Contemporary trends portend more challenges in times farther ahead than one bargains for.The good people seem hesitant in taking firm steps for reaching their goals while the worst,”full of passionate intensity”,as the poet put it,are triumphantly leading a march into a future that spells disaster for the country and her people.
Take the case of Mohua Maitra.It is a pity that the Parliament’s so-called Ethics Committee seems packed with members of the ruling party with only five members from other parties.This turns the very substance of ethics into opinions held by brute majority of an unethical favoured group.Not surprisingly all the five members from the opposition walked out in support of Ms Maitra after she was reportedly barracked by members from the ruling party with ‘too personal,even indecent questions.’ The latter say after the incident that Ms Maitra left the meeting as she was unable to answer the questions the morally purer members had put to her.Not surprising if the questions strayed from the core of the charges against her into irrelevant but offensive innuendos.One would think the deviation underscored the deviation of the majority group into moral bankruptcy.A fine end to ethical concerns indeed.
The thickening and coarsening of moral fibre in display at the event forebodes times ahead where appeals to the worst prejudices and darkest passions of the public might be used to upset the hopes of an opposition which are unaccustomed to batting at such a pitch.The proposed mega celebrations in the new anointment and coronation of Ram could be the most favourable occasion for bowling such googlies.
The recent alert from Apple to certain users of its iPhones that ‘state sponsored hacking’ has infected their phones is evidence of the start of that campaign.The vaunted largest democracy in the world would seem to be turning into the worst dungeon of personal dignity and freedoms.The end in view is of course complete disembowelment of the content of democracy from the state. A fitting homage to the re-incarnate monarch on his forthcoming coronation.
The deeply ambiguous role on the dastardly massacres of innocent civilians including children by bombing,which are presented by Israel as collateral damage of visiting just retribution on the Hamas leaders and apparently accepted in toto by our leaders who mouth support for the dim prospects of a ‘two state solution’ at the same time reveal the same kind of immoral duplicity that makes us hang our heads in shame.This blatant hypocrisy dressed up as fine-tuned diplomacy at a time when even the Jewish community all the world over is being torn apart by pangs of conscience over the bombings at Gaza.
Such moral degeneration paraded as the acme of wisdom guaranteed by immemorial spiritual heritage heralds times when like citizens of Nazi Germany our people could be mesmerized into zombies witnessing in apathy sights of the worst atrocities and outrages on countless innocents.
The INDIA alliance appears rather dispirited and too worn down by inner intrigues and faction fights to take a bold and firm stand on such issues and too busied with electoral calculations to lead the nation’s struggle for recovery and regeneration.One wishes it could speak out with a united and resolute voice against such moral decay.
Hiren Gohain is a political commentator
