Vision 2020 ??? (Please vote what do you think)

Over last few days, three things deeply disturbed me about India’s social and political future.

1.       Child Labor – While looking for a shoemaker for a quick shoe polish, I visited a local road side footpath stall and surprised to see the job handed over by a father to his 4 year old kid. When the child started polishing the shoe, I asked his father, “Why don’t you send him to a school instead?” the man replied, “He does not want to go to school”. This is the state of affairs in India 2012. I do not know the exact numbers but, there are millions of small kids kept away from education, and some of the basic human rights. On the other hand, there is a generation of growing middle and upper middle class kids spending more than 3 hours a day on Facebook and other non-productive activities, spending (wasting) money on luxuries and addictions. There is a widening gap between haves and have-nots which in turn disturbs balance of the society. The ever increasing cost of living makes it difficult for the lower middle class families to manage their living expenses. 

2.       Female Foeticide– Recently this issue has surfaced and it is surprising to see the numbers and ways in which girls are aborted from seeing this beautiful world. For some stupid rituals and customs a girl child is hated in India for centuries now and the practice of mercilessly killing these innocent girls is still continuing. If such is the state of progressive (so-called) Maharashtra state, one can imagine the numbers in the states like UP, Bihar, Rajasthan, etc. This practice is critically disturbing natures balance and the sex ratio in modern India. No doubt, in a long run, the social consequences will be devastating for the health of India as a country. 

     3.      Grand Welcome for Raja at Chennai – Granted that his involvement in 2G scam is not proven yet and he is not marked guilty by the Supreme Court of India, the grand ceremonial welcome he received on his arrival in Chennai is really depressing. In a country where genuine social workers and organizations hardly get any recognition,  the way our politicians are celebrated for all the wrong reasons deeply hurts. I am sure most of the young party workers do not even know what they are really cheering for, they are not given to think about the right and wrong. They are all paid cheer-leaders who are uncertain about their present leave alone the future. They all become directionless youth with all their energy drained into meaningless celebrations; in the end leading to a dark future. 

In summary, widening gap between rich and poor, declining-sex ratio and rise of political leaders due to wrong reasons (region, cast, language, etc.) and deprival of deserving and truthful politicians is the current state of India. I am not a pessimist, I truly want to see a Better India and a developed India by 2020 but at this juncture (less than 8 years for 2020), I see some serious flaws and ignorance in the vision statement of some of our beloved leaders, Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam and N.R. Narayana Murthy. It’s not wrong to be optimistic, but I feel we need some serious changes in place for at least moving in the right direction to achieve the goal of ‘Better India’ by 2020. Its sad but true, in my view that we are moving in a wrong direction.