Tuesday 17 August 2010

Self-Governance: Swiss versus Indian

My article titled "Self-Governance: Swiss versus Indian" is the latest in my "Guptara Garamagaram" series in The International Indian magazine (published from Dubai)

If interested, please see pages 72 & 73 at http://www.theinternationalindian.com/current_issue_flash.html

Tuesday 10 August 2010

M J Akbar on the depressing state of the nation

"As far as the people are concerned the difference between grace and disgrace has evaporated. It could hardly be otherwise given the scale and sheer audacity of the corruption....(what we have) is nothing but big-budget back-scratching between pals, an insurance policy against exposure: if everyone is guilty then no one is guilty....But there are always a few who refuse to be co-opted. They keep our democracy democratic."

I am glad he thinks there are still a few who refuse to be co-opted. That is the only hope.

He goes on to say: "The tendency to elide through crises with token gestures can become a self-defeating habit...(with the result that) now the people do not take even a well-meaning gesture seriously."

Well, if things have really become that bad, then any hope could be short-lived.

He concludes: "A weak government weakens the nation". This is not a startling new bit of wisdom that has been revealed from on high. Even so, I would like to question it.

Do we really have a weak government? Rather, do we not have a government so strong that it can continue to ignore with impunity the needs of the majority of the people who elected it? How can we say that the government is weak when it can continue to line its own pockets in cahoots with the so-called opposition?