Our Parties

Today I read in the newspapers that Mr Raja, ex-telecom minister of India, was arrested by the CBI. And that the congress and Mr Karunanidhi have been silent on the issue while Ms Jayalalitha and other opposition parties are claiming that this should have happened earlier.

While I do hear that Karunanidhi and his cronies do not touch any project unless there is a quarter billion (US) dollar cut for themselves, was the other lady any better when she was in power?

Why are we stuck like this? We have a state (Tamil Nadu) where there are mainly two political parties and each party seems substantially worse than the other. (And this is about the same across the country).

Why cant we have clean men who would shudder at the thought of stealing money, accepting bribes, being unfair, speaking nonsense?

What causes us people to vote for these parties? Don't we have the moral courage to say "we don't want people who are unclean?"

Why do we need them in the first place? Like Dagny told her brother Jim, can't we tell these people "we don't need you"?

Are there not such people in India? Isn't there an "Arjun" of Mudhalvan fame (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mudhalvan)?

Will an "Arjun" ever stumble into our politics? Would he have the wherewithal to fight the goons that exist? Will India go through an "Egypt" phase of catharsis?

There is too much money floating around which can buy anything and quell any "disturbance". There is too much acceptance of shoddiness in our psyche. There is too little pride in ourselves.

Where do we go from here?

I wonder what would happen if we were to ask a private company like the Tata's or Larsen and Toubro to run India on a BOT (build, operate and transfer) mode?

 Published on

2/3/11, 10:14 AM

India Standard Time