Save us from our politicians

Growing up in the 1970s, our idea of politicians was rather skewed and dictated by Hindi films — except for the larger-than-life Indira Gandhi of course. The rest were sleazy, oily characters who socialised with smugglers in their very garish homes, which, apart from the requisite “Mona Darling” and “Raabert”, usually also housed a bar with colourful glass everywhere.

These were days of prohibition or its hangover, so alcohol was denied to the common folk (hence the smugglers). But we all knew that the sleazes had access to it. Luckily, the day was saved by a superhero usually called Vijay and often played by Amitabh Bachchan.

From then on, the picture of the corrupt politician was ingrained in us. And of course, in spite of all their best efforts (I’m joking), the people of India are convinced that politicians don’t understand the meaning of honesty, accountability and strange words like that.
It is hardly surprising therefore that hundreds of people across India have gathered themselves around Anna Hazare’s fast to shame the government to pass the Lokpal bill. Anna Hazare may be in Delhi’s Jantar Mantar but even cynical, busy Mumbai stopped running around to support him. The issue of corruption has now become so large that it is no longer possible to ignore it or tolerate it.

And those silly politicians, they give us reason to point fingers at them every day. The last decade has been spent trying to take Mumbai from the 21st century to Victorian times — the sanctimonious posturing and fake moralising. No dance bars, heavy taxes on alcohol consumption, even more taxation on entertainment, forcing eateries to close and so on. But the night India wins the World Cup and Mumbai consumes lakhs of litres of alcohol and dances all night on the streets, please note than there were no objections from the usual hypocrites. People had fun, which is their right, without any restrictions. Interesting!

Or take Sachin Tendulkar’s request for permission to build a gym in his new house being built in Bandra. Just a few weeks ago, the authorities were adamant he didn’t deserve permission and the cricketer withdrew the request. But, alakazam, India wins the World Cup and our politicians immediately want to grant him the permission. Sachin Tendulkar is India’s greatest batsman and one of the greatest cricketers ever — and it did not take the World Cup to convince us of this. No, here come our sleazy friends ready to jump on to the latest bandwagon.

No political system can run without politicians; we accept that. But in the 42 years since the anti-corruption Lokpal bill was first introduced, we’ve allowed them to get away with murder and everything else as well.

This is India’s chance to prove the Hindi movies wrong. No superhero called ‘Vijay’ is going to come and save us. We have to do it ourselves.