Kuch Nahi Hone Wala Hai

How often do we hear it & say it ourselves in regard to –

Traffic
Pot holes & roads
Pollution
Garbage & debris disposal
Wastage of resources
VIP racism
Small crime
Big crime
Small level corruption
Highest level corruption
Terror & it’s tentacles
National security issues….?

This hopelessness, the resigning one self to, has been the soul destroying, spine breaking & single biggest achievement of our political class & establishment.

Our state of perpetual gratefulness when we procured a berth in a train, hospital bed, a telephone & LPG connection & when we came out alive with barely our shirt on but our wallets much lighter after meeting a Babu, kept us distracted & unquestioning for decades regarding the larger issues of governance & our rights & duties as a citizen.

In the business of making a basic life & as the French put it so succinctly-
Metro Boulot Dodo or Metro Work Sleep we only got excited over Cricket that bound us, Bollywood that dumbed us & Corruption Chatter that only ‘ate away our innards like an angry cancer but diminished our instinct for innovation & creativity’….

We forfeited our voice to a few, who we believed, spoke for us & had our good foremost in mind, with their education, position in society & yes, their proximity to the powers that be.

So when the Government of the day actually declared Swacch Bharat & even though the PM took it on personally, our first instinct was as usual Kuch Nahi Hone Wala Hai.

We actually had well known & respected citizens take pictures of garbage piled in their localities or at landmarks & scoffed the PM for his initiative.
Did it not occur to these people that in this day & age of 24 x 7 media & other platforms the local municipality & it’s functionaries could be brought to task ?
That they could be named & shamed for not doing their job ?
Did their schools forget to teach them that the police are the public & the public are the police ?
But instead the focus was on simply criticizing & calling out the movement as unsuccessful.

To mention the reaction of other political parties & their – We Did /Thought Of This First – would be digressing because this about us & us alone – The Indian citizen.

When construction of toilets was taken up on a war footing the most common comments & questions heard were –
Who is making money in this project ?
Wait and see they’ll be no water & disposal system.
It’s a such a sham.
Our people are like this & will remain so.

How many actually took it further & offered their staff at home or at their work place loans to build a single basic toilet ?

Surgical strike, Demonetization, GST…..
Raids, Enquiries, Law Suits on the mighty & powerful. Yes, not all, not enough, but no doubt a beginning……

We have to admit we’re now live in unimaginably different times.
In our hardened cynical souls, battered & beaten down by a system that respected & rewarded dishonesty we now see a flicker of hope.
How else could you explain this impatience & desire for results in 3 years when we were uncomplaining for more than 6 decades ?

As citizens we have much to re learn if we still believe that we’re subjects & our rights are favours bestowed by the dispensation. Basic amenities are either procured through connections or awaited for, like crumbs flicked off the high table.

The first lesson in fact has come quick, hard & jolted us.
Were we mistaken about those who spoke for us & had platforms to ask questions ? Were they so comfortable on their pedestals, that they now mocked our aspirations & our beliefs ? And worse, turned on us when we questioned their disconnect ?

The fact of the matter is fellow Indians –
One man has planted a seed. But it has to be watered & nurtured by us & us alone.
And if we leave it those whom we had forfeited our voice to –
Kuch Nahi Hone Wala Hai.

~ The tyranny of a prince in an oligarchy is not so dangerous to the public welfare as the apathy of a citizen in a democracy ~