India, a nation that takes pride in the fact that it is the worlds largest democracy, a nation with multiple religions and is secular, one with hundreds of languages and ethnic groups and diverse geographic regions. There is one thing that many haven't noticed about this great nation of ours- it is the worlds largest hypocrite. It claims to treat all its citizens equally, whether it be judicially, in the case of employment or anything for that matter, but at the same time provides reservation in employment and education for certain castes and these reservations are just methods to gain benefits as is made evident by the protests of the Gujjar community to obtain scheduled caste and minority status in the state of Rajasthan, but the funny thing is, the state of Gujarat is named after them since they are present in large numbers in that state. Then I suppose its only a matter of time before Tamilians can say they are minority in Uttar Pradesh and start asking for ST status there. The larger issue of reservation has been widely debated and it looks like it is here to stay forever but all I can say is that politicians will want to preserve the reservation on the basis of caste for they cannot afford to loose the bulk amount of votes that come from each caste which in turn violates our principle of equality and that of democracy too when we are supposed to vote on a candidates merit and not on the caste, creed, langauge and religion of the candidate.
We call ourselves a Socialist nation, but we have the one of the worlds highest growing number of richest men and that of the poor too. We have huge disparities in income distribution where the top 10% own 40% of the wealth and the bottom 30% have less than 10%. The rich have special privileges when it comes to justice, education and during various allotments of government aid and development programmes. Education is falling into the domain of only the rich as one can easily get and engineering or medical seat for lakhs of rupees, however badly the person has fared in the qualifying examination. Money is placed over merit and years of hardwork and study can now be substituted with sufficient funds, power and influence at the right areas. There are thousands who deserve to get into a professional college, but only the rich can go in for these as most of the private colleges have management quotas where the colleges charge millions of rupees for admission and so students who deserve it more than the kids of rich men are denied a chance. Another concern is that these students who have spend such a huge amount of money will use their
profession to make the maximum profit and will not have any other concern and this can be really harmful in a profession like that of a doctor for it is not just a profession, it is also a service where the objective of making money can be really bad for the society and the patients who call upon the services of the doctor.
A democracy, we call our nation, where elections are the time of promises and after that, the promises stay still and go into hibernation only to be risen from their slumber at the time of the next elections. Corruption, extortion and blackmailing have become so prevalent in our political system and it has also penetrated large aspects of the functioning of our
government, be it law & order maintenance or land registration as nothing can be achieved without palm-greasing. Should we just accept our fate and sit silent or should we act? There is a glimmer of hope as the people of this nation are waking upto the reality and the state that our nation is in. I write this in the hope that I can find a way some how to contribute in my own way to making India a better place, making it what it really claims to be A Sovereign Socialist Secular Democratic Republic.
note-Readers might view me as a pessimist and someone who is just interested in seeing the negative side of things.But I do believe that there is hope and a great future for our nation, and the entire world, if all of us contribute in our own ways, to leave the earth when our time comes, in a better stage than it was when we were born.
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