CRY MY BELOVED COUNTRY!

SUNNY THOMAS

The minister sat impudently as the inferno engulfed Tamil Nadu Express claiming over 30 lives. The same minister was smug when a girl was running desperately from compartment to compartment, fleeing from her rapist predators, while the whole train (Yeshwantpur-Mysore Express) watched the scene as if it were a live television show! The minister indeed deserves to be hanged but what about the spectators who feasted on the misfortunes of a fellow citizen? This is the tragedy of a civilization that once was a magnet of knowledge-seekers from across the world. (We are talking about the schools of Nalanda and Taxila where, according to the Chinese traveler Fa-Hien, thousands flocked seeking wisdom. 

What angers many Indians is the casual attitude of ministers to human tragedies, avoidable at all times but repeat themselves on the callousness of the powers that be. Who doesn’t know posting armed guards on trains – call them the Railway Protection Force though they protect none – prevents crime on trains? And who doesn’t know surprise safety checks alert the lethargic staff who are the main culprits behind most rail mishaps? Populism demands cheap rail travel which means not hiking the passenger fares, compromising on passenger safety. What follows is a tale of unmanned level crossing casualties, molestation and rape on running trains and sporadic infernos, besides superfast trains ramming into stationary locomotives. Garnering votes by opening new rail lines is another ploy of politicians who reduce a ministry into electoral calculus.

Last year, a girl who was the sole bread-winner of her ailing parents, was pushed out of a running train near Shornur (Kerala) by a gang of rapists. The failure of some employee to connect the iron plate between the two compartments caused the life of another girl who celebrated her birthday at home and was returning to her college hostel. The unsuspecting girl tread on the rubber cover of the iron plate that was not there while traversing from one compartment to the next and fell on the rail track below, her body cut into pieces by the running wheels. Railway horror stories abound but people, like the gleeful spectators of the train and the minister himself, have other things to worry about. So the exceptions become the general norm and the avoidable, the happening.   

     

The north and the northeast are groping in the dark. Let’s face it we consume more than we produce. Our upward moving middle class have tasted the goodies of lifestyle and now will stop short of nothing but total indulgence. Lifestyle multiplies power demand and our frustration; it has throttled our patience and to an extent our character, too. Lifestyle has turned all of us into demand machines, demanding all the time, demanding more and producing less. Soon we will demand more water, more food, more fuel, more housing, more parks, better infrastructure. What shall poor Manmohan Singh do? He must be waiting for 2014, to say good-buy to these ungrateful Indians!  

P Chidambaram must be the happy man of the Cabinet to get rid of Home for Finance, making him the key player for brightening the Congress chances for a hat-trick. Chidambaram did a good job in Home, notwithstanding the carnage of 75 BSF jawans. With lenient chief ministers who are Maoist sympathizers, no breakthrough can be made in fighting terrorists. Susheel Kumar Shinde must be thanking his stars for getting rid of his Power ministry at the hour of India’s worst power crisis. The PM knows nothing much can be expected of his Power minister and so wisely transferred him to Home. Shinde is basically a do-nothing man, who can don any portfolio and neatly fits into any ministry. But Veerappa Moily of all people has no reason to be grateful to his PM for shifting him to a crisis-ridden ministry. We all know the crisis will soon pass over and Power will be Moily’s forte.   

Olympic heartbreaks have started almost as soon as the games began. Olympics as they say is not everyone’s cup of tea. As a nation, we are not very sportive, but there are exceptionally good sportsmen and sportswomen in India, who have fought against all odds and babudom to reach there. Let’s us wish them good luck!