Saturday, January 26, 2013

Saare jahan se achha..

Okay, though I read blogs regularly, I don't have written many of them. If you have any suggestions, you're most welcome - to keep it to yourself and try to apply them in your post. (Oh poor you, now don't get offended that easily, as Chunky Pande in Housefull 2 says " I’m a-joking". Do let me know what your feedback.)

I moved to Melbourne last year with family. Not that I haven't been here earlier, I've couple of stampings on passport, the first being back in 2007, as a bachelor (aah, that italicized word invoked so many memories!).

After coming here, I got awestruck by fact that, mere change in physical boundaries makes us realise how much value the governments from developed countries put on human life, in contrast to India, where our government doesn't give a shit to human life, similar to how Shakti Kapoor doesn't give a shit to Heroin's plea of "Bhagwan ke liye mujhe chhod do" while marching towards her.

Thousands of people lose life in road traffic accidents; the government pays compensation (from tax payers' money) to the families of dead people and moves on. Thousands of farmers commit suicide, government gazes helplessly - perhaps with the same helplessness, the dying farmer once gazed at the sky expecting rains! Thousands lose life in bomb-blasts, the ministers who are supposed to act stern, indulge in 'labelling' the colour of terror. Probably they'll get to see the dark shades of terrorism, god forbid, after losing their families in blasts. Rapists, unlike government, don't discriminate women; colour, caste, age, - no barrier. Defunct government fails hard time in prosecuting & punishing the culprits again.

I could go on listing more types of deaths, but the purpose is not to make that list exhaustive. I'm not even saying that such things don't happen in developed countries. However as I said earlier, they 'value' the human life over 'Aman Ki Asha' and do anything and everything in their capacity to minimise the chances of its recurrence. Post 9/11, in USA, there hasn't been a single instance of massacre engineered by external enemy. Israel, since its existence, regardless of which party is in power, responds to every enemy action unmistakably. They fought a war against Lebanon, after 2 Israeli soldiers were CAPTURED - yes, you read it right, CAPTURED, not beheaded.

Which bring us to the point, whether our lame government values human life at all (excluding privileged political leaders, whose lives must be insulated with Z level security so that 'work' towards the aim of bringing 'value' to our lives). Rather than trying to gain sympathy with compensation distribution spree to affected people, why doesn't it stress on passing stronger bills? Or to put it more aptly, why doesn't it implement the existing laws more stringently (so that the psycho who knows precisely how to rape a woman in a moving bus but expects leniency from the rule of the land, under the pretext of being 'juvenile' gets castrated chemically, physically, biologically - hell whichever way).

Unfortunately, we can't get answers to these questions in a country where, its prime minister, instead of being ruthless against crimes turns poet and comes with classic verse - "Hazaaron jawabon se acchi hai meri khamoshi"!

And yes, Happy Republic Day.