A fall lower than the lowest ...

Yesterday there was a news item in the English Daily The Times of India , Bangalore Edition, which made me sad. It read Abu Salem to contest elections from Azamgarh in UP, his home town.

A dreaded gangster abettor in crime, one of those responsible for the Mumbai bomb blasts in early 90s, one who was searched by the Indian Police and Interpol for decades, one for whose extradition the CBI had made elaborate submission in Portugal, one who must be stoned to death publicly, one who should be made to die bit by bit, second by second for the rest many bits of his body and seconds of his life.

And this same person is being invited by a political party to contest elections. One of his relatives, as reported by the daily, said that the clan to which Abu belongs is 20% of the population, a number too high to be ignored by any political party, a number which can turn the fate of the elections.

What has happened to us? What has happened to the democracy for which the freedom fighters gave their life? What happened to the values? What happened to the feeling of doing good for the country?

How low can this democracy bow? Having fallen so low, when will the political parties and the politicians hit hard surface? When the people understand the perils of their actions?

What happened when the infamous Bandit Queen Phoolan Devi was elected as Member of Parliament on a Smajvadi Party Ticket? Was giving her the free ticket to the Parliament a way to assuage what was done to her? Was that a way to legitimate and pardon what she had done, so many killings? I do not condone and say that what was done to her was right, it was a ghastly act, but a tooth for a tooth, an eye for an eye? Instead of hitting the root cause of the problem, the casteism, the politicians just did add fuel to this wildfire.

All this reminds of what Chanakya once did, to kill the tree whose thorn has pierced his foot. Remove the root cause, kill the tree instead of removing the thorns.

We will all, for certain, burn in the heat of this wildfire.

The uncomfortable heat has already started to take its toll.