India- my country

This piece was written as a response to a TSI edit on what is ailing my country. See whether you feel the same way.

It is indeed a shame that the slogans and not issues win elections in India. As you have rightly pointed out, the muscle and the money are aplenty and both ripple visibly to tilt the scales. If alcohol and food can make so much difference to slum dwellers, consider the infinitely greater impact that the threat of a broken slum would have on this community. If India's Swiss bank holdings are indeed greater than those of all others put together, why is it that we continue to be a poor country?

Governance is not an easy job. If it is important that a child qualify each grade before (s)he proceeds to the next one, if it is necessary that a doctor not be licensed to cut before he qualifies to be a surgeon, if it important that the armed forces can only be manned by people who complete their IMA / NDA years, if a bridge cannot be designed by someone who is not qualified to do so... why does politics not require some form of mandatory schooling?

It would do India a lot of good to create systems whereby anyone aspiring to a political career can do so only upon completing a College degree of Politics and Governance. There should be a pre-qualification barr- may be a mandatory graduation in any field or a pre-qualifying exam of the kind that separates the deserving from the non-deserving in Premed and JEE entrance tests or something like a CAT.

If a teacher cannot teach beyond the age of 62 ( and when given an extension 64), how is it that the politicians CAN continue to be in politics well into their seventies, eighties and beyond? Why can the truly good ones not take on the role of mentors and train the youth for a political career that can make a difference to the nation rather than their individual selves.

It all starts at the grass-roots. Whether or not keeping the masses uneducated is indeed a ploy of every succeeding government is a debatable issue but the fall out of this lack of education is obvious and plain to see in every field of public life in India.

This not about individual politicians but about a system that is rotting, but it is also about a system or a people that is surviving despite the rot! We are a resilient race that has survived eons of being exploited whether at the hands of our religious leaders in the remote past, or the invading foreigners who found the Golden sparrow so tempting they decided to stay on even after plundering it, or even the traders of the yester-years as recently as 1947... when we finally wrested control of our own destiny. We had larger issues then. We dealt with them. We created an industry, we created the infra-structure of dams and we created even the infra-structure of educationsl institutions. Now, we are at another cross- roads.

WE now need to educate and empower EVERY Indian, to create awareness of issues and to make it possible for each Indian to repulse any attack on our honour. This may mean conscription. It may nean disciplining us as a nation and it certainly means educating the masses.

Your editorial is a wonderful piece that could well be the start of a movement if just a few right thinking people could get together.

As we used to say when we were ourselves teens... KAUN KEHTA HAI AASMAN MEIN SURAKH HO NAHIN SAKTA>>> EK PATHAR TO TABIYAT SE UCCHALO YAARON!

Let us try and penetrate the sky of apathy that surrounds us and break free. Let the sun shine again!