For the past year or so, especially after the alarming lack of safety for women in Delhi, and in India by extension, has assumed center stage in all the political discussions that I came across, the concluding note was always that the future of this country is in bleak hands.
The economy isn’t in shape (and the future shows no respite), the Indian currency has sunk to an all-time low (so we are being degraded internationally as well), everyone from a technician who is supposed to repair my landline to an official who has taken the oath to serve the people before his personal interests responds to cash (ranging from a mere Rs. 50 to a few lakhs, depending on what you need fixed) and women’s safety is in jeopardy. In short, everything that our founding fathers stood for has been traded for a bottle of vodka, cash or blind sense gratification. The part that bothered me the most was that no one was willing to do anything about it. We all complained, went to the market and bought some pepper spray and that was it. A movement started by Mr. Anna Hazare surfaced but that too fizzled out with time.
Even though Hazare’s efforts were in vain, one of his close associates, Mr. Arvind Kejriwal formed his own political party- The Aam Aadmi Party- in his attempt to fight back and save what’s left of our city. No one expected much from him and up until the day before the elections, everyone expected AAP to win a few seats at best, with Congress or BJP hogging up all the power. Surely, we’d have to put up with another 5 years of corruption and avarice (after all, AAP was only promising a better city, while its well heeled competitors promised food, alcohol, a grand for a vote).
But 8th December proved everyone wrong. BJP won 31 seats and Congress managed to retain 8 seats in its feeble grip. The most delightfully surprising result was that AAP- the party that was formally launched just last November, not only managed to sweep congress off its feet with 28 seats in the 70 seat assembly, Kejriwal defeated Dikshit, who has been Delhi’s CM for 15 years, from her own constituency by a staggering 22,000 something votes.
Even though everyone is expecting astronomical change in Delhi’s administration, I am not worried whether AAP or BJP (who ever finally comes to power) is able to bring some welcome change and clean some of the mess Congress has made. The fact that Delhi has proven that it’s had enough and that running a country is no-one’s family business has proven that maybe democracy isn’t dead. The wave of change that started with discontent in people’s minds has finally started making way to the parliament. Maybe, it isn’t such a bad time to be an Indian after all.
Image courtesy: timesofindia.com
