No country for resignations

I have never heard of an Indian politician use the word ‘responsibility’ in a sentence, unless it is during an election season, and they have run out of things to accuse minority communities of. Representation Pic

It's strange when I read about politicians in foreign lands resigning on account of something bad happening in the departments they control. I recently read about a minister in Greece, for example, who resigned in the wake of a train crash that had claimed the lives of a few citizens. Why would he do such a thing, I wondered, unless he was driving the train himself? Did someone force him to, or did he act according to his own troubled conscience? Why would someone accept responsibility for a loss of lives just because they were in charge of handling the country's railways? It felt like a movie script because I had never heard of such a thing while growing up. A politician behaving honourably? It sounded too good to be true.

It probably felt like an anomaly because it has been a decade since we had someone honourable and deserving of respect in charge of this country. Out of curiosity though, I did a quick search for ministers in Maharashtra who have resigned recently, wondering if they had suddenly begun to behave like responsible adults while no one was looking. Unsurprisingly, there was nothing. The only recent examples that popped up involved politicians resigning to join other parties. It was like an elaborate game of musical chairs, with someone in Delhi in charge of playing the music. Not one had stepped away because of failure to accomplish what they had been elected to do.

I was not surprised because this has always been the case in these parts. I have never heard of an Indian politician use the word ‘responsibility' in a sentence, unless it is during an election season, and they have run out of things to accuse minority communities of.

It prompted me to think about what politicians were like while I was growing up. There were some names I knew as a child, but most were faceless entities hovering in the background. As I grew older, I began to understand that each of them was tasked with something specific but could never define what their roles meant. I see now, even after all this time, how little has changed. I know who the chief minister of the year is but would lose a bet if asked to name the person in charge of animal husbandry.

The reason I mention this is because I believe we are a nation that has always condoned a habit of shirking what someone in authority is supposed to do. We elect politicians despite knowing they will do little that is good for us, because that is what we are told democracy is about. We look away after a tragedy because we know there will be no accountability, and no blame assigned to those genuinely responsible. We read about multiple train accidents, nod sadly at the hundreds of lives lost, then like posts on Instagram put up by a railway minister announcing that new trains now have pantries with Dal Makhani on the menu. We do this with nonchalance because we have been trained to set the bar low for anyone in power, and they know this even before they are elected.

Then again, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe this is good for some of us. If politicians do not resign for their failures, it would explain why so many of our fellow citizens refuse to acknowledge their own inability to act as decent citizens. Why should someone apologise for spitting on the street when a minister in charge of women's safety holds on to her job despite being an embarrassment from day one? Why should a traffic policeman be blamed for a drunk driver running over someone when a man accused of murder and extortion can be elected to Parliament for three consecutive terms? So many of us base all behaviour upon what our role models do, and we have always been a country that lacks intelligence when it comes to picking the right kind of shining examples. So maybe it's just a cultural thing and I should accept that it isn't going to go away in a hurry.

I sometimes wonder what India would be like if ministers resigned though. What if just once, one of them apologised in public for dividing the nation, tearing the fabric of secular society, ruining the economy with harebrained policies, or selling our public assets to billionaire friends? What if we had people of integrity in Parliament, just as a pleasant surprise?

Wouldn't that be nice?

When he isn't ranting about all things Mumbai, Lindsay Pereira can be almost sweet. He tweets @lindsaypereira
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