would be an understatement. Never did I ever think even in my wildest dreams that things would come this far.Democracy in India perhaps has reached its Nadir. Although not widely reported, I consider this to be a really significant event.

People scolding election officials for preventing the disbursement of Freebies, an euphemism for Bribe. This Recent happening at a Constituency in a part of Tamil Nadu has come as a real shock. All along, Politicians and bureaucrats were painted (wrongly) in black and the general Public in White (again wrongly). This incident would have cleared all those doubts.

Add to this the recent survey finding that "4 out of 5 people in BPL(Below Poverty Line) category confess to having accepted money for casting their vote in the state of Andhra Pradesh and states like Tamil Nadu are not too far behind with 70% of people in the same category"

In case if someone is going to brush this off as a problem with the under privileged section of the society, I must inform them things are not greatly different with the other sections too.Sometime back we had a survey which said that Majority contracts in countries like India are won through Bribes.Not for a moment am I supporting the politicians, But all I would like to highlight here is the fact that the overall standard of the society seems to have dropped so low.How come people who preach the highest standards in public stoop to any extent, when it comes to getting things done for themselves? I leave this question to the Psychologists and people who study Social Sciences as I am sure that it would be a fascinating subject for them to research upon.

There is a Sanskrit Saying which goes "Etha Raja Tatha Praja", which means People follow the King. Now we need to tweak this as "Etha Praja Tatha Raja" which means The King follows the Subjects, or to quote Bernard Shaw "Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve".

So let us stop complaining about and make that we as responsible citizens and civilized humans do our bit to get us out of this mire into which we have got into.