What a country we live in. Incredible India! We love to quote our multi millinery civilisation at the drop of a hat, but that is just what we do ‘quote’. All the rest is forgotten. I wonder how many of us know about the values and principles of our traditions. Or if we know that, they remain just that ‘knowledge’ but rarely turn into action. As I wrote in my last blog, it took years for someone in power to get outraged at homeless people sleeping in the bitter cold and do something. I am quite cross at the nit picking we hear on the media about how effective are the new night shelters provided by our brand new government. At least this is the first government that has done something concrete for the homeless who slept year after year in full public view for whom they were invisible. Plastic tents and old buses are better than the cold ground and the stars! Rome was not made in a day! At least they are moving in the right direction.
And talking of Rome, we have our very own sets of Neros who were/are fiddling while the city burns. The media is replete with pictures of leaders enjoying Bollywood extravaganzas while just a few miles away children die in the cold. Tens of millions of rupees were spent on flying in stars in private jets with total impunity. And that is not all, those who are not at the song and dance jamboree are taking of for study tours to exotic locales like Venice and Cairo and Dubai. Wonder what they will learn. The tour has been called tour of commonwealth countries, as if that makes it more kosher, though in the list of countries they visit, only one is a commonwealth country! Maybe they should first be given lessons at home on school basics. Legislators from across the land earn the privilege of two study tours per tenure. I guess we have to pay for them though we are never told. We also have to pay for the amusement of those we elect. It makes me gall. I also saw red when one of the ‘students’ had the audacity to state on camera that the State was only spending 40 to 50 million! Just imagine how many homes for the poor could be made with that. And if that was not enough, referring to the death of 48 children in the Muzaffarnagar, a minister had the audacity to state: Deaths of children, adults and elderly are inevitable. It isn’t necessary that only those living in camps are dying. People die in palaces too. Speechless.
The Muzaffarnagar riot victims are living in abysmal conditions whilst political parties feed on them to fulfil their dubious agendas. While the political show goes on, people brave the winter in terrible conditions. A recent article highlights the stories of these forgotten souls. These are survival stories about real people who battle all odds to survive while those they elected to protect them make merry. Speechless again.
What is absolutely revolting is the impunity with which they defend these aberrations when faced with a tricky question. Perhaps they feel it is a bit like the R& R given to those who work in harsh situations. Come on being a legislator in India is no mean task!
