It is said that in April 1942, after the failed Cripps mission, Gandhi said in his speech - "Leave India to God, and that be much, Leave Her to Anarchy". His statement urging immediate and complete withdrawal of British from India holds good in even today’s context.
The statesmen, all noble and literate who fought for Indian independence, drafted its Constitution, formulated a system of legislature, executive and judiciary and unified India despite indelible scars of partition and schism into states on largely linguistic basis, were all gone within few decades post independence.
The nation’s reins, then came in hands of a generation which only heard tales of independence or knew of it from letters sent by daddy dear in jail, and with it stealthily grew the proportions of corruption. Amendments to the nations’ Constitution were made in a whimsical manner; emergencies were declared for personal gains, for instance, to escape guilt of election rigging; communities were targeted in an orchestrated fashion with full backing of the state in name of repression of terror.
More into future, stories of independence became even sparse, many were even misconstrued. There was no trustworthy story teller anymore. The governments that ruled the nation and its people were merely lost travelers in a desert fooled very often by a mirage - the coalition or alliance governments. Currently, the detour from prescribed route of the journey for the nation has become so pronounced that this empty falsehood overwhelmingly forges itself as the reality. The all-pervasive malaise of corruption has engulfed the nation – in sports – Commonwealth Games, in business and industry – illegal mining contracts, 2 G spectrum scam, in defense deals and even in food storage and distribution, the list is endless.
The phony democracy in India, it appears, is run by the Supreme Court today and the government exists only namesake. Be it the disarmament of Salwa Judum in Chhattisgarh, be it the land conflicts between farmers and real estate builders in Noida, the 2G spectrum scam resting heavily at the Centre, innumerable illegal mining licenses and land de notifications by the CM in Karnataka– the court or an ombudsman comes to fight for justice and pronounce it. The government is busy shuffling cabinet berths and supplying cash for votes.
To fight this pernicious disorder of corruption that runs in our system at both central and state levels, we have a pretty interesting group of fighters who follow Gandhian ideals and undertake fast unto death as the primary step. Their efforts in getting a Lokpal bill drafted is appreciated but why they exist in a state of reverie when the government is clearly playing Hide and Seek is not clear.
There has been enough clamor on the question whether the Prime Minister of India must be brought under the ambit of Lokpal bill. Yes, he must come under the purview of the bill is an obvious answer.
For a nation that till day boasts of transport and postal systems left from colonial times, of the palatial Gothic style buildings in every major metropolis but seeks empty pride in changing Madras to Chennai, Bombay to Mumbai and further; that till today uses the police force as its right arm to curb any expression from its citizens (not to forget the state orchestrated deaths in Singur and Nandigram); that even today secretly exports the iron ore mined from its nation for personal gains exposing its own people to untold hazards (ore exported from Karwar and Marmagao ports, Karnataka which has caused disappearance of 80% of hills in Bellary region quite similar to what British east India Company did with our farm produce and cotton years back) ; that picked up this few magical words - socialist, secular, democratic etc without knowing thier essence and plays “divide and rule” much like the English did, it is not difficult to ape the royal English one more time.
Remember the Magna Carta of the year 1215, the first ever declaration of rights and liberties, formulated by barons who found atrocities inflicted by free will of their then monarch – King John of England intolerable. The highly regarded constitutional document covered the king himself in its ambit offering no special exemptions and no lengthy debate ensued thereafter. If that was in 1215 in Runnymede; to copy it by reference once more in history is not that atypical.
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