But then
again, my misery is hardly unique. It’s not just me that suffers due to poor
public transport, messy roads, gross ineptitude, bribe culture and utterly
inept public offices – millions across the nation share these. And that’s just
local news, here’s the national: an MP demands that an internationally
acclaimed intellectual be stripped of his Bharat Ratna for daring to express
his opinion; an honest IAS officer is blatantly suspended for taking on the
mining mafia; pot-bellied politicians advice the poor to fill their stomach with
imaginary Rs 5 meals… and so on.
We live in a
society which houses a third of the world’s poor and the largest illiterate population
across the globe – probably deliberately kept so to serve as gullible voters.
We live in a democracy where politics is family business, and the only choice
voters have is between him and him. We live in an economy where multi-crore scams
don’t even make the front-page anymore.
I read then, and
I talk, I look around and I feel the frustration building up within me. But
what I can’t decide is whether there is still a way out? Sofa-activism is easy.
Like this blog. But how effective is it really? How effective are NGOs? There
are numerous Indian websites dedicated to building a better India, but what are
their real motives?
Back in
college, I and my friends started a group to protest for some necessary
changes. In response, the administration formulated a new student committee to
address the issues. The entire situation soon got politicized, the committee
lost its fangs, and within an year became sycophantic and idle. Who was to
blame in that situation?
I have friends
who aspire to get into the IAS. Perhaps I should praise them for exchanging
lucrative careers for an honest officer’s salary in order to serve the country?
Except that most of them never explicitly say that they want to do it for the
right reasons…
And thus we
come to the basic question: throughout all this, where do we stand? We are told that India is demographically a young
country, and we keep hearing that the youth wants this and it wants that. But
the ‘youth’ is not some fictitious chimera – it’s us. And so I ask you: what
do you think is the nature of Young
India?
Are you really
against corruption, or do you just like joke about it on social networks? Do
you really refuse to transact in bribes or are they a part of life? Are you
secular? More fundamentally, which side are you really on?
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