A Joke called India

See what a few hopeless politicians can reduce a country to - A Big Fucking joke. The joke, at which the whole world can have a hearty laugh, shed some pity and walk proudly comparing their nations to ours. A bunch of fidayeens none aged more than aged 25 and with only a year of military training wreak havoc in India's financial Capital, killing us like we are crop to be harvested whereas our guardians - the police, the army and the government are reduced to mere onlookers.

At this moment of shame for my country I'm not only angry (the word will never do justice to what I feel) but very very curious. Why does a country our size needs to have the worst police to population ratio in the world? Why should our police force be over aged and undertrained? Why don’t our "elite" forces have the right equipment? Why does the chief of ATS have to die wearing a cheap bullet proof jacket that might not have been capable of stopping a bullet after all? Why does it take half a day to bring our best anti-terror squad from Delhi to Mumbai when journalists were able to do a better job? Why does our intelligence mechanism stink in spite of its crucial role in a geography like ours? What is a moron like Shivraj Patil doing trying to pretend being the Union Home Minister? (Maybe Mrs. Gandhi would know).And who is responsible for the deaths of our young officers and jawans?

Sadly most of us know the answers to all these questions. Just see how many of the above have bureaucracy /red tape/politics as their answer. We may pride ourselves as an IT superpower, an emergent global powerhouse, home to the best cricket team in the world (?), but can we hide the fact that we are possibly the worst governed state in the world? All thanks to our politicians and politics. May be we can also pride ourselves as being the voters who got them into their places either by voting for them or simply by not voting at all.

We are all angry at the state of affairs but a few months in the future we will all forget what happened. A mention of the Taj will only remind us of the monument in Agra and our TVs will be tuned to the latest gossip from Bollywood or whatever. We may be angry now but we won’t even be concerned once the news channels get weary of the whole issue. As a country it’s a shame that the people in the largest democracy in the world don’t take their democracy responsibly. We can blame the politicians and bureaucrats as much as possible, but the fact remains that we put them there. We by our narrow view of the society in terms of caste, religion, region etc etc. And when we see them failing we train our guns against them only to choose the next best crook. Yes, we make up by indulging in petty symbolisms like a candle march or a signature campaign which God knows who really cares about.

Nothing will change in our country till we don’t become responsible for what’s happening in our country. The first step I guess would be to become a responsible voter. What would be the next step? I have no idea. But I’m looking for answers. I hope I will find out sooner than later. After all it’s not a joke living in a country which has become the joke of the entire planet.
P.S: Sorry to all those I offended. They just need to do their jobs better.