The Home Minister calls it quits

By: Subhadeep Bhattacharjee

Shivraj Patil has finally called it quits from the Home Ministry in a desperate move to save some face for the UPA government. This government has time and again proved itself incompetent to ensure basic security to the people of this country. The question that arises now is what took him so long when his CV in the last four and half years was nothing to write home about. Is it because the life of a person killed in the street was not worth the same as those killed in Taj? Was it because this time there was a lot of pressure from people like the Tatas calling for the head of Shivraj Patil? Whatever be the reason the worst occupant of the North Block has finally become sane enough to leave it.

India today needs a person with a strong political resolve to helm the affairs of the country rather than a 'good person' which our Prime Minister might be. It is not surprising that he cabinet is full with a bunch of people called the 'Gandhi loyalist' (Pranab Mukherjee, Shivraj Patil, Priyaranjan Das Munshi, A K Anthony) who are the most inefficient souls in this nation. Is it not a mockery of democracy that our Prime Minister and his Defence Minister have never managed to win an election ever in their lives? Mind it they are nominated members of the Upper House in the Parliament.

It is highly surprising that this government is still not talking about bringing in tough laws which will give our security forces some teeth to fight terror. Have they set a benchmark of some lives which have to be lost before a law such as POTA has to be re-enacted? I wonder when there is so much recession in the market and corporate world is talking about layoffs why is no such thing happening with our babus in white. These people have mastered the art of mud-slinging at each other and it is their only claim to fame.

The US, Israel and most other developed countries have their Defence Ministries or whatever they call it being headed by people with a military background. But none of our ministers have had combat experience in their life. How can they understand what facing a bullet or manning the borders from Tawang to Siachen is? Will an engineer be allowed to be the chief surgeon of a hospital or a PHD in history head the team that is working on Chandrayan II. The answer can be expected from a toddler whose milk teeth have barely fallen.

As Govinda chants in his famous song ‘It happens only in India’ such things can honestly happen only in the largest democracy in the world. We are living in an ‘Unsafe India’ and its time we realise and elect our leaders after some thinking. Not voting is not a solution to the problem as many of us think it to be. If we do not vote we have no right to blame the politicians in power. We have to take collective responsibility to have a ‘Better India’ and a ‘Safe India’