Even without accounting for the fact that the world is still grappling with wave after wave of the dreadful Covid-19 virus almost a year and a half since the outbreak of the pandemic, there are serious problems aplenty. Much of those seem to stem from a dire shortage of trust and stability as an undeniable sense of chaos pervades.
Leading that list at present is the Pegasus scandal, which has revealed how governments across the world have wrongfully kept tabs on journalists, business people, activists and opposition political leaders using a spyware developed by an Israeli cyberarms firm. Wrongfully, because the spyware is only supposed to be used for surveillance of terrorism and other serious crimes. And rightfully, the exposé has led to the practice being decried worldwide as an attack on the freedom of press and speech, on the right to dissent, and on democracy at large.
Given that our nation features prominently in the controversy, with the global collaborative investigative project revealing over 300 verified Indian mobile phone numbers, including those of many prominent personalities, there is understandably a lot of noise over the issue. While there is no doubt about its potential political and electoral consequences in the long term, there is a lot left to be proven before any conclusion can be drawn and much will depend on how things play out in coming days.
The Raj Kundra case in Maharashtra, which is practically hogging the national limelight these days thanks to its connection with celebrity and sleaze, is another case in point. It is not so much what the multimillionaire British Indian businessman and his associates have been accused of being involved with as it is about how they managed to do so in the financial capital of the country for so long.
Many experts and laypersons across the nation immediately raised concerns about the possibility of some sort of a nexus between the authorities and the perpetrators for the racket to have survived for as long as it did. And sure enough, the Anti-Corruption Bureau in Maharashtra recently revealed receiving emails from a co-accused in the case stating that Kundra had bribed Rs 25 lakh to Mumbai Police officials to evade arrest.
When law enforcement officials and the very upholders of democracy come under a cloud of suspicion, much before anything is proven conclusively or anyone is found guilty, a sense of disillusionment is unfortunately bound to prevail in public consciousness.
But fortunately, there remain pockets in this unquiet land where that sense is not all that strong, if not altogether absent. Take Odisha for instance. Apart from being highly prone to natural disasters and despite having faced its fair share of challenges from the coronavirus pandemic, the state remains calm, controversy-free and firmly on the path of progress.
With well-thought-out and forward-looking policies implemented ever so effectively on the ground level by a carefully chosen team of officers, not to mention his zero tolerance to corruption, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik ensures so.
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