Tuesday, May 08, 2007

Is India independent?

My uncle in the US sent out a bit of trivia about the how the 1st war for independence against the colonists was lost in 1857. My reply to him was:

the war of independence in India is still lost, because India still does not appear to have a fair, fast and mature judiciary:


1. Alister ran over and killed 6 people in Bombay, the court acquitted him. Now the High Court has reopened the trial and the judge who acquitted him has resigned

2. Some of MF Hussain's (India's leading artist) paintings were complained of to a small court in Haradwar, which already had 13,000+ cases pending before it, some over 15 years old; and the court issues summons to attach MF Hussain's properties, and now MF Hussain lives in exile in Dubai

3. Richard Gere does volunteer work for an AIDS show in UP; and someone complains to a local court that he behaved obscenely on stage and the court immediately issues an arrest warrant in his name.


So what independence are we talking about. Just removing the Brits is not independence; independence is being able to secure your freedom through law, order & justice.


Why does all this happen in India? Well, the salary of a high court judge is $450 a month, and they politicians want to keep the judiciary weak so that they have power.

And who votes these politicians in? NOT US, the rich in India do not go to vote, you cannot expect them to leave their AC rooms and stand in line...so the poor go and vote, the illiterate go and vote...so you are seeing an India of the illiterates, by the illiterates and for the illiterates.

In the recent municipal election of Delhi, out of 1300+ candidates, 850+ had not graduated past class 4; and over 1100 had been booked for a criminal offense. Don't even ask me what is going on in the UP election...

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

NOT US, the rich in India do not go to vote, you cannot expect them to leave their AC rooms and stand in line....but why not? then dont complain either...if the rich just aspire to get richer(materially) then dont blame the ppl that go vote...
and besides, freedom thru law, order and justice will come only if ppl remember the basic quality of being truthful,honest and persistant and the rich are definitely not setting any example to this effect...the poor infact are more honest. The basic problem in India is dishonesty and leaning towards the easy way out.

Satish said...

Dear Friend, I guess most of us, i mean we indians if asked to list out issues pertaining to india will happily write pages together , you will exactly list out what is wrong, who is wrong, maybe also write pages on how to resolve these too. Yes we are independent today at the cost of so many who did act then. What are we doing about these issue, action should speak louder than words. Commenting and highlighting wrong things any literate fool can do. The need of the hour is to get united to fight these evils of our society before the infection spreads. And then when i say united dont address problems related to a particular community. Its really unfortunate that we have boundaries in every nook and corner of our land, be it religion,state, caste ,class etc.

RYK said...

Sure Satish, public participation is the way to go. After all that is the wonderful thing of being in a democracy, one can work with public reps to improve things. Its slow and tedious, but it can give results over the years.

Rehan