Is India really Shining?

Most readers of this post, the elite few in this country, with access to broadband network connection and computers, educated in English medium schools and prestigious universities, carry a notion of 'India Shining'. The shine is eye-caching in the urban centers of development like Gurgaon, Bangalore, Pune, Hyderabad etc with the mushrooming new skyrises, shopping malls and multiplexes, 8-lane national highways, 7 digit salaries in the IT and Financial Sectors, the rise of the Sensex from 5000 to 20000, and revolutionizing upheavals in various industry segments like telecommunications, road tranport, commercial transport, air-travel, banking and investment, insurance, media and entertainment, education, power & energy, and information technology,

No doubt India has seen tremendous growth in the last 2 decades and it has been for good, but we need to look beneath this shining carpet for the dirt within, that covers the majority of our population, who are not only bereft of any benefits of this growth, but have no means to voice their opinion or anguish at the widening gap between the haves and the have nots. And the greatest irony is that this majority of have nots in our country has the decisive say in the formation of a so-called democratic government that in turn choses to ignore the very same masses to play in the hands of the rich.

I do not mean to discredit the achivements of our nation, but is it really shining? Is it like the shining glare from the surface of water in a dirty pond, that makes it appear beautiful, hiding away the rotting filth within? Just the other day I read two contrasting stories on the newspaper frontpage, and the agony and pain I felt within was revolting. One reported that the Supreme Court reprimanded the government for treating our soldiers and martyrs as beggars, by offering them a measly Rs 1000 (USD 20) as monthly pension, and when challenged by the families of the martyrs of Kargil, it went to the court to fight it out, and on the other side, another story reported that the MPs and MLAs of Delhi are demanding allocation of posh apartments in the newly constructed Games village in New Delhi post the Commonwealth games from the government. Can it get any worse?