And here I am returning about perhaps 10 years. Blogging stopped being a thing for a while, a frivolity borne out of boredom for no one, in particular, other than the self and perhaps the occasional reader somewhere echoing thoughts. 'Message in a bottle'.
I just came back from India. Is it changing for the good? Yes. Is it changing for the worse? Yes. Is it the India that I remember?
A media that seems more or less state-controlled. A state where accountability seems diminishing fast. Where dissent isn't tolerated. Parliament suspended without substance. Parliamentarians expelled on a whim.
Progress by way of roads and infrastructure projects abound, and India booming more than ever.
But why is it so grey everywhere? Land, water, sky...
Is it just a sulfurous smog or something darker in the social fabric that has seeped into the air?
Since have been conscious of my surroundings I have not known an India devoid of conflict. Punjab, 1984, Kashmir, Kargil, Maoists, Assam, Eastern states, 26/11, 6/12, Indo-China border. It seems to be the DNA of the land. Condemned to war of some kind peppered with short phases of peace. Inter religion war, intercaste war, war over land, over water, over gender rights, over human rights, over dignity.
India was never perfect, no country is or will be. The structure of power is in itself an imperfect beast. If it is there for the taking why share with anyone but yourself and your close ones? And if you have near absolute power then remember the phrase on the corruption it inspires.
I saw the 1980s through the lens of a family in power, so long, that entitlement bred unbridled arrogance, corruption and maladministration. 1990's the early bankrupted years through the lens of a coalition that despite all its flaws sprang the hope.
But in all these years few things remained - a free press or an impression of a free press. An accountability or sense of accountability. India ranks 161/180 in the free press index.
Governance in India over several years in the past decade has even had some exemplary moments and successes of policy and projection. But could it be that the success and the impression of success is breeding a form of arrogance that will consume itself? That because I was right on one thing, I must be right on everything. Democracy is but an erroneous construct. What does the average citizen know about statecraft? Leave it to those who know how to rule, who were meant to rule.
India is a huge subcontinent, it precedes 1947, 1857, a land where a thousand wars have been fought, won, and lost. History will have it that India has seen its share of rulers of all kinds, good, bad, greedy, and malevolent, and has weathered all.
Perhaps it will weather again. At what cost, time will tell.
