A month into the Aam Aadmi power in the capital and yet the question does not cease to haunt me. Is Arvind Kejriwal truely the messiah come again, or is everything that is happening just another culmination of a power struggle this historic city will witness.
We talk about a corruption free india, a rape free india, an educated india, a rich and prosperous india, a first world pheonix reborn from the ashes of the past.
We talk and we think. We estimate and we discuss. And history it appears is as usual sweeping past us, us mere drops in the infiniteness of it's ocean.
Which brings me to the question i desperately seek an answer from my peers on. The one bit of clarity i would like my countrymen to provide me: Is a corruption free state by its very definition manifestible?
During my limited explorations of this world, i came upon this rather old piece of writing by someone called Plato, you may or may not have heard of him. It was written around 380 BC and it is an astoundingly simple yet stirring piece concerning "the definition of justice" and the five forms of government that can exist(amongst other things).
The five forms range from the pure philosopher kings, degenerating to tyrannical despots and dictators. It is shown how this degradation is a but natural consequence of the desires of men. Good news is that it also says that tyranny shall always cause revolt and crumble under its own weight. Bad news is that it weighs democracy as the step just the last step from tyranny.
We are ofcourse the largest one in the world.
Also i recently saw this series called "The Wire", which is often claimed to be one of the best works on society of the past century. It traces the drug trade in the american city of Baltimore, focusing its five seasons on the police department, the political offices, the shipyards, the education system and the press. It focuses heavily on the realism of things, has an amazingly chosen cast and was actually made by people who had fought drugs in baltimore.
A core agenda potrayed consistently in it was the betrayal of the individual by the system. Be it the drug trafficing young and poor black kids, who all dream to be the "kingpin" one day, the majority white police force which is clueless about its place in a 65% black city, the shipyard labour unions who actually bring the drugs into the city in the first place because there is no other better paying job they can do, the school teachers who make the children cram up exam questions so that the schools can show better test score,the journalists who spice up stories so that they are applauded instead of being fired for writing routine stuff, or the newly elected idealistic mayor who beats all odds to rise to power only to realise that power is exactly what he lacks.
All of them end up realising one thing , that the game is rigged against them.
Arvind kejriwal should buy a copy of the series from somewhere. Or will he just use piratebay?
to be continued.....
