INDIA @ 60 : Some Retrospection

I had pledged that my first (serious) blog would be on the day of 15th Aug 2007.
And here it is.

India is 60 years old today. Time to retrospect, and analyze what we achieved and what we lost, good's and bad's of last 60 years.

Here are the categories on which I would like to scale the performance of India.

1. Democratic Institutions
a. LEGISLATURE: Post-independence, our legislature was much more responsible, and dedicated for the welfare of the country and the people. They were true representatives of the people. Today, the political parties, their leaders, and the grass-root workers are just working for their benefits. Public is angry, but whoever they elect is just the same.

Today, we have a prime-minister who entered from the back-door, our president was alleged to be involved in frauds and criminal activities.
Alarming number of parliamentarions are of criminal background, and their is no will to stop them from entering a sacred institutions that our forefathers made with great pride and sanctity.

b. JUDICIARY:
Lower level judiciary is corrupt upto the neck. It's so easy to buy the Judges and manipulate the system. For common man, and the poor, it's almost impossible to get the justice. People spend years fighting a lengthy court battle, and someday, some corrupt official comes and sell the case for the highest bidder.

In the recent years, when the legislature is week because of the coalition governments, supreme court is more active. Rightly so.
But the same court is not so vocal on fixing the problems in the judicial system.

Overall, Judiciary, at the level of supreme court and the high courts, is performing better than the legislature.

c. PRESS (AND MEDIA)
It's been around 10 years since Indian media got the freedom that it was looking for, for years.
Press is free, so is media, but we see bias.

We also see stupidity - when bigger issues are ignored by them and they rather focus on sensationalizing the petty things.

Time for them to mature, and understand their responsibility better.
They need to focus on what is lacking in our democracy, country, economy and society, and work hard to bring about positive change.

2. Common Man:
I think that common man was happier in the early years of our independence. India was a agriculture based economy and goverment was focussing on the agriculture.
Today, common man is frustrated and angry. Farmers are committing suicide, because the hands who used to feed the whole country now can't feed their own family.

Today, though majority - around 65%-70% of the population is agriculture based, still government is not concentrating on that sector.
It is sure that IT and BPO bring more revenue and expedite growth in the cities, but that does not mean governments stop looking at the condition of villages and farmers.

Today, Prime Minister has declared a package of 25000 Crores for the farmers. This is a huge money, and if properly spent, every farmer should get around Rs 5000-7000, but we know that only what they will get ultimately would be somewhere in the range of Rs 0-1000. Rest of the money will go into the pockets of politicians, Babus and brokers.

Most pressing issues that affect common man are - inflation, uneven distribution of wealth - cities vs village; rich vs poor, poor infrastructure, lack of healthcare, lack of employment for low and unskilled labourers etc etc..

After the 1991 liberalization regime, billions of dollars have been pumped into indian economy. But the benefit has not reached to the common man, villages and farmers. Governments have come and gone, but the aparthied is same. And when a minister in Bihar pushes a old lady, who lost her husband on goverment duty, because she was asking for relief, we see the true face of the representatives of people. They hate poor, and not the poverty. They are modern Rajah's.. Hypocrites!

Overall, governments have yet to do a lot, but, it's the mis-fortune of our country, and common man that whoever they elect will not work from them. The elected representatives are working for themselves. They are working for those who have money, lots of lip service, but the condition of farmer and the common man is not going to change much.