As voters in three assembly constituencies from Kerala go to the polling booths to elect their new representatives, I can’t but worry about the futility of such an exercise. In spite of being a staunch believer in democracy I must admit that the Indian version of it is certainly giving me more reasons to be sceptical about it. Having said so, I cannot even imagine the plight of citizens in other countries around the globe that don’t even have a semblance of democracy to talk about.
What keeps troubling me time and again is the total apathy and lack of accountability that we see so often in Indian political and administrative system. One could always argue that it is but a reflection of the society at large, but that is beside the point.
An enormous mishap like that of Thekkady could not help us be a little more cautious and Areekkad occurred. Nothing really changed in between, not even the psyche of the common man. We had a series of road accidents some years ago in which the vehicles involved (mostly buses) caught fire. This saw stricter implementation of laws regarding emergency exit doors, only to be forgotten about sometime later. How many buses still have emergency doors that actually work?
The tragedy at Uphaar movie theatre at Delhi caused such uproar across the country. But many of the big buildings across the nations still have fire exits that are redundant and stairways that are wide enough to allow only two or three people to get out at one time.
As star politicians crisscross the country in search of dilapidated mud homes and starving families that could host them for the night and demonstrate their pathetic existence to him, the same old story keeps repeating. What a sad plight for the common man in the world’s largest democracy...
