M A I L B A G

System must protect the law-abiding

This has reference to H. K. Dua’s article “Tragedy of politics” (June 9). True, despite the rising economic growth rate, Indians are caught in a gloomy mood. Their confidence level in the polity is constantly falling. They think the country is not safe in the hands of selfish, shrewd, corrupt and criminalised politicians.

Our political system has failed to bring the desired social change at the desired pace. Poverty, ignorance, illiteracy, unemployment, outdated traditions and many other socio-economic evils persistently exist. Good governance, quality education, good health services and employment opportunities are the missing links.

Youth have fallen prey to drugs and other evils. Land and drug mafia are ruling the roost. Politics has been criminalised. Democratic and secular values are vanishing. Feudalistic tendencies are gripping the minds of the rich. Even many democratically elected leaders consider themselves as feudal lords. They consider their constituencies as their fiefs. They rear hot-headed criminals to terrorise the masses.

The administration has been politicised and the political system revolves around vote bank politics. Can an ordinary intelligent person, in the absence of money and muscle power, dare to contest an election? Mr Dua has rightly quoted the cases pertaining to Pramod Mahajan, Rahul Mahajan, Telgi and others.

SUDESH KUMAR SHARMA, Kapurthala

II

The problem is that the likes of Nehru, Sardar Patel, Rajendra Prasad and even Mahatma Gandhi saddled this country with a democractic system for which the average Indian, poor and uneducated, was totally unprepared and unfit for. A Constitution that can be amended at will by shifty politicians who have no background of governance or morality, aided and abetted by pliant bureaucrats and policemen who will not enforce but break the law, have led to the average citizen lose faith in both the so-called democracy and those who are supposed to enforce it.

Sheer numbers as in voting in a government or as in the present-day fad of reservations, give political leaders that we do not even wish to look at; quotas saddle us with mediocre officials and technocrats who have no business to be in their posts.

Opportunist and selfish as many Indians are, it is time for a controlled autocracy to take over the reins, with a firm judiciary and apolitical armed forces to keep matters under check.

Maj-Gen HIMMAT SINGH GILL (retd), Chandigarh

III

The article on the country’s political conundrum is very engrossing and forthright in highlighting the sickening political scenario which the world’s largest democracy is witnessing. There are many Mahajans — God bless Pramod Mahajan’s soul — who are making a mockery of our democratic system. Corruption, deceit, untruthfulness and goondaism are the order of the day. A young dubious local politician had the temerity to dub a senior citizen as naïve in the political arena because of the latter’s contempt for the ills bedeviling our polity.

Mr Dua has stopped short of suggesting cure for this cancerous malady afflicting our polity. It is time we switched over to the presidential form of guided democracy. China, a Communist state, has rapidly transformed itself from the land of opium eaters to a major world power. India, too, can achieve this distinction in a few years with firm governance.

H.S. CHANDEL, Una