None to blame:

Dec 10/2013: “People’s welfare first,” was how President Pranab Mukherjee advised students as he addressed Visva-Bharati University a few days ago. “The welfare of human beings should be topmost in the minds of youngsters when they go out into the world to join work,” he said. The call may be considered timely, as exactly the reverse is happening in the Indian context these days. Not only the educated in this country are becoming derelicts but also that apart from caring for those human beings that care for them, they do not have the slightest of concern for society at large. Also, time has come that humans start caring not only for other humans but also for the flora and fauna that is fast getting destroyed in this sub continent.

Our President has elaborated his call with a quote from former US President John F Kennedy who had said “Ask not my countrymen what the country would do for you, ask what you can do for the country.” That was the spirit in which a largely immigrant population built America from scratch a century ago, and with stunningly impressive results. By contrast, almost every Indian – educated, semi-literate and the illiterate – have been the product of a culture who have, post-Independent days, sought to maximize the benefit that he or she could accrue from the government and everyone else in this country.

The sad part of the story is that it is people like Pranab Mukherjee who, over a long period of time that they held on to important Cabinet portfolios, have inculcated this wrong and negative mindset in the grass roots of this country. Just because luck favors them does not imply all sins committed against the nation gets washed away. 

By creating policies and programs that were supposed to help the poor, it is such people who have helped in feeding poverty and prolonging the deficiencies amongst citizens. This in turn has smothered the minimal industriousness that our national character ever permitted us to have. It suited such personalities because life long, and deep in their hearts, they never had empathy for the people or the very country that gave them whatever they possess today.

For such people to talk eloquent about character formation of a new generation of Indians seems a bit weird. Therefore the question, why should educated youngsters only care for humans and why not trees and animals. When we wish to look away from hard facts of misdeeds as UTI's US 64 scheme which destroyed the lives of millions of lower and middle class investors while building the Reliance empire of late Dhirubhai Ambani, we have no alternative but to look down into the eyes of a dimunitive President who should but would not look away in embarrassed silence.

That the Indian society is fast turning into a lazy land of lotus eaters, people not wanting to work, and enjoy the leisure with the benefits that come down rushing is not perchance a happening. This may be considered a well thought plan to cripple a people and plunder their nation's wealth. It could be said that no country on earth has been as unlucky as India in the sense that the very leadership we all thought would protect us, did actually go overboard in looting and plundering not only our mental strength but also the minerals and land and sea water that we had dared to call our own.

Our doctors can not treat nor diagnose. Bridges built by our engineers collapse at the very first gush of rain water. Our roads are built keeping yesterday's traffic in mind. We can complain for ever. Yet, we can never ignore the fact that the plight we are in today is of our own making.

We have none to blame but ourselves.