I see a lot of dialogue on social media and news channels alike on the shortcomings and advantages of various political parties. And the more I read, the more I believe strongly that the solution for this problem does not lie in democracy or elections or reforms or activism or anything else that is being promoted. The only solution in my eyes is self-reform. In giving names and decrying all these problems, these problems of corruption, traffic, pollution, communalism, etc., we have successfully externalized them and thereby assume these can be solved by some panacea. But the reality is,
Every time me and my family buy property by undervaluing it and thereby circulating black money, a politician will swindle crores in a scam ensuring I pay more taxes than I should.
Every time I jump a red signal or pass an intersection without stopping, some celebrity or bigwig will block roads for a procession meant to give him/her gain ensuring I fail to reach the hospital in time in case of an emergency.
Every time I fail to manage my own waste, dump it into the sewage without second thought about what happens to it afterwards, some industrialist will flood a river with effluents killing my own child giving him cancer.
Every time I refuse to share my home with an insect, a bird or an animal when it causes no harm to my existence, somewhere a religious sect will conduct a pogrom in which my sister will get raped and her unborn child butchered.
Every time I try to get my license without understanding basic traffic rules and lacking the ability to decipher traffic signs, somewhere a rich man's kid will run over my elderly father in a bout of drunken driving.
Every time I get married expecting the girl's side to bear most of the wedding expenses and allow my parents to make demands on jewelry and vessels from her side (when I offer nothing from my side), my beautiful daughter will be burnt to death for dowry in some remote village. (Of all my sins so far, this I regret most.)
Every time I instruct my daughter to watch what she wears and fail to condemn my son when he leers at women; every time I fail to educate my children on sexuality, my daughter will get brutally gang raped in some dark alley.
Every time I put aside a separate vessel for my servant maid to use and think someone is inferior because they are dark, I will get emotionally scarred and brutally persecuted in a foreign country and left to die.
The Delhi gang rape, the Godhra train burning and the riots in the aftermath, the anti-Sikh riots, the Babri Masjid demolition, the drying up of Yamuna, the silent killing of Koovam and Musi, the Mumbai terrorist attacks, the coal scam, the 2G scam, the Bofors scandal, the ethnic cleansing and civil war in Sri Lanka, the various bomb blasts across the country, the dowry burnings, the female infanticides, the persecution of Dalits, the disappearance of habitat in the Western Ghats, the near extinction of the Nilgiri Tahr, the lion-tailed macaque, the Bengal tiger and the one-horned rhinoceros, the increasing man-animal conflicts involving leopards and elephants, the farmer suicides across the country...
These are all my sins, my crimes. I am responsible in every single way for every single thing that is wrong with the country, the state, the district and the very street I live on. If anybody must be crucified, hung, drawn and quartered, persecuted and penalized, it is me and me alone.
And because nobody will penalize me, I shall try my best and atone for all these crimes. I shall try and build that one thing which if present will solve all problems in the world - my conscience. I shall try to see if I can reform the only real criminal in this whole country - me.
P.S. If any of you are going to like, share or comment this post, do it after a bit of introspection. Please do it only if you of your own will believe in this post and feel you too are as culpable as I am.
