26/11 has revealed many things about India that we were content to obscure from ourselves but must now face frontally and do something about. First, we have to acknowledge openly that serving the Indian public could not be further from the minds of our political class. The statements made by satraps in every party after 26/11, prove that beyond reasonable doubt. Should they be taken at face value? Yes. Can they all be cases of misspeaking? They reflect a visceral contempt for us who are obviously seen as lumpen morons. We vote these sad excuses into office (despite their ignorance, malfeasance, self-enrichment and criminality) time after time. Thus we establish that we do not care for ourselves or how we are represented. They seem themselves as our masters (netas) rather than our servants (naukars). We collude in perpetuating that ridiculous notion; thus giving our democracy a particularly nasty twist.
What "turiananda" state the author was in previously ? That only on 26/11 we were faced with facing this frontally? When were politicians in Republican India our "servants"? In my teens I have met eye-witnesses in Calcutta who described how a certain Ahimsa Congress CM of the state in the 50's went out surveying the bloodied and mangled remains of poor village women lathicharged (under his explcit orders) to death who had come protesting lack of rice/corruption by rural distributiors and hoarders who almost inevitably happened to be Congress supporters (I have found real cases that most of the time these enthusiastic Cong supporters after Independence were British collaborators who had helped in repression of the "freedom fighters" - there are very natural political explanations for this, but this is not rlevenat here) - my interviewee broke down in tears saying that this experience turned his whole family from a strong Cong supporter into anti-Cong. I know of many more similar stories from eye-witnesses/case studies from the South. The Cong leadership used Gandhi's mass mobilization to obtain the machinery of colonial state power - they had no interest as a "class" to be "servants" of the "commons" - they remained and strongly retained all their interest networks which simply took advantage of a change of regime members (and not the regime character) to better control the exploitation of the nation's resources.
Second, what comes across most clearly from 26/11, is how disconnected our political class is from us. It is apparent that, apart from undertaking the tedious task of seducing and bribing us at election time, our political class (with the exceptions being counted on two hands) exists to serve itself: i.e. to enrich, empower, indulge, protect and insulate itself from us; using the resources we provide but they command as their own. Our Treasury has become their piggy-bank. Our forces of law-and-order have become their vassals and servants used to serve their personal needs and political ends not ours. Our bureaucracy (endowed with some truly exceptional people who are badly used and abused) has become their machinery for their own political gain than for advancing our national interest.
No, the disconnection was apparent from even before Independence. The political class was always disconnected - it remained elite. One just has to look at the face of Cong leadership as it shaped up after Gandhi's alliance formed up with the Nehrus. Ironically perhaps it was influenced by the "epics" - it was a "Gujarati Krishna" tying up with "immigrants from the North" "Uttar Pardeshi Kuru clan" to achieve his version of the dream of "Bharata". The family based leadership was encouraged by the British as their tactical local "potentate" specifically for their "elite disjunction" from the commons - leading to continuing colonial dependence of this potentate for surviving in political power. This is a long tradition in northern India - many kings and princes had followed a similar policy faced with Islamic invasions or overlordship - they used this "disjunction" to curry invaders' support against domestic rivals and used this support itself as a leverage factor to gain support of the commons. This culture retained former British bootlickers who had actively collaborated in the repression of freedom-fighters in the administration and state machinery including security services. That the Left was no exception and their leadership comes from the same elite disjunct - is also proved by similar behaviour when they came to power in the states. The using of this people-maintained/paid people-repressing state machinery is simply a continuance of the older pre-colonial social structure refined excruciatingly by the British, and enthussiastically carried on as habitual practice by this elite.
Third, state-provided security of political megalomaniacs has become more important than the security provided to protect our lives. And, despite this tragedy, political goons at every level of government -- including those who go out of their way to destabilise our societies, divide and fracture us by accentuating ethnicity, caste and language, and open themselves to retaliation -- are surrounded by policemen putting themselves out of real harm's way. When will this absurdity cease? How many more of us have to die before things change? What will it take to dismantle the perverse, ridiculous, VVIP culture that disempowers us all?
Do they invite retaliation for destabilizing our society? Wrong, they invite retaliation from within their own class of competing rival forces of the same colour - groups which do not differ from the target in their ideology and when in power would carry on the same policy of "destabilization". Those whom they destabilize are too weak politically to retaliate.
Fourth, our great institutions of state have become political instruments for taking advantage of us in every way imaginable. Maharashtra, affected by the most vicious act of terrorism yet experienced was held hostage to the political machinations of the Congress and NCP for days before appointing a more capable Chief Minister. Is caste politics emblematic of a 21st century India? And should choices for the Maharashtra CM be confined to a list of the dubious?
Assuming that it was not a case of replacing one "whipping boy" by another, when were our institutions not political instruments for taking advantage of us? The elite disjunction I talked about should have been apparent to the author if he had studied the patterns of voting in the very first elections India had within the Republican setup- even then the dual system of voting with separate/twin candidature for the same seat reserved on caste lines showed that it substantially damaged the Cong candidates - and that this system was promptly withdrawn - whereas a case study of a South Indian city shows how beginning in the late 50's the Cong found the Left threat growing and revived a fundamentalist Muslim "party" to counter the communists, and in another revived caste-based candidatures for the same purpose.
Fifth, our political system has now become completely dysfunctional in form and substance. Present political machinery is inherently incapable of delivering good governance no matter how well-intended it might be; which it is not. The senior Mrs. Gandhi's imperial hauteur triggered the end of one great national party. Since her ascension, Congress has become a private family business that no one but the family can run. But family members are not wise, knowledgeable, or capable. If they were, they would not have kept as Home Minister someone who had proved himself so grossly incompetent (though sartorially elegant) time and again, just because he was loyal. They are unable to distinguish between their political interests and those of the country. They live off an unfortunate legacy of involuntary sacrifice. The Nehru-Gandhi dynasty has done some good. But it has also done much harm to India's economy, polity, and the integrity of its social fabric with profoundly mistaken strategic choices. What this family should do now is leave India to find its own feet without them. They could let India dispense with the curse of dynasty and allow what was once a great national party to rebuild itself, so that talent, not heritage and surname, are valued. They could let capable young politicians rather than sycophants kowtowing to the family come to the fore.
Well, well, it is not just dynasty - it is about a party structure that allows selection from the top of lower functionaries - be it formally grounded in elections or not - remember how the great Gandhiji threw tantrums when his candidate lost direct party elections and engineered a committee "boycott" of the elected "party chief"? This was the first obvious example even in pre-Independence India of the intolerance of popular will in electing party functionaries and choices based on selections arising from caste/region/family/linguistic considerations (Krishna from Gujarat used Pandava-Kuru's from UP to "split" Jarasandha from Magadha of Bihar/Bengal). When you start doing this, you will only let in "hand raisers" weak enough in capabilities so that they will always remain dependent on you and always support you in internal party struggles and staying in posts. Over time your lower functionaries will recruit even weaker subservients and over time you will replace the whole party with dumbheads.
But, just as Congress has degenerated into becoming a family firm, the BJP has morphed from various preceding branches of an 'opposition' to Congress to go the communal route; hinting none too subtly that democracy should be replaced with a tyranny of the religious majority. An accompanying trend to the mutation of the two national parties has been the emergence of fractured regional entities posturing as political parties when they have no beliefs, values, or philosophies about economics, politics, social development or governance. But, playing on themes of caste, creed (greed?) and language, such parties have gained local traction. They are the price that India now has to pay in the form of dysfunctional coalition governments in which the national parties provide a platform. The rest represent caste interests (dalits, yadavs, thakurs, gujjars, marathas, brahmins ... the list is endless) or a Marxist Left incapable of learning. They are available to the highest bidder. They need ministerial office for immunity from prosecution and enrich their privy purses. But we have no defence from them.
Can the majority be "tyrannical"? Is democracy which is firmly based on the principle of majority tyrannical? What a state of consfusion you are in dear author!! The regional fractures were encouraged primarily by the Congress to divert popular discontent and rival claims from the left of centre or leftist trends. We have defence definitely, but not your way!
Sixth, our ability to exert any real political choice and discipline over those who supposedly represent us, when they go astray, has disappeared. Since one political coalition is as venal as the other we have no real choice. Our laws for investigating assets disproportionate to known income as a check on political malfeasance have fallen by the wayside. Indeed no politician cares about being prosecuted for amassing wealth illegally. Many are happy to reveal ill-gotten gains publicly. They are aided and abetted by laws intended to encourage equal opportunity, but instead provide perverse incentives for entrenching the caste system through a pervasive and pernicious system of preferences. In all these ways, we the Indian public, have become complicit in the ethical disintegration and corruption that engulfs us; that makes India a lawless, non-compliant, undisciplined, ungovernable society, in more ways than one.
The fundamental problem is the proliferation of power centres and decision makers, and lack of direct responsibility which is diffused in vague groups - that will sacrifice one goat from among themselves to keep the rest munching on. A concentration of power and accountability in a drastically reduced group or perhaps even individuals - directly elected and accountable to the people, can reduce the number of "lucrative" political careers open now and reduce at one stroke the myriad problems mentioned.
But we also lack in our desire as citizens to demand the best. Why?
Because: seventh, we are pretty lawless ourselves. We pride ourselves on our individualism to the point where we do not notice how antisocial we are. We take short cuts as a matter of course every day in every way. We seek preferences at every turn, and look for favoured treatment through political connections to employment, promotion, licenses and other forms of advantage. The way we drive on the roads, cross streets, or queue for buses, trains or tickets at a cinema, shows just how unruly and undisciplined we are. We have not yet come to accept what is taken for granted in developed societies: i.e. that laws and rules apply to us in every aspect of our daily lives. They are not applicable only to others. We need to become a law-abiding, compliant society to reduce the frictional losses and transaction costs of selfish and undisciplined behaviour. We need to care not just for ourselves but for our neighbours. We need not to keep just the inside of our home clean while allowing common areas outside to be filthy. We need all these things more urgently than we need anything else to develop and grow. We need them sooner rather than later.
Have you ever really studied how these so-called developed societies transitioned from even more "lawless/apathetic" societies into "law-abiding" ones? In each case, they were lawless exactly because they were poor, exploited ruthlessly, invaded by looting/raping/slaughtering forces - these were people surviving anyway they could - almost always descendants of more peaceful/agrarian/atavic cultures in sync with their environment and surviving non-destructively who were completely unprepared culturally to deal with the violent expansive and destructive intrusions from outside. They did not have a theory of first-strike which their opponents had - and were knocked senseless before they even could think of standing up. By the time they recovered their senses - they were wounded, bones broken, skulls knocked in - this was how our people became apathetic. What arrogance is this in blaming the people first - just as elites do
? All the so-called transitions for the better in these "developed societies" were under ruthless "dictatorships" - you won't have any problem with that for India, would you?
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) for the latter is more concerned about the Al-Quaeda witch hunt in Afghanistan & according to the latest reports UN too has given Pakistan clean chit (and rightly so) as Pakistan has banned Jamat-ul-dawa as directed isn't this what MMS and Co wanted. 
