Speak up, my fellow Indians

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark,” says a minor character in Shakespeare’s iconic play Hamlet, expressing a sense that the affairs of the kingdom are no longer being ethically conducted, and that even the highest authority in the land is sullied by some moral turpitude. More than 400 years after Shakespeare wrote the play, citizens are so jaded that we are no longer surprised at any kind of abuse of power by government. We are too used to scams and the favourite response of the middle-class and educated Indians when critiquing politics is to quip, “All politicians are the same.” Or, “Politics is a dirty game.”

But, behind these hollow sayings is a cop-out that hides a deep rot. Many things are deeply rotten in India—our polity, politics, politicians, media, and once ‘neutral’ institutions. But, perhaps, the deepest rot is the one that festers in our society, in people like us.

Every other week there is fresh proof of this rot in the form of a heinous crime often enacted in public and, we, the proud inheritors of an ancient land and great culture hum and haw and make insipid remarks on social media, but never really shake off the cynicism and indifference that has brought us where we are today.