The
leader of a smuggling gang is the son of the Chief Minister
of a State!
And because he is the son of the Chief Minister he defies
the police!!!
I am prepared to prove it if an impartial enquiry is
conducted!
If proved false, I am prepared to court imprisonment.
—So announces, a prominent member of the P.S.P. from
Punjab.
Smuggling is rampant in the North - from gold to opium!
The number of undetected cases amaze the public - but
the P.S.P. leader’s statement explains the reason why
these black deeds go unchecked! When the culprit happens
to be related to those placed in power, how can there
be justice?
Because of this very same reason, it may be impossible
to prove the charges too—for the highly placed know
how to work out their way of escape.
Whatever may be the truth behind such allegations, none
can doubt that the term V.I.P. is a screen powerful
enough to hide the most heinous of crimes.
From time to time we find police officials endowed with
a skill and a soul, unearthing cases of smuggling, but
then, when these culprits are brought before a court
of law, most of the evidence that the investigator laboriously
found out melt into thin air, and the ‘accused’ get
the benefit of doubt, and saunter back to his, sinister
Villa!
Officials with less enthusiasm, take these as lessons,
and refuse to look into these misdeeds - for why should
they, when they know full well, that the means of escape
are easy.
The recent police drive against smuggling has revealed
that Delhi is a big centre of trade in illicit opium.
During the last one and a half months, police have rounded
up 225 smugglers and seized a large quantity of opium
and illicit liquor.
A high police official told pressmen that the number
of smugglers arrested and the quantity of opium seized
showed that illicit trade was carried on in Delhi on
a large scale.
Persons engaged in this nefarious activity in many cases
were men considered to be ‘very respectable’ in society,
he said.
The narcotic was mostly smuggled from Rajasthan, Patiala
and other places in Punjab.
An upcountry daily publishes this news!
Another upcountry weekly points out that the head of
the smugglers in Punjab, happens to be the son of a
Chief Minister - of course Congress!!
What ought to be the reaction in Congress circles, we
do not know. Perhaps there are some who envy the fortunate
ones!
It can happen only in Bharath - the birth place, so
they claim, of the sacred principle of Co-existence!
Whether, those that pay lip-service to this laudable
principle would come forward at some distant date at
least, to translate this into action or not, the principle
has found a happy abode inside Bharath.
Here we find dame democracy co-existing with dare devil,
dictatorship!
Here we find, increased food production side by side
with high prices!
Co-existence, is to be found in very many other charming
ways!
With an iron hand, so they say, smuggling is put down
and along with this, we are presented with the fact
that men who are highly placed in society are directing
this smuggling business - from gold to opium!
Prohibition co-exists with cock-tail parties.
Religious discourse and darshans, are arranged and Rock-
‘n’ - Roll is no taboo—they co-exist!
Why, sweepers are being shot down dead, and sermons
on Non-Violence are preached with equal zeal!!
Verily, co-existence is having its fullest flourish
in Delhi.
There is the austerity drive along with the hurried
programme of building new mansions.
Delhi has become the fashionable capital for the fortunate
ones—no day passes without a party and nobody is prepared
to miss the mirth!
While fathers preach basic education principles, mothers
are busily engaged in paying hurried visits to Switzerland
to hug and to kiss, the children of course, who are
having ultra-modern education there!!
Where else can one find such an abundant demonstration
of the principle of co-existence?
None dare doubt this co-existence, for do they not find
Pandit Nehru inaugurating Charka classes with the same
enthusiasm as when he inaugurates atomic research centre.
Delhi talks enthusiastically about ‘economy’ in every
sphere and with equal vigour is maintaining a palatial
hotel —working at a loss!!
Delhi issues dictums on decentralisation with as much
of fervour as it grabs all available power from the
States and locates all sorts of departments in the city!
Delhi talks of Asokan simplicity and at the same time
indulges in Shajahan style building programmes.
The goal set before Delhi is Socialism and the means
to attain that goal is to declare strikes as illegal!
Deficit Budget is decried - as for as States are concerned
- but deficit budget has become the order of the day
as far as Delhi is concerned.
Paradoxes, one is tempted to term this state of affairs—Delhi
calls this as co-existence par excellence!
Mr. Kumarappa, cites an instance, to prove the mentality
at work in Delhi.
Sweepers are shot dead
slogan of socialism sung.
“The technique of how the rich exploit the weak was
spotlighted at the time of my visit to New Delhi to
attend the Planning Commission “Advisory Board” says
Mr. Kumarappa.
It seems he took a ‘tonga’ to go to Rashtrapathi Bhavan,
from the railway station.
“I am a poor man, I shall get into trouble if I take
you to the Bhavan. Tongas are not allowed.”
So pleaded the tonga-vallah and Kumarappa it seems assured
him, that nothing untoward would happen.
But at every turn, soldiers, constables, chaprasis barred
the progress of this pilgrim.
“Panditji is to pass this way to preside over the Planning
Commission meeting - so we are clearing the road for
him”
informed a Sikh young man - a sentry.
Kumarappa was angry - but he convinced the sentry that
his very purpose was to attend the same meeting - and
then the tonga was allowed.
And then, of course, Kumarappa met Pandit Nehru. Let
this venerable old man narrate, what transpired:—
“I told Panditji that a bullock cart driver in a democracy
was as good a citizen as the Prime Minister—it was an
insult to deny him the use of public road. Pandit Nehru
said, the restriction was placed in the interest of
the bullock cart driver—as those roads were frequented
by military lorries and accidents might happen in which
the bullock carts would be the worse sufferes.
"Sir! you are a lawyer used to a special pleading,
but to a simple man like me, your argument looks upside
down. When there are two persons in public and the presence
of one is likely to be a menance to the other, my common
sense would lead me to restrain the source of danger
rather than the possible victim. Accordingly I would
put up a notice that motor cars and lories are not allowed
and thus protect the bullock cart.”
This evoked a peal of laughter!
Yes, a peal of laughter! That’s all what one could get
now-a-days, at Delhi, when men like Kumarappa plead
for the poor and the downtrodden! Delhi, the seat of
imperial monarchs, has now become the citadel of a dazzling
and daring dictatorship donning the democratic garb,
as it suits its purpose remarkably well.
Having had his schooling at Sabaramathi, poor Mr.Kumarappa
is forced to think that the Gandhian principle is strictly
adhered to, at Delhi.
The Gandhian principle is being praised, and allowed
to co-exist with an imperial splendour which the great
Moghuls themselves found to be too costly!
Nehru’s India is at once a nest for the doves and a
ravine for the vultures! - for whatever the consequence
Bharath is wedded to the principle of co-existence!
(This India! - a poem composed by Charan Prasad published
by the “Illustrated Weekly of India” depicts the truth
thus.)
Naked, pot-bellied, rickety, loafing boys,
Girls with wrinkled cheeks, dust-ridden hair, hot, hungry
eyes,
Women, woebegone, weary hunger-stricken, with suckling
babes,
Men, haggard, spiritless, babbling useless words,
The millionaire, with smooth, sensual face and a commercial
tongue,
The fake Sadhu, ash-haired pacing the streets on and
scheming round.
The desolate fields, crazy crowded streets,
The shrunken faces, half-naked masses, animal criss-crossing
in two’s and three’s.
The very heavens raging fire and flood, and rivers o’erflooding
the plains,
Doomed villages, washed-out crops and panicking humanity.
This India, stark, wretched with heart-breaking pangs,
What sun awaits her dreadful nights, what glorious dawns
to gild her wasted plains?
(11-08-1957)