By Sahil Mehta
Wikipedia defines the word republic as
“A Republic is a form of government in which the people or some portion thereof retain supreme control over the government, and in which the head of government is not a monarch”
I can’t stop laughing at the irony. Yeah! Yeah! Republic Day, national pride and everything, I get that. But what I don’t get is how do I accept this definition of being a republic with everything that’s going on around the country right now? Haven’t we just finished off the year of the biggest scams ever! I mean I can’t even remember all of them. There were so many but still let’s jog memory to see what we can come up with. First there was the ever evident CWG scam led by our very “experienced” Mr. Suresh Kalmadi. Then our telecom minister’s misdemeanors came to the forefront of political allegation when the CWC estimated a 1,76,000 cr. to the exchequer. Compared to this the land scams in Mumbai (Adarsh Housing Society) and the ones in AP (Emaar group) and Karnataka (I don’t know the details, sue me) are just blips on the radar. The thing that we have scams is not that a big deal. In every country, someone or the other screws you as a nation, but when your own government does it and that too this blatantly you have to start questioning the “the people or some portion thereof retain supreme control over the government” part.
Again, our Prime Minister the very honorable and revered economist (no sarcasm) Dr. Manmohan Singh is definitely not a monarch, but then the contradictory statements he comes up with when dealing with a crisis do sort of make you question whether he is a “head of government”. And sadly, the entire country does not regard him to be anything more than a face for the government. The real power does still with lie the first family of Indian politics The Gandhis. Already we’ve started touting Rahul Gandhi as the next Prime Minister and unless BJP can get its act together and project Narendra Modi as the next PM, it’s a done deal. Considering that Rahul Gandhi hasn’t had much experience in Indian politics, has never led a cabinet ministry or even a state and has been involved in controversies, there doesn’t seem to be much reason for him to be even a remote possibility. But the name does carry weight in this country, and in him people find the same charisma as his late father Rajiv Gandhi. And no matter how hard you deny it, in our hearts of heart we’ve already accepted him to be the next PM. Seems like a form of modern monarchy now doesn’t it?
And it’s not just about Rahul Gandhi, almost all the so called young MPs and MLAs are either sons of politician fathers or relatives of them. Most of them have no business being in politics and serve no use to the public. They entered because of the hunger for power and to cash in on their ancestral legacy. To quote examples let’s look at Karunanidhi. Three of his children are in politics, and two of them are ministers at the central govt. level. After the death of former CM of Andhra Pradesh YSR Reddy, his son Jagan Mohan claimed that only a son could understand his father’s aspirations and therefore he was the rightful heir to the CMs seat. It’s just really sad that such frivolity still exists in India in the 21st century. The IT minister Sachin Pilot, other young MPs like Jyotiraditya Scindia etc. they don’t represent anything of the youth of this country which still languishes in villages. They are all there simply because of their names. The very fact that Sanjay Dutt even considered contesting his late father’s vacant seat tells me that slowly but surely we’re moving to a well disguised form of monarchy. And that does scare me.
I cannot convince myself that even after 61 years we have become a true republic, a nation of the people and by the people.
I wrote in my editorial last time that this year we would focus on the solutions and not on the problems, and I shall not renege on my promise. Years ago, we as a nation raised a slogan to inspire us to freedom. Inquilab Zindabad. Long live the revolution. It is time to raise it again. It is time when the people became more important than the vested interests of an incompetent and oppressive government. And just like the freedom struggle, the process of revolution begins with integrating ourselves to be a nation. It is time when we put aside our differences on language, caste and religion. A national identity is a prerequisite for any national revolution. Start with small things by teaching people not to talk to classify and discriminate people on the basis of caste. Teach people to respect all religions. Learn to separate governance from religion. More than anything, stop looking down at people who are economically worse off than you. Respect breeds respect, and concern breeds fraternity.
This Republic Day showcase not your regional or cultural superiority but showcase the strength of India’s culture to assimilate so many culture. This Republic Day start the revolution by identifying yourself not by your caste, religion or region but by identifying yourself as an Indian.
Jai Hind! And Inquilab Zindabad!
