It?s change and energy people want

The supreme madness that comes with the onset of summer heat has already afflicted us. Lunatics in Srinagar attacked the tourist centre and it was ablaze, injuring many in an attempt to stall the peace initiative. The CPI-M was busy announcing their support for a third front government at the Centre (ouch). News of more tigers being butchered is pouring in and the secretary to the ministry of forests and environment continues to argue that all, except him, are alarmists; 44 leopard skins were found in Delhi. Rumours abound that estate duty will be back and we are all to believe that life in India is hunky dory!

In all this mire, there was a moment of great emotion and much joy… the flagging off of the bus from Srinagar to Muzaffara-bad. It made one proud to see the ruling coalition and opposition parties of Kashmir together on this historic occasion. It was equally revealing to find no political leader from the BJP, no NDA partner, no UPA partner, none of the last of the Mohicans, the communists, no chief minister from any state of India.

It only went to prove how third-rate our political scene is, how unconcerned our vast spectrum of parties and their leadership is about things that do not bring them personal gain. Surely if the CPs want a third front configuration at the Centre, supposedly with the Mulayams of the world, they should all have been in Srinagar on the morning of the seventh. Pathetic politics. Inept strategy.

Mr Surjeet has announced retirement finally, but we all hope he will not be trotted out as the consensus candidate for a third front regime! Maybe a third front mess is best for India at this stage, because its shenanigans will sicken the electorate and we will possibly revert to a two-major-parties system at the Centre, with regional parties ruling the states.

Political jockeying is dest-roying India and is the most dangerous disease that has overwhelmed us. It is anti-poor, selfish and crude. It generates corruption and gives the administrators all the open windows required to betray this country.

The gargantuan problems faced by the underprivileged and the poor can only be addressed and the damage repaired by those who understand all economics. Single-dimension and one-track ideology will never work to alleviate the horrors that beset a majority of our people. West Bengal has not been liberated from nightmarish lives despite the uninterrupted rule of the CPI-M. They cannot deliver the goods because they refuse to see beyond and step out of redundant parameters.

And what is the essence of the generational shift in the politburo of the CPI-M? How is the rhetoric of the Karats of the world different from the Surjeets? Is there any new and fresh thinking? If there is, it has not filtered out of their command post.

People want change, they want energy, they want their minds ignited, they want a dream to be fulfilled. They do not want to be stuck with the dos and don?ts meted to them by the privileged.

Reports of tiger slaughter continue and more states are becoming part of the scandal. Incompetent babus are running for cover and at the same time closing ranks to protect each other. So typical of the culprit- getting-caught syndrome.

We can all see it, so why this farce? They are all so illiterate about the environment, about water, about conservation that the mind boggles. Their carelessness has destroyed this land and made it a haven of corruption, aided and abetted by their cadres and their service.

In a rush to make good for themselves, they have made sure that the lives of their children, and most definitely their grandchildren, will be unbearable. The most privileged amongst them, the children of the administrators of today, (who have not settled abroad), will suffer disease, will have to live without potable water, will be swept away by natural forces that their fathers today refer to as ?calamities.? Their daddies have sinned and the kids will pay the price. Such misdeeds, laced with greed, will haunt the future generation of Indians.