Wednesday, June 08, 2005

India's paradox

India is a socialist democratic republican country. This sentence seems to be clearly etched out on my mind as if written on a board with ink that would never go off. I am not sure whether I should be thankful to my schooling for the same or not. It taught me something which every other civics class teaches a student. MUNDANE is what I call it and more than that sad maybe because we are never taught to question what is laid in front of us. It is just like a box of sweets which is gulped down and we never think of the calories that come with it and the end being another breed of citizens who have done nothing but have added to another layer of fat to the already existing obese society.

If I think about each word of the sentence individually I am reminded of a completely paradoxical situation existing in the country complementing it. We live in a democracy so we have the liberty of thought and action. But ours is a country with a soaring population of over a billion people. Does the bureaucracy and corruption driven economy enable each individual to exercise this right is something to be thought about. So the right which all and one would love to exercise is non-existent. Secularism should now I feel be taken off every legal document which professes the country to be one. The only reason being the society not mature enough to unshackle itself from the imaginary chains of caste creed and religion. The reservation which exists in every other sphere of life (if I may say so) is so much a part of our system that we have forgotten that we profess to be secular and more than that forgotten to question why we do so when we still exhibit inhibitions about accepting a bunch of our own people a part of us. Somehow the rosy features of nationalism seem to vanish from this scenario at least. An SE/ST candidate makes it to the IAS merit list or an IIT merit list or any other list in the country despite lesser marks coz in our country we have seats reserved for creatures that belong to this lot!!! If marks be the only criteria to judge an individual's capability why is the case different here?? It is like forcing people to exhibit a sense of socialism for letting them compete with the best in every place(by sacrificing their own place) just because a zillion ages ago they
were suppressed.(Maybe u could hear about bull shit like that only in our country!!)
My college preaches a motto which is very simple for them to comprehend (not to me though.) "Each person one job" so if a less paying company places u, a guy with 60% marks may make it to a bigger firm because he/she need not face the threat from people like u as far as getting the job goes. In short the philosophy liked by every common educated and self esteemed individual in this country would want to have is non-existent and the most loathed policies still exist to bite our ass off. Coming to the word republic - A political system governed by the people or their representatives. We have something called adult franchise to do that but how most people in the country are not judicious enough to make the correct choice...If the choice was judicious may the government would not have had a zillion officials which it does today. The country which boasts of the biggest slum in the world and a downtrodden mass of people battling poverty and illiteracy is maybe not competent enough to appoint people coz it can be lured to cast votes for any dingy leader who promises basic amenities like food or water or electricity.

These were a mere few and broad examples to prove my point and maybe our constitution houses hundreds of such words which resonate with clamor. As we still battle to exist with these paradoxical situations I hope schools teach students to question more and have the conviction to think and not just accept what is served to them on a platter called a teaching period. I hope every individual feels the urge to raise his voice against situations like this. Hope we can extricate ourselves from the shackles of these words before we cease to live....

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