Pilgrim of Democracy!
By – Pamarty Venkataramana
Too much ado about nothing. All that devotion and dedication was one-sided. As it appears in hindsight. Worse than a jilted one is the plight of the faceless warrior who toiled hard,day and night,sacrificing self-esteem as well as a normal human lifestyle so as to keep the shine on armour of the headman. Gratitude not received. Voice unheard. All his intellectual property rights bandied about by the kinsmen as being the brilliance of a hitherto unknown ‘son of God’!
A fairytale? Not at all. An autobiography? More so but biographical sketches do nowadays revolve around some authors’ penchant for portraying shadow-puppetry more than honest accounts.
Biopics give credits where none is due. Show life stories of men and women alive in flesh and blood. Their tales are incomplete and the saga has been told, already!
If such be the plight of a faceless warrior,a true martyr of truth-honesty and good conscience,whither be the land of Lady Law?
Oh,she is everywhere. Ubiquitous as ever. Blind-folded too, like always.
The junctions and highways;the crossroads and the school bus stops-all these spots have squads of ‘special duty’ personnel halting vehicles and checking these for suspected bundles and gunny sack loads of currency notes likely to be being ferried across the constituency by wannabe Parliament members. Lady Law aware though of old bypass routes and village dirt roads used since decades by wily Candidates desperate to become Honourable MPs. Also,no such check posts are ever found outside the actual residence and camp offices of the aspirants or their known business friends.
Then,there is the classic case of a reputed bus operator having the luxury coach seized in middle of night in middle of a highway by a neighbouring State’s personnel due to non-payment of levies to ply through that State. It’s a rainy night with thunder and lightning. The ones who seized are deaf to plea by a Good Samaritan passenger to take some sort of an undertaking from driver-conductor as well as management via mail or text message and let the bus proceed towards destination since few students were to write exams early morning and a pregnant woman too was travelling. All on deaf ears. To no avail. The forty odd passengers left to be drenched in rain on such a scary night with no conveyance nor accommodation in sight. Clouds though are loud and keep company to these hapless citizens. Compounded to this is the reluctance of the odd trucker to let any passenger hitch-hike a ride to the nearest town situated about thirty miles away for fear of ‘special duty electoral policemen ‘ checking the baggage and showering a barrage at them for carrying people in distress.
Lady Law watches in dazed amazement.
Yes. The farmer-class has its black-sheep who are used to voting in any political outfit that promises loan melas on assumption of office as well as writes off loans on returning to power. This tribe of hard-core voters are dedicated to the awareness of truth that no real study has ever been undertaken by any which Government of actual demand and supply for crops – of whichever variety or region. As such,cash crops seemingly rule roost and the much applauded regime has been letting the import of oilseeds and many other essentials be imported at greater cost than it is to cultivate large barren tracts and save that amount of foreign debt. Fruits are grown in abundance but there is no culture of consumption of good fruits within this land of a billion plus eligible voters since the best fruits are exported and rest are either dumped or destroyed. As are onions ,tomatoes and a whole lot of others.
Lady Law remains blind-folded.
Talk of diplomatic relations with members of regional bodies. The big brother stays aloof,isolated from the economic story of smaller,member-countries. We have an enormous population and are unable to rise up and enter into a predetermined buying rate and contract for purchase of entire production of either Sri Lanka or of Pakistan,for instance. Yet,the masses on anonymous media and deafening bark shows on the idiot box howl hoarse about pragmatism and gains had in the recent past. Lady Law does not shed a tear . She remains blindfolded.
Without much ado,let one note that at least a hundred rupees is dealt in cash daily by at least a billion in rural and semi urban regions of the land. Calculate this amount. Is this taken into account in the computation of national income figures or gross domestic product and the per capita income of the citizens? Of course,never. How then can these candidates rant and rave or thump their chest about low or increased economic performance?
Lady Law remains blindfolded.
The heat of a mid summer’s election-fever certainly sends the blind folded voter’s mind into a comatose state of sorts.
In God we trust. We,the People.
A ‘Pilgrim of democracy’ salutes the Constitution.
Jai Hind!
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