Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Theatre of the Absurd

This was the heading of a main news item in the 'Times of India', a few days ago. The news item related to the drama around removal of Dinesh Trivedi from the Railway Ministry by Trinamul Congress (TMC) (not the Prime Minister). It mentioned what Mr Trivedi had uttered and what Mamata Di (the TMC chief) had uttered. The headline made one wonder if not the country of India was a theatre of the absurd. Not many days after, another set of events (again involving TMC) unfolded which made Mr Rajinder Puri say that the whole country was a cartoon.

At the cost of some repetition of what I have said earlier, let us see how the country called India is a theatre of the absurd.

i) It has been supporting a most absurd and rotten judicial system and hardly anyone, especially media, appears to be bothered. While the civil society has been very concerned about corruption, it has conveniently or foolishly overlooked the fact that the absence of an effective judicial system is the root cause for all encompassing corruption.

ii) Everyone is bothered about framing of more and more laws but not about implementation of the existing ones. Those at the helm are worried about making more laws for better governance without realising that the multiplicity of laws is a pointer towards bankruptcy of the law makers and the society.

iii) Media in India raises questions and rakes up issues and then forgets about those quicker than any one else.

iv) People vote the known rogues and the most accomplished in corruption to power time and again, and continue making noises about corruption all the time.

v) The media condemns match fixing in cricket one moment and then eulogizes the players who have to be a part and parcel of the fixing, for next hours, days and months.

vi) The political parties contest elections against each other but join post election to get power. They criticize the actions of the government and continue to be a part of the same government.

vii) When a new tax in the form of 'service tax' was levied and continued to be increased year after year to rob common citizens, no one made any protest and the country readily accepted the right of the government to rob. Same country doesn't think twice for holding bandhs and staging dharnas on petty matters.

viii) The newspapers and electronic media scream through headlines regarding amassing of a few lakhs or a few crores by some individuals, but continuing and preventable loss worth thousands of crores of rupees to the public exchequer year after year doesn't bother them at all.

The list would be endless to underline the fact that India is a theatre of the absurd. Our media remains central to, adding all the time, to this theatre of the absurd.

Let us all enjoy the cartoon that we are.