-righteously asserts that it is a responsible and moral state, but it refuses to believe that any other state can be trusted to be so.

On the one hand they stockpile nuclear weapons, but on the other hand they want everyone to stop building nuclear weapons because the others know not the dangers involved. They walk out of treaties like the ABM and Kyoto because they don't contribute to the world's good anymore, but they cry foul when some other country is ignorant enough to break treaties. They know precisely which government to topple for the good of the people in that region...but other countries cannot be trusted to intervene anywhere. They are responsible enough to bomb thousands of women and children to promote 'infinite justice'...but of course others would be causing trouble if they followed similar policies. They bomb Afghanistan because terrorists struck from there, but India is asked to 'show restraint' in how it deals with pak-sponsored terrorists who strike its parliament.

In other words...other leaders should not follow the US example because they are not as ' morally discerning' as the US....but should rather follow what the US says.

You know, this attitude cannot be stopped, because America is a super-power and all super-powers by nature act imperiously. Fine don't stop yourself from these acts, but do spare the world from your Sermons.

message from India 12-21