Fast at Fault

India has never invaded any country in the past 10000 years. It has been invaded by many countries, individuals, kings, paupers, you and me. Startling, isn’t it? When did you and I invade our own country? Let me just recall what I learnt in History. I learnt it because all that my History school teacher did was to spit on the first benchers when she delivered a lecture (Another main reason why I was a back-bencher). As far as I can remember, the Pandavas and Kauravas fought with each other for the kingdom. Although clear facts are not established if they came from somewhere or they belonged there. If one has to go into the past that is even before Mahabharata, there are these Ancient Aliens invasion, which theoretically proves the invasion.

Now, coming to known facts, there was this Alexander dude, who sooner or later succumbed to Indian melodramatic emotions and returned back. The movie-name starrer Ghazini, his mate Ghouri, et al. raided the then Bharat. Then came lots of other dynasties and along with them came from Mongolia, the Babar with his Mughal Empire. Not to take anything away from the Europeans, the Brits, French, Portuguese and their entourage, they made their presence felt. We have come a long way from all those things, and then we have the Chinese and Pakistani invasion.

In Pakistani terms, it is India’s invasion, proving our premise wrong. But, Pakistanis are never correct. They said, they didn’t have Osama-bin-Laden, but they had him safely guarded. They said they had nothing to do with Mumbai attacks, but, upcoming evidences show otherwise. The only thing that they said which came true was that they said that they won’t allow Sachin to hit his 100^th century against them. That came true despite dropping 6 chances and we solely have ourselves to blame for this mishap. Talking about China, since they feel that people from our North Eastern states resemble them in physical features, it’s their birthright to have a share of Arunachal Pradesh, as of now. We don’t have invasion problems from our other neighbouring countries such as Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, but, if you and I can invade our country so well, they too will be soon drawn to the temptation.

For long now, we have had this corruption thing going on. I personally feel that it dates back even before those 10000 years of anti-invasion policy that we hold close to our heart. Then why crib about it now? Insensitive question to be asked, but, we have poor policies that encourage corruption. Let me site you an example from my own life. I bought my bike in Orissa where I registered under the “OR” code and paid Road Taxes worth Rs. 5000. It turned out that I had to shift base to Tamil Nadu. Now, I need to re-register the same bike under the code “TN” and pay an additional Road Tax of Rs. 5000. We are a country and everytime I move my base station, I need to pay more cash. Since, I already paid a lumpsome, why should I not pay only a handful and get done with the formalities? Why unnecessary hassles? I lose out more than what I can possibly earn. What is the shortcut here when a traffic cop holds you? No prizes for guessing, yet, we throw blatant tantrums against corruption.

It was just a small-scale example bolstering the argument on policies. Taking a cue from “Atlas Shrugged”, all the policy-makers think that there is no way to rule innocent people. The only power any government has is the power to take on criminals. When there aren’t enough criminals, they make laws and policies to make some. Our government declares so many things as crime that it becomes impossible to live without breaking laws. When we break laws we are susceptible to be corrupt. And that is how you and I invade our own country. We need policy changes, the root-cause of all corrupt, not a bill to bring the corrupt to the face the law, which again is corrupt. We need to stop invading our own country to stop others from invading. As long as we don’t address the base question, we will be invaded by countries, individuals, kings, paupers, you and me.