AFVOA Newletters of Year 2002

Page 81 of 84 was honoured with the highest wartime gallantry medal, Param Vir Chakra, for his outstanding role in the battle of Tithwal. Not so Happy Diwali Khushwant Singh 58. Deepavali, the festival of lights, is the most beautiful and joyous of the hundred or more festivals we celebrate every year. It is truly a jashn-e-chiraaghan when we decorate our homes, temples and public buildings with garlands of lamps and abandon ourselves to orgies of eating sweets laced with bhang (hashish) and gambling. We also make an enormous racket exploding crackers and bombs. 59. Somehow, all this does not connect with Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth and the patron deity of Diwali. We open new account books and pray their ledgers will have much more on the credit than on the debit side. But in our nation’s bahi-khata, the debit side has much more than credit. If you don’t believe me take a look at the special issue of Common Cause , entitled Our India: Political, Administrative, Judicial systems and Scams, Scandals, Stigmas by H.D. Shourie. This man has done more than anyone else to put our country back on the rails of progress through a series of public interest litigations in the Supreme Court. 59. He spares no one – prime ministers, cabinet ministers, chief ministers, industrialists, civil servants, judges and common crooks. His son Arun Shourie is a minister of the central cabinet and like his father, a man of impeccable integrity and ability. The father could only go for others because he has the assurance that his son is above reproach. The booklet is only 42 pages long half-an-hour of reading, but will give you much to think about on Diwali night. 60. Take our ex-prime ministers. Chandra Shekhar grabbed 51 acres of panchayat land till the Supreme Court deprived him of it. Rajiv Gandhi’s name is still on the list of people who got money on defence deals. I.K. Gujral, Narasimha Rao and H.D. Deve Gowda have even now over 150 security guards and fleets of cars and a bungalow each in Delhi – all at the cost of the public exchequer, costing Rs 42 crore a year. 61. The root of the trouble is that every Indian wants to be a ‘Chaudhury’ – a somebody. The easiest way to become one is through politics. No qualification is necessary, nor is a criminal past a hindrance. If you can wangle a ticket from an established party, you have crossed the first hurdle. If you fail, join a lesser known party. So while other democracies have two, three or at the most five or six parties, Bharat, which is mahaan , has 537. 62. Once you become an MLA or an MP, the world is your oyster. Free bungalow, free travel, free telephone calls, secretarial staff, a couple of crores to blow up in your constituency, lots of opportunities to go to phoren on the flimsiest of pretexts. If you are a party-hopper, you can get Rs 1 to 3 crore to change loyalties. We have 795 MPs, 4,500 MLAs. Very few take their jobs seriously. Day after day, sessions have to be adjourned because of hangamas created by members. Parliament in session costs the nation Rs 75 lakh per day. 63. Take a look at the record of the ‘ Babulog ’ (civil servants): IAS, IPS, etc. At one time it was known as the steel-frame which held the country together. No longer. The Central Vigilance Commission has published long lists of corrupt bureaucrats; several senior police officers are behind bars for heinous crimes. Our judicial system is also in a mess. It takes 10