Spineless Nincompoops and Hitler Didi

Mamta Bannerji gets a farmer arrested for asking questions in her rally (sec 332/334), alleging he was a maoist. It was a professor earlier this year, who the police had detained on similar charges.

This is indeed the real India, but I thought this was not the metro India. I believed, such high handedness was not possible in metros. But politicians wielding the power that they do, it is quite possible.

The media once again snuggled with the underdog. Highlighted the high handedness of Didi and the concomitant public outrage secured the release of the farmer / bus conductor.

I sometimes feel we are a country of spineless nincompoops. There is a well-written law in the country. There are a host of educated people at the helm in the form of the civil servants who make the permanent executive, who are supposed to implement this well defined law in the country.

Why then do they obey whimsical and autocratic dictates of truant and corrupt politicians? Why does the commissioner of police not tell Mamata B, that the farmer cannot be arrested on such charges? Why does the police not tell the political masters trying to delay the arrest of Kanda, that he needs to be promptly arrested.

Why is that at the behest of a senior politician the police let the entire top brass of Union Carbide scoot out of the country?

Because we are all corrupt, we have misplaced public values (I here make a distinction with personal or social values ), and we are a bunch of spineless nincompoops, who can bend backwards to those who we believe are in places of authority.

While I was growing up, I always believed, women genetically and also by virtue of their role in society, would be more rational, tolerant, empathetic and kind in their handling of situations. But Bahenji, Indiraji, Soniaji, Amma and Didi, are all women and all quite ruthless, quite high-handed and also quite autocratic.

I too am a critic from the fringes, and from the little I understand of what plagues our country, I thing it is lack of love for it, and a lack of pride in ourselves, and a abjectly vague sense of duty. Two very simple ways of stemming this rot could be, re-instating a compulsory moral science class and making NCC compulsory till class 10 in schools.