A storm of protests

The writing is there on the wall for all to see. If the politicians of the country turn a blind eye to it, it is their problem. But if the protests get worse the next time, they cannot say that they have not been warned. Put simply, the Delhi rape incident — as with the campaign against corruption orchestrated by Anna Hazare — has once again shown that the people’s patience is fast running out and unless there is a sharp improvement in governance generally, the nation must brace for the worst.

The point of concern is that the improvement sorely needed will not materialise out of thin air. Decades of utter neglect by those who have been chosen by the people to legislate and keep watch over the nation’s governance, both at the Centre and the States, cannot be wished away by a flurry of well-meaning resolutions. And, if no change comes about soon, the fabric of the Indian Republic will be facing more severe tests in the near future with public anger boiling over.

It’s their job after all

Complacency, and routine response to events, on the part of the authorities charged with framing legislation and maintaining law and order has to end. The Union Home Secretary, in fact, cut a sorry figure when he tried to assure the nation by proclaiming, “No goondagiri, dadagiri or misbehaviour with women will be tolerated. Police action will be visible on the ground... We will ensure all action is taken by Delhi Police. Delhi’s people will feel it”. He capped his performance by announcing that the Delhi Police had done an “outstanding” job in “cracking the case” within “a very short time”, and that, “with the evidence gathered so far, we are confident we will be able to convict the accused”. The silly point is that the police are paid to do this, just as they are also paid to prevent such things from happening in the first place. If the situation has worsened over time, it just means that the authorities concerned have failed to earn their salaries, which means they should pay the price by being replaced by more efficient people.

No sense of urgency

The plain fact is that, barring honourable exceptions, a sense of urgency which is the bedrock of effective governance is sorely missing from the Indian scene. Indeed, the majority of politicians, as also babus and policemen, are just waiting for the public outburst over the Delhi rape event to die down after which life for them will return to normal, as it has always done in the past. What they fail to realise — and there is no point in blaming them for most of them are just careerists bereft of any sense of mission (if they are different they are either unwilling or just too scared to show it) — is that the cancer of public dissatisfaction with the present state of affairs is silently eating into the nation’s collective conscience and that, soon enough, a point is going to be reached when the ailment will be difficult to control, leave alone cure.

Increasingly, the Prime Minister is looking like a cloistered economist trying to battle political inputs which he is unable to tackle. Can he, or for that matter anyone else in the nation’s political firmament, help the college student who cried out: “Nothing works in this country. It only works for corrupt politicians. They have to go. Why are they here if they cannot provide us safety?” The Congress Party chief, Sonia Gandhi, may be meeting protestors outside her house at midnight to hear them out and assuage their inflamed feelings. But can she look into their eyes and promise to clean up the Augean stables, and then, like Hercules, deliver?

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