The country faces a hard time, with disastrous political leadership, a general failure of institutions and a middle class preoccupied with private concerns, says Pratap Bhanu Mehta, the respected commentator on public affairs.
Mehta, 47, president and chief executive of the non-partisan Centre for Policy Research, based in this city, delivered his scathing critique on a television interview conducted by Karan Thapar on CNN-IBN's 'Devil's Advocate' programme.
The situation is bad enough, he feels, to threaten our sense of nationhood, our unity as a nation.
Mehta puts a lot of blame for this state of affairs on the "disastrous" performance of Manmohan Singh as Prime Minister since the start of his second tenure in 2009 - "you have a PM of the country who consistently abdicates responsibility...he has not only not exercised leadership but has stood by while institutions have been decimated bit by bit" is how he puts it. Adding, here is a PM who seems not to know what he wants, added to which is a lack of political authority and legitimacy.
As for the ruling party's crown prince, Rahul Gandhi, he's not much more complimentary. "There's almost nothing in what he does or says that actually reflects any big ambitions for India ...in every national crisis, he has been missing in action. When a healing touch is required, when you need the reassurance of somebody, to say you know somebody is in charge, he has been absent." Jawaharlal Nehru, he adds, is unlikely to be impressed by his great-grandson's performance.
Mehta's almost as scathing of the major opposition grouping, the Bharatiya Janata Party, saying there's "complete confusion about what they stand for...we have absolutely no idea what their core economic beliefs are...their factional squabbles have arguably been grater than in the Congress..." Adding, though, "The only thing is that they've had four or five states where their chief ministers have managed to provide some degree of successful administration."
On the most prominent of these CMs, the BJP's PM-designate, Narendra Modi, the CPR chief made his lack of enthusiasm clear, stating a Modi prime ministership would "carry immense risks" for the country. "Given the nature of his personality and the lack of contrition he has shown about 2002 (the Gujarat anti-Muslim violence), he is going to remain a divisive figure", among other minuses, he made clear.
Mehta's criticism of the way our instutions have conducted themselves include the media, which he says is "failing Indian democracy". He points to a lack of rigour, of commitment, of impartiality in going about its job.
Mehta's premise is that the Indian state and its institutions should not be marked by great centralisation, wide discretion, secrecy and arbitrary exercise of power. Yet, is these that mark the way we are governed and all or most of us seem content to go along, instead of questioning, let along standing up and trying to help a change for the better." The same point can be made, he remarks, about many of those who say they wish to reform the way we are governed.
A healthy society, he says, is marked by a general commitment to creating and maintaining public institutions; instead, our middle class seem to have little appetite for the effort required. "We are all thinking strategically, as individuals," he regrets. "We all avail private education, private health, private transport, private security and we may reach a point where we may structurally begin to secede from public institutions."
