What Raj Thackeray has got done today is yet another deafening addition to the debasement of the face of Indian polity. The spate is going on. It is becoming epidemic now. The beak has become so stiff that it is threatening to drown the boat called India.
We have reasons to believe it. Spiral of politicians like Madhu Kodas and Raj Thackerays, many political goons belonging to every political party and every Indian state, is getting sharper and sharper. There happened to be a clear demarcation between a politician and a criminal when our academic forefathers had established Political Sciences. As the ages rolled on, the line of demarcation got thinner and thinner. Once there could not be a line. Then came a period when a line, though the bold one, could be drawn. The bold line was subsequently replaced by the thin line. Time keeps on moving uni-directionally. The thin line becomes the fine one and keeps on getting finer, rapidly now. Comes the days we are living in. The line is almost blurred to the extent that its constituent dots are threatening their cohesive gel of an imminent drought if the crisis is left unchecked anymore. Here comes the deepest of ironies. The dots find that they cannot trust the source of the solvent that is entitled to lubricate their cohesive gels.
Pity them. Pity India. For, the trepidation seems much more intense here than any other country with such a huge biomass. Pity India. For, it is getting leaders who believe they are rulers, and their voters are ignorant bunch of creatures. Sure, they believe their voters are just biomass, and not human beings. Pity India, for their number is on the rise. We proudly say we celebrate democracy when elections come. We break spiral of silence by sending out a government out of the office when no one had expected it. But we forget the basic necessity of our existence.
India has a constitution; an elaborate and detailed one. It is embedded in democratic values. It was written when there was a clear demarcation between a political thought process and a criminal mindset. Today when the criminal and corrupt mindset is getting the upper edge, the values find themselves amidst debilitating chances of survival. Slowly they have stopped speaking for themselves. Whenever they find some expression, most of the time, they find some sort of serendipity or some forced execution. The natural outcome: Democracy has become an occasional celebration, something that was our birth-right.
Today was day of debate parleys. Today was an occasional day for culture of debate in our country. We recently missed a debate on Madhu Koda deeds. The culture of debate, the backbone of democracy, is looking desperately to find some space. We need to accept India never had a culture of debate given its socioeconomic and political weavings in the post-impendence existence. Koda was not the first case of corruption. Raj Thackeray is not the last face of political hooliganism. But we have comfortably forgotten misdeeds of their predecessors. Almost of them still have secure political careers. A common Indian is not very hopeful about Madhu Koda and Raj Thackeray by the precedents already set. Let’s see when and how we forget this episode in the coming days!
