Is the brutal class hijacking India?

Defiance has become the distinguishing feature of our democracy. Catch a minister in an illegal act, he defiantly claims innocence. Catch a civil servant in a corruption situation, and he defiantly rejects all charges. Catch an MLA in a rape case, and he defiantly accuses you of political motivation. Those in power seem convinced that they are doing us a favour by governing us.

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The way Central Vigilance Commissioner P.J. Thomas clings to his chair is typical of this new culture. The point is not whether he is innocent by IAS conduct rules; the point is that he is seen to be not impeccably clean - a fundamental requirement for the CVC's post. Instead of admitting that public perception is important to his post and quitting with his dignity intact, he justifies himself by telling the Supreme Court that 153 MPs are faced with criminal cases. If that is the argument, he should become an honourable MP, not a dishnoured CVC.

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Look at Thomas's photographs in the papers. With head tilted defiantly up, he wears a triumphant smirk that seems to dismiss the common run of humanity as inconsequential. The IAS fraternity's expression of support to him has given that smirk an edge that proclaims all is well with the world.

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Actually, television enables us to see our netas and babus up close and get a feel of their body language. Who will not be impressed by the defiant, self-important stride of A. Raja even as hefty CBI hands hold him tightly in their grip? Who will not notice the cynicism that plays on Suresh Kalmadi's face as he swaggers up and down in supreme confidence?

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In the departments of both swagger and smirk, we have had two astonishing specimens - Haryana police chief S.P.S. Rathore and UP's ruling party MLA Purushottam Dwivedi. Rathore's molesting of a girl led eventually to her suicide. Dwivedi, after violating his helpless backward-class victim, put her in jail on a convenient theft charge. What stood out was the arrogance of the two men. Rathore always had an irritatingly smug smile radiating confidence in his macho prowess. Dwivedi constantly flashed an incredible grin of victory as if to proclaim: Catch me if you can.

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Of course we can't catch him. He is an MLA belonging to Mayawati's BSP. It is all very well to say that UP has a Chief Minister who flaunts her Dalit status. But it is in UP that the largest number of attacks have taken place against Dalit women. The police have no time to look into this because they are busy cleaning the Chief Minister's shoes. Nor has the BSP any qualms about the criminalities of its stalwarts. As yet another rape case hit the headlines, a party spokesman appeared on TV to argue that no charges had been proved. When a girl's ear is cut off and nose disfigured and knife wounds inflicted on her body for resisting rape, what proof does the party want - a severed head instead of a severed ear?

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The BSP spokesman's attitude is similar to that of the railways, headed curiously enough by another powerful woman. In a lonely ladies' compartment in a Kerala train, a habitual criminal attacked a young girl, kicked her off the train, dragged her bleeding across the rails, suppressed her screams by smashing her skull with a rock, then raped her to his heart's content. She died later. As public indignation mounted, the railway authorities filed an affidavit in the High Court in connection with a previous attack in a ladies' compartment. It said such attacks occurred because lady passengers were careless.

After 5000 years of civilisation and 64 years of vibrant independence, is India losing its way? Is an indifferent and criminally inclined ruling class hijacking our country? Is brutality becoming a way of life? There is something terribly horribly wrong with 21st Century India. High growth rates will not help a nation that loses its soul.

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