Janus faced!

Here we are, a society that is progressing very rapidly. We seem to have it all. The steel and glass buildings, the fancy malls, the designer clothes and the fancy cars. We also have a rapidly evolving middle class with its bank employees, BPO staffers and door-to-door salesmen. They say that the Indian economy is set to grow at 9%+ for the next several years. If that does happen then in the next 25 years or so we will be the 3rd most wealthy nation in the world.

All this glitter hides a dark underbelly of our rapidly evolving nation. The fruits of economic liberalization have not fallen into every one's lap. The have-not's far outnumber the haves. The dispossessed are an alien nation resident inside this modern India. This perhaps could be the reason why crime and corruption are so rampant; so hand-in-hand. There are, I am told, several folk more than willing to take on a "Supari" (colloquial for contract killing) for measly amounts of money. A slow judicial system and a sluggish (thuggish?) law enforcement machinery lets people get away with almost anything.

Nowhere is this more visible than in the Indian state of Bihar. For the last 2 days, the news channels have been beaming the plight of a thief brutally thrashed by ordinary people, almost beaten to death, for attempting to steal a gold chain. With two cops in mute testimony. These custodians of public safety then decide to get a piece of the action. What follows next chills the heart. The man is dragged by his feet tied to a motorcycle, across a road in Bihar (imagine the state of a road in Bihar) for a fair distance. How this man survived is a miracle. I will not even venture into the possible long term psychological damage to the man's psyche if he survives this ordeal or the social stigma.

Would you say that you live in the same country? Perhaps you do, but mostly you don't. Because all this happens far far away from all of us. We react in horror, discuss it around at the next coffee break and then forget about it. Till it happens again. And again. There is, I am sure, a way to take everyone along on this ride to prosperity and happiness. There is a need for a new messaiah.