India is in a sorry state of affairs, to say the least. The latest incident that rocked Delhi, and with it the entire country, is but one of the many instances that damned the country.
But what makes matters worse is that we have gradually begun to take such blatant acts of crimes for granted. When we hear about a young girl getting raped by her inebriated father or about an another scam worth thousands of crores, we merely feel disgusted for a few moments; after that we simply move on. For example, there is outrage among the people against the incident I mentioned in the first paragraph as is obvious from a deluge of angry posts, tweets and comments in the social media. Moreover, a handful of people took the streets to protest against the criminals and to pledge their support to the victim girl. People speak passionately about how overwhelmed there are by what happened at rush hours in a bustling area like Munirka; but how long will they remember?
People get away with such appalling crimes that the future looks doomed for us, for sure. But I think there is a small ray of hope.
My parents live in Gujarat and there I’ve witnessed how an able leader could bring about enviable development in a not-very-long time. Every time I go there, Ahmedabad looks different (in a positive way, I mean) from the last time. It is also a peaceful city: when I once called up my mother a little later than 11pm, she casually told me that she and my father were out for a post-dinner walk; something that is unimaginable in many areas of Delhi NCR! When Narendra Modi got re-elected (for the third time in a row) as Gujarat’s CM a few days back, I wasn’t surprised. He may be corrupt and an “authoritarian”; but the bottomline is that I feel a lot safer that my parents live in Ahmedabad than I would’ve if they lived in a place like Delhi.
Chances are high that in spite of their highly corrupt rule at the centre, Congress will come back to power in 2014’s Lok Sabha elections. But I seriously look forward to a time when Modi reaches India’s PMO.