The terms democracy and self-rule, if considered as synonyms, may have to be redefined in the current context of the country and its masses being taken for a ransom by everyone-knows-who, going by media reports occupying most of the column space in dailies and telecast time on the small screen virtually serving minute-to-minute action similar to ball-to-ball radio commentary on cricket matches. The similarity has its meaning in the all-too-familiar scenario of horse-trading by power-hungry vote-seekers and match-fixing by the cricketers in quest of fast buck despite being paid cash in amounts that is envy of people. Party-hopping by the politicos of yesteryears and switching loyalties by their present-day cohorts, the former, few and far between while the latter, both sharks and small fry, routinely lured by cash in amazing amounts have turned into public entertainment, the mountainous cost of which doesn’t seem to be bothered about by the land’s people at large. Talk of the country rising to be a five trillion dollar economy in the next five to ten years, doubling farm income during the next two or three years, shelter for all in the country, zero unemployment and so on figuring regularly in the public domain by the powers that be seems to have lulled the masses into keenly looking forward to achhe din.
The full-time pre-occupation of the vote-mongers in Karnataka and many other States across the country with hatching plots to topple Governments while betraying the trust vested in them doesn’t seem to have stirred the masses into a show of strength sending the betrayers to where they ought to be. There is no prize for guessing that destination correctly.
