1.4 Billion Indians, Zero Politicians Held Accountable — Impressive Honestly

India’s situation is not as bad as western media shows. In terms of economy and growth, India is doing okay — arguably even good. Things are temporarily moving in a positive direction. But that does not mean there are no problems.

The real issues that are a danger to India’s future are: corruption, unemployment, growing social division, media not doing its job honestly, and a broken political system. These are serious problems. But politicians do not make these the main topics during elections. Common people talk about these issues among themselves, but politicians have successfully kept them out of election discussions.

One clear example is India’s performance in the Olympics. With a population of 1.4 billion people, India wins very few medals. This is a serious issue. But people are kept busy watching cricket, so no one talks about it. The government is doing the bare minimum. They can do much better, but they choose not to. This is true for all political parties — they all create fake issues to distract the public.

Politicians have created their own issues as distraction. Indian politicians have successfully divided the majority of the population into two groups — leftist and rightist. Both sides have convinced people that the real issues are religion (Hindu-Muslim conflict), caste politics/reservation, freebies, minority appeasement and illegal immigration.

People who are rightist see no problem when Muslims are treated unfairly. People who are leftist see no problem when Hindus are treated unfairly or when Hindu religion is disrespected by others — they call it secularism. Both sides are wrong and both should be criticized.

Instead of fighting each other, people should question the government and hold it accountable for its work and policies.

Rotting From Within — The Reality of Corruption in India:

Corruption is the biggest crisis in India and people do not take it seriously. The deliberate failure to take necessary steps against corruption is nothing short of a betrayal — one that will inevitably push the country into a dark and irreversible decline. Corruption also generates a byproduct which is failing infrastructure.

Let’s start with corruption. I am mentioning the general perspective that is building up among common people. Government servant means he is corrupt. Any kind of work from any government department — whether it is documentation, licensing, approvals, etc. — getting it done without corruption is nearly impossible. Anybody who is employed by the government or working with the government, people just decide he is corrupt. There is no need for any kind of evidence or for the person to get caught. People have just started coming to the conclusion that a government job means corruption. If he is not corrupt, then why is he not getting transferred every six months? Why is he not suspended for no reason at all? Why does he not have a job in a useless department where his work is meaningless? People think finding an honest person in government is like finding a unicorn. That is the reputation of a person working for the government. Fear does not exist in the mind of a corrupt government employee because his superior is also corrupt, followed by his superior, followed by his superior — and the chain goes on. If anyone working in government gets called out by their superior for being corrupt, they do not get afraid at all. They simply reply, “Aren’t you corrupt also?” If somebody is honest and has a government job, the entire system sees them as an enemy and tries everything to break that person. An honest person has to face frequent transfers, suspensions, and pressure from superiors to become one of them. Things are going in the wrong direction when honest people are the ones who are suffering.

News of a government employee being caught taking a bribe has become an everyday occurrence. A government official having a net worth of millions of rupees and owning a luxury villa in a foreign country — which is impossible to afford on their current salary — is considered normal. The situation is so bad that some sitting ministers were caught taking a bribe on camera. In any progressive country, that should be the end of their political career and a one way ticket to jail. But quite the opposite effect can be seen here.

The most damaging and scariest corruption is in the judicial system. The failing judiciary is also causing people to do unethical things because of corrupt courts. Rich people are considered untouchable by the judiciary. The rich do not have to answer for their crimes or face consequences for their actions. If a rich person commits a crime, people simply assume nothing will happen to them. They will walk free after some court drama. They can settle outside the court by bribing the victim. If it goes to court, there will be a lack of evidence somehow. Evidence gets tampered with. The victim is pressured to pull back the lawsuit. The judge takes a bribe. And in the worst cases, the victim miraculously dies of natural causes or commits suicide. News of a rich teenager running over a dozen people with a car keeps reappearing from time to time with different names and different places. Poor people getting run over by car by the rich and powerful — what is wrong with that? It is not a crime. It was the fault of the poor people for being born, let alone walking outside their home. Film actors have run over people with their cars and are roaming free. Kids of politicians have also run over people — they were just learning how to drive, it was not their fault. Some elite rich kids have done this too but it is forbidden to talk about that. At the end of the day, who cares about a bunch of poor people dying.

Judicial system is so slow that I will say — delayed justice is still injustice. Maybe the courts are thinking that Hindus can reincarnate so they will eventually get justice in their next life. A person who has committed a crime gets bail, gets to appeal to a higher court, and by the time he gets convicted, he would have died of natural causes. Maybe they can keep his remains in jail. The mafia are hiring teenagers below 18 because they cannot be prosecuted as adults. By that logic, they should hire people above 70 because after 10 to 15 years when the court finally convicts them, they will probably already be dead.

The world praises India for having one of the low divorce rates. The reality is that the judiciary has made it so hard for a married person to get a divorce. What the courts do is drag a one-sided divorce case on for so long that the person simply gives up. The judiciary’s main goal seems to be to stop the divorce from happening so they can maintain a lower divorce rate. They do not care about the person’s actual problem. Divorce laws are also heavily in favour of women. If a person is 38 when he files for divorce and he turns 52 and the case is still running in court, then his current wife remains his best option because the best years for remarrying are already gone. That is what the judiciary is forcing people to do. There have been incidents of people committing suicide because they could not get a divorce. Some young people thought they could outsmart the system, and that is creating a major problem. In recent years, cases have gone up of husbands killing their wives or wives killing their husbands. Young people are using logic and thinking — why wait 10 to 20 years just for a divorce and waste the best years of life? So they decide to try to commit a perfect murder. And if they get caught, going to jail might still be better than living in their current hell.

People are getting so used to this corrupt system that being corrupt is now seen as being practical — not wrong, not unethical, but practical. People have even started to dislike a government official who is honest, because an honest official will make sure everything follows the rules and regulations. People are used to paying a bribe under the table and ignoring rules. Now they suddenly have to follow rules and regulations because the official in front of them is honest. They are simply not used to that.

Now let us talk about infrastructure, because corruption earns most of its money from infrastructure. Small to mid size local government projects conveniently go to relatives of local politicians or people working for local politicians — and of course there is a fair and transparent process for that. In big government infrastructure projects, officials and politicians take a large chunk as bribe money and simply look the other way. All of this gives the country an infrastructure that is a meme. Bridge collapses are so common that you can find such news literally every single day. The poor government was making potholes for the good of the people but people mistakenly thought the government was making a road and are now asking where the road is. They did excellent work making potholes — why are people confused and thinking it was supposed to be a road? Bridges collapse here even before their inauguration ceremony. Bridges collapse during construction. Airports collapse. All of this is considered normal. Drainage systems are built that do not work from day one. Roads are built and then immediately broken up again because someone forgot to lay the water pipeline underneath before paving. The failure of infrastructure is only treated as bad news when hundreds of people die because of a bridge collapse. And then the best thing happens — the media talks about it for one whole day. Nobody is going to jail for that. It was supposed to collapse during the construction phase, it did not, and a misunderstanding took place that quality work was done by mistake. The collapse simply made it clear that was not the case.

The system is so free and fair and transparent that any concern or query of the people will be addressed. Just recently in a well known case, a reporter questioned the poor quality of construction of a local road and raised his voice for the people. You know what happened — you guessed it. His dead body was found inside a septic tank belonging to the person he had accused. Such a free and fair and transparent system. It is as if politicians are throwing a challenge at the general public — the bridge that collapsed? My nephew built that. The road full of potholes six months after construction? That was us too. What are you going to do about it? You can do nothing. The police are on my side. The judiciary favours me. I have power and muscle. Corruption is at it strongest in the rural and remote areas. Not even mentioning that corruption has created paper leaks in competitive exams, giving students nothing but anger and frustration. An entire article should be written about that alone.

In the end, the conclusion is simple — a nation that refuses to confront corruption is a nation that has already surrendered its future. The darkness that lies ahead is not a warning. It is a punishment, earned through decades of silence, complicity, and moral failure.

Educated and Broke — The Unemployment Crisis Nobody Is Fixing:

Unemployment in our country is caused by the fact that our education system is producing skilled workers faster than new jobs are being created. This can be considered a small success of the education system — but one that has come back to bite us. There are far more graduates than there are available jobs. The government has failed to create jobs in proportion to the number of people graduating every year.

If you look at the job market in terms of demand and supply, you will notice a huge gap. There are far too many graduate people seeking employment — that is the supply. And there are very few well paying jobs available — that is the demand. The job market has a very large surplus of educated people seeking work compared to the actual available work. This gap is widening every passing year because more and more people graduate every year.

In this situation there are two kinds of lives. Roughly half the people are privileged enough or lucky enough to get a good paying job. Those who do not get one will be exploited because of their poor situation. This is where the private sector comes in. Private companies know that people desperately need jobs. They also know that there are not many regulations when it comes to minimum wage. Most small to mid size private companies have decided to take advantage of this situation in a way It is morally wrong — but not legally wrong, because strict regulations simply do not exist.

Let us start with how companies get away with unpaid labor. They offer unpaid internships for 3 to 6 months. Employers give false hope to young candidates — telling them this will help them get a job, or that if they perform well they will be hired by the same company after the internship ends. Freshers commit their time and money in the hope of getting work. Some people do more than one internship out of desperation. The result is freshers who finish their internship and are still unemployed. You can see profiles on platforms like LinkedIn of people who have done 2 to 3 internships thinking it will help them land a good job. In reality, an internship from a company nobody has heard of cannot help them get a job. It only benefits the company with free labour. This is a common practice and people are not questioning it. Only the younger generation — Gen Z — has shown some courage by calling it what it is: free labour.

Private companies offer freshers salaries so low that it is illogical to work for that amount. Companies justify this by saying the candidate lacks experience and the company is doing them a favour by giving them a job at all. Some small businesses even go as far as asking candidates to work the first month without any pay, after which the company will decide their salary based on performance. This is commonly practiced. People who come from well off families choose to stay unemployed and wait for the right opportunity — because if your monthly salary is less than what a construction labourer earns, then what was the point of graduation? But companies know there is a surplus of candidates and someone who is poor and desperate will agree to work even for a very low salary. Small businesses humiliatingly offer as little as 10,000 to 12,000 rupees a month to a graduate employee. We call it a survival salary. Even some food delivery agents and Ola and Uber drivers make more than that.

Young people, in hope of a better life, accept low paying jobs and move to a big city without any financial planning. They think their life will get better after some struggle. They dream of living independently and comfortably. As a byproduct of this, more and more young people end up living in a shared room with 3 or 4 people in a PG in very poor living conditions. Their earnings are barely enough to survive each month — living paycheck to paycheck. The worst case scenario is falling sick, because there is a real chance they will go broke that month.

So getting a job is already a struggle. Then come the other problems. Experienced people are underpaid. Companies always have more work than available staff, so working on Sundays without any extra pay is normal. Some companies have 12 hour shifts and people just accept it. 10 hour shifts are common. 9 to 5 is rare except for highly educated people or those living in Tier 1 cities. Target based jobs require unpaid overtime are a common occurrence. Staying unemployed for more than a year is common. Having no medical insurance is common. For people who are not graduates, salaries as low as 6,000 rupees a month are common — for factory workers, mall and store employees, private office staff, house help, cleaning staff, and others. Companies post job listings on social platforms and deliberately do not mention the salary or their hiring budget. Their goal is to hire someone as cheaply as possible.

All of this is a major contributing factor to growing wealth inequality. It is also a reason why young people are trying to leave the country and work abroad. But leaving the country requires money — which is why it remains a luxury available only to a few. Over time, not intentionally but systematically, things have become such that if someone is born into a poor family, they will spend a long period of their life earning only enough to survive. There are laws, of course — but it is as if the law exists and nobody is there to enforce it. Then is it really still a law? Recently the government introduced new labour law reforms which questionably exclude minimum wage laws. That alone is quite sketchy.

Still Divided — How Caste Continues to Shape Life in India:

This issue is very controversial. Depending on who you ask, people react differently — they get uncomfortable, they do not want to talk about it, they try to change the subject, or they get angry. To understand why this issue exists, you need to have some basic understanding of Hindu society.

Hindus have a caste system. A person’s caste is determined by the family they are born into. There are four main castes and many sub-castes, and there is much to learn about the details. But all you need to know for now is that the caste system divides all Hindus into two broad groups — upper caste and lower caste, lower cast mostly includes Dalits and Tribals.

In the past, upper caste people were deeply oppressive towards lower caste people. Practices like untouchability, social exclusion, and denial of education were common. Fast forward to today — towns, villages, and city areas still have caste-based residential segregation. Posh areas with better amenities and infrastructure are where upper caste people live, and those areas are considered prime real estate. Areas with poor infrastructure, bad amenities, and slums are where lower caste people live.

If a lower caste person wants to buy a home in a new luxury residential project, it is quite common for them to be denied — based on their caste alone — even if they have the money. Real estate builders and developers commonly sell only to upper caste buyers. Residential societies only allow upper caste people to live in them these type of things are common. Even today, lower caste people still face this kind of discrimination. Some people justify it by saying the owner has the right to choose who they sell to. But the reality is that lower caste people are being forced to live in the worst areas of society because upper caste people still practice discrimination in property sales. It is not even illegal to deny a property sale to someone based on their caste. No authority can take action and there are no consequences for it.

This helps maintain residential segregation between lower caste and upper caste — on top of the Hindu-Muslim segregation that already exists. People justify this discrimination by saying upper caste people are mostly vegetarian and do not want to live next to someone who is not. Lower caste people see this as discrimination and as a way for upper caste people to keep them lower on the social ladder. If you ask a lower caste person, they will say this is a serious issue. If you ask an upper caste person, they will not see it as an issue at all. This residential segregation is one contributing factor to caste-based politics and helps maintain the status quo. Only some Tier 1 cities are somewhat free from this problem. Even outside India, in African countries like Uganda, Tanzania…etc the Indian population is known to practice segregation against the local African population. And this is only one part of the issue.

The other part of the problem is discrimination in day to day life. These incidents have greatly reduced over time but some still occur. Lower caste Dalits and Tribals are still denied entry into some Hindu temples even today. There are still cases of lower caste people being killed simply for riding a horse, wearing a specific turban, or wearing specific shoes. There is also a lot of unspoken discrimination that continues quietly.

To give some specific examples — in some lower caste weddings, the groom has to request police protection if he wants to ride a horse at his own wedding because he fears for his life. Many lower caste families still avoid having the groom ride a horse at weddings — not because they do not want to, but because they are afraid. There are certain clothing items like turbans and shoes that upper caste people claim as their own. If any lower caste person dares to wear them, they risk being beaten or even killed. This discrimination gets worse and worse the further you go into rural and remote parts of India.

Upper caste people look at these incidents and do not think much of them. But those who suffer — the lower caste people — look at every detail. The police not helping in the beginning, incidents like these happening repeatedly — it makes them feel afraid and angry, knowing they cannot do anything about it. Western media always talks about Muslims being the oppressed minority in India. But in reality, lower caste people are more oppressed — because they are afraid of both upper caste people and Muslims, and they cannot fight back against either. In short, caste-based discrimination still exists. It is not as bad as it was in the past — it is a much weaker version of what it once was — but the government does not like to be asked questions about it.

The Silent Media — When Journalists Stop Asking Hard Questions:

Mainstream media is becoming more of a PR agency, advertising platform, and cover-up machine for the government and the rich. The number of people who are generally accepting this as a fact is scary.

India recently saw a clear reflection of their situation in an incident where a Norwegian reporter asked Indian Prime Minister directly — why he refuses to take questions from the freest press. In my opinion, that was the right thing to do. He should be held accountable for not holding a single unscripted press conference in years. I wish Indian media had the spine to ask him that question directly. His supporters defended him by saying Norway disrespected and humiliated their Prime Minister, playing a small sympathy card. But I see it differently — the Prime Minister humiliated himself by dodging uncomfortable question for so long. All he has done is give scripted interviews where the interviewer asks him things like how he likes to eat mangoes.

In current times, a fear has settled into people — the fear of criticizing the government. People believe that if they criticize the government, authorities will take action against them and they will face jail time. That is not right. People should not be afraid to criticize their government. Aside from that, people have already accepted that if their criticism of the government gets any attention at all, they will be harassed, threatened, and called anti-national by the IT cell.

The criticism of media is growing because the same media has abandoned its field operations. These same media houses used to do sting operations — catching government officials taking bribes on camera. They even used to sting government ministers. They had the spine to grill politicians regardless of their political party. They used to do ground reports on ongoing government projects and point out poor quality work and irregularities. They openly questioned government policies and their motives.

In recent times that has all stopped. If the media had done news reports while a bridge was still under construction, the news of that bridge collapsing right after completion would never have happened. Now they just do news segments from their air conditioned rooms.

In conclusion — if the media will not ask uncomfortable questions to the people in power, then those people in power will become comfortable authoritarians.

Caught Between Bad and Worse — India’s Political Trap

In the current political situation, all the options feel rigged. The reason I say this is because BJP and INC are simply passing power back and forth between each other. Only one of them will come to power at the centre. There is no real third option. And the frightening question is — what if both of them are corrupt and oppressive? On top of that, neither of them will allow any other party to become a serious third option.

INC holds a bigger corruption record in India — the 2G scam, the coal scam, and many others. They also suffer from a deep nepotism problem when it comes to selecting their top leadership. Overall, whether intentionally or not, they are projecting themselves as an undisciplined and weak political party. When it comes to choosing a leader, they have people available who can strongly oppose the government, who are non-corrupt, who come from poor backgrounds, and who have a real connection with voters. But their logic says — choose the nepo-kid over them. Someone who was born rich, is hated for nepotism, and cannot hold the government accountable for their blunder. Strong and non-corrupt leaders are kept only for show. The nepo-kid is what they actually want to sell. I honestly do not know how they are still functioning after all of this.

All other regional players — SP, JDU, RJD, TMC, DMK, NC, NCP, AIMIM and others — have all fallen to the same nepotism disease. They are forcing voters to choose their undeserving nepo-kids because every party has one. There are some regional players like AAP, TVK and a few others, but I believe some of them will catch the nepotism virus over the next one or two decades. They are small regional players with influence over only one or two states. They do not have the power to challenge BJP and INC in a central election.

The opposition has failed to make itself a better option, and because of that BJP remains in power. BJP successfully convinced common people that the opposition is still more corrupt, softer on criminals, and weaker on nationalism and women’s safety. Instead of working on their flaws and rebuilding themselves, the opposition simply blames the election results are rigged. People often ask how BJP keeps staying in power — but nobody wants to mention that it is simply very hard to trust the opposition. The things they did while they were in power are still haunting them. BJP stays in power not because it is the better option, but because the opposition is even worse.

Even BJP are so fed up with opposition that they are creating problems for themselves. Loyal right wing voters are growing frustrated with the party. Their biggest complaint is that BJP has become a safe haven for corrupt opposition politicians. Leaders from the opposition who have ED and CBI cases against them, or who have serious criminal cases, are joining BJP simply to avoid jail time. Instead of letting justice take its course, BJP is protecting these corrupt and criminal politicians because they have joined their side. This raises a very simple question — what kind of law and order is this? Right wing leaders are unhappy that what is rightfully theirs is being handed to outsiders they consider corrupt and ideologically opposite. Nepotism is also quietly creeping into BJP at the lower levels of leadership.

Their biggest achievement seems to be this — anyone who tries to hold them accountable for corruption, unemployment, or any other serious issue gets only one response. They are called Pakistani, anti-national, Bangladeshi, or a terrorist sympathiser. What is funny is that they call these people Pakistani but never actually deport them to Pakistan. If they are Pakistani by your logic, why not deport them? They are setting a clear example — if common person make them look bad by asking difficult questions, they will get jail time, fake cases filed against them, and as a bonus, death threats. They are doing their best to turn mainstream media into a joke.

The opposition, on the other hand, deliberately avoids raising or strongly criticising the real issues. It is almost as if they are thinking to themselves — let us fight against corruption? No, our own people benefit from it too. Let us raise our voice against unemployment and income inequality? No, that will go against the rich elites who fund our elections. And if young people actually go to work, there will be nobody left to hold party flags and get arrested at pointless protests. Let us call out the housing segregation of lower caste Hindus and Muslims? No, we also benefit from caste politics and the Hindu-Muslim divide. The opposition does try to raise its voice on the media issue — but somehow it never gets any attention in the news.

One of the scariest things about Indian politics is that at the very grassroots level, local gangsters are almost always members of political parties. The second scary thing is how many current MPs and MLAs have criminal records. Which brings us to a simple question — how hard is it for political parties to find a candidate who is local, well educated, and has no criminal background?

I would like to know your thoughts — whether positive, negative, or neutral. Please comment below.