Tasks that can wait no more

During the War years, the British imperialists seemed to have managed India's petroleum economy better than the agents of socialist verbomania and authoritarian sophistry are able to do now. The Union government is forsaking the masses and their basic freedom of movement and right to life as promised in the Constitution.

Perhaps the Defence of India Act has to be brought back? Why is there no drive against black-marketing? There should be rationing of fuel. Those who are fearlessly profiteering should be sent to jail.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is straightforward but inefficient. He has become a

benami statesman under the thrall of a dollar economy. Once a great economist, today a manager of dubious dealers. Corporate big business is the winner. Large corporations that thrive on harsh pollutants are being encouraged.

Ubiquitous black money operation comes at a price. Once upon a time, the law and the executive and judicative provisions were stern and straight, and had a conscience. Now money matters everywhere — in bazaar, school and hospital.

A fearless Commission is needed to investigate the laxity, the sophistry and the ineffective enforcement of the law. The gold shops seem forever crowded. There is gorgeous extravagance for marriages, huge dowries, and alcoholism everywhere. The political parties are largely corrupt and much of India's wealth is in the Swiss banks.

Dare you appoint a Commission to investigate the wealth of political parties including yours, and the hidden wealth in Swiss banks? There was a TV discussion during the elections on the vanishing relevance of the Left. But the Communists are perhaps the only politicians today without Swiss bank accounts.

The ethos of the nation has become communal. Educational and medical institutions have become money-oriented. Humanism is gone. Compassion and anti-alcoholism are provided for in the Constitution, but there is no thought for enforcement.

Governments seem to have become philosophically indifferent towards such issues. The tryst with destiny that Jawaharlal Nehru spoke of is irrelevant today. Swadeshi is dead. It is nuclear power that the nation is hankering after, not solar or wind power. There is hardly any research on wind or wave or solar energy. We live on dependencia syndrome.

The latest petrol price hike is a cruel blow. On whose side is our government? Our economy suffers prostitution and prodigality. Parsimony and purity seem to have become alien to the economy.

Rajiv Gandhi, in conversations twice with me, had condemned corporate control of our economy — irresponsible, never for the poor and free from public finance control as they are.

Where were you before coming to India as Prime Minister? The World Bank economy would have made you familiar with the U.S. economy.

Why try to leave it to the judges? You as the Prime Minister can organise and revolutionise the Indian system and make the judicial ethos fit to function in daridranarayana conditions. Do it now. We have a world to gain and a wicked world to lose.