The Clear Stream of Reason
Democracy in India is dead. Our forefathers had dreamt of a nation ‘where the mind is without fear and the head is held high’ but sixty-three years from that momentous midnight hour, did we indeed redeem our pledge substantially? We should allow the question to echo in our minds until it resounds in the very ‘depths of truth’; until it is apparent that our ‘tryst with destiny’ is turning out to be a misadventure. It’s a desert where even the seeds of democracy cannot be sown and yet, brigands in the guise of friends try to conjure visions of it bearing fruit. Polling seasons come and go and we find ourselves perpetually trapped between the horns of a dilemma. We are unsure of whether we should exercise our voting rights or not. The candidates are mostly Cipolla’s bandits, unsuitable, not only to run for public offices but even for jobs that solicit a trivial sense of integrity; yet there is always a pressure from political agencies to go and cast our votes. Democracy cannot sur...