Wake Up India!

India, the emerging super power seems to be all but a farce. The great Indian democracy appears strong but is all void from within. Unethical practices and indiscipline have made inroads into the political system with a large number of politicians coming from a criminal background. The Parliament and state assemblies are marred with defections and horse trading. Most of those elected seem to be self-serving and money-servants rather than public servants.

India has enough and more resources to meet her needs. However, under utilization and an obvious lack of political will  to do the right thing at the right time leaves us still among the 3^rd world. Take for instance the case of food grains being rotten in our godowns while thousands of people starved to death! The storage losses of food grains in 2009-10 amounted to Rs 228.39 crore and transit losses another Rs 182.46 crore. Surprisingly, some of these loses are engineered by the government machinery who wants to make big money from the rich breweries. To top it all, often there is a tie up with the big time merchants to create artificial shortage of grains in the market which would then fetch higher revenues for the merchants and commissions for the babus. The incredible India!

Indian bureaucratic apathy is a worldwide known phenomenon. Even with over 1.2 billion people around, India cannot find the best team to run its affairs. A recent news about a 40-year-old housemaid who was stranded at the Muscat airport is a case in point.  Though the airport officials informed the Indian embassy, even after five days no one from the embassy came to her rescue and the stress and uncertainty at the Muscat terminal was too much for the poor woman, who died of a heart stroke. 

Of course, politicians and beaurocracts are not the only people at fault here. Sadly, we Indians have never fully embraced the values embodied in our Constitution.  Be the change that you would like to see. On 12 March 1930, at the Sabarmati Ashram in Gujarat, 79 men went for a walk. For 23 days they marched, covering four districts, 48 villages, 400 kilometres. On the way they attracted thousands of other ordinary people, animated by a cause so much bigger than themselves. Then, on 6 April, by the sea at the coastal village of Dandi, Mahatma Gandhi picked up a handful of salty earth and said, “With this, I am shaking the foundations of the British Empire.” The empire shook.

Shake off the callousness and apathy to become a conscientious Indian to build a new and prosperous India. As an unknown saying goes, "A dream is not something that happens when you are sleeping; a dream is something that does not let you sleep!" Wake up India!