What a breath of fresh air ? in a city stifled with self appointed VIPs strutting about oozing pomposity, with flashing red lights atop their cars, surrounded by cops, stopping traffic on main city roads harassing commuters, it was sheer joy to enter the gates of the home of the chief minister of Delhi, Sheila Dixit, without being frisked! There was dignity, graciousness and pleasure. Thank the lord for some leaders who do not have to prove their worth and importance by the trappings of power.
As chief minister, she has taken a series of courageous decisions which will have a long-term impact on this city, despite the odds of having to work with an opposing authority. Delhi has a peculiar status which needs to be rectified. Dixit is a working woman, at the top of her career with a no nonsense demeanor. She needs to be emulated by the scores of political Johnny-come-latelies! This is style and confidence.
The capital has been suffocated with the horrors of archaic ?security?. Citizens are not impressed by the trappings of being important. They are appalled their taxes go towards protecting those very people who have corroded and corrupted the ethos and values of India. The excuse of rampant terrorism is much too lightweight and increasingly unacceptable. Clearly, these leaders need protection because they are guilty of something. It is these very ?leaders? who cannot even protect the Dalits from being slaughtered a short distance from Delhi, as one recent glaring episode shows. Their tribe could not protect the Muslims as Gujarat showed. And, despite these murderous assaults that the politicians and administrators cannot control, they continue to rule us and impose their ineptitude and corruption on us. Never has India been so insulted and mutilated by those at its helm who are not in the least bit embarrassed by the destruction they have wrought upon us.
I remember clearly that when the Bharatiya Janata Party combine was trying to come to power at the Centre, their main plank was to destroy the evil of corruption across the board. Well…they have shown that their earlier scales were minuscule when compared to the rampant rape of today. There is not a single political crusade against corruption. Anyone watching India from abroad must wonder how this great nation has deteriorated into being a parochial, backward-looking, unchallenged entity where some of the leaders speak a language and project an ideology that belongs to the Dark Ages.
While the rest of the world moves on having buried its past baggage, we wallow in all we did wrong, trying perversely to make a virtue out of it. Leaders speak from public platforms calling the leader of the opposition a ?bitch?, others calling for Hindu suicide squads to attack Muslims, yet others stalling the economic process of privatisation, and those at the helm saying we will not talk or have a dialogue with our nuclear neighbours until cross-border terrorism stops! How do you stop the horrors without ?talking?? In this scenario, why should India be taken seriously? Its leaders look inward and do not absorb anything from a changing world. Nor do they seem to want to initiate any real change themselves.
They seem to want to keep the millions in poverty and squalour lest they be challenged. India is a case study in a bungling bureaucracy, a mindset stuck in a time warp from which enterprising Indians fled to make it in other parts of the world. Those who could have left but opted to stay are harassed on a daily basis with warped norms and corrupt practices. If you are a large company or enterprise, you buy out the system and if you are an entrepreneur, you are flogged till you join the corruption brigade.
One would imagine that the Congress, sitting in the opposition but ruling a majority of states, would make its strongholds an example of the ?new? ethos. Instead, they seem to be in competition with all that is wrong, archaic and unacceptable. Rajasthan is one such ?frontrunner?. It consistently kills every opportunity because of personal vested interests of some of the leaders. A state that has the potential to garner huge international investment throws it away.